Symmetry required it: 2012 american general election thread #2

http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/undecided-voter/1418227/

That was a good spot. Also liked the "Why Did You Do That?" segment on Weekend Update: "If you put up a Facebook page, we'll like it--it's the least we can do. It's also the most we can do." (Wish there'd been more politics last night...I only watched the first half.)

Silver downplays the Now-Cast but it's showing O at 95.8% to win if the election were held today.

"Last week was a good week for us."

His claim was that they it was a good week because they were able to "frame the debate." Mitt Romney's private comments framed the debate well for them, apparently.

Only CPAP could have saved him:

http://gawker.com/5945643/rick-perry-was-a-terrible-candidate-because-he-had-a-sleep-disorder-says-new-book

Particularly loathsome remark from the Priebus interview: "He's got a disaster overseas in the Middle East and in Northern Africa that he said he could solve, which he didn't, and now they're whistling past the graveyard."

http://cdn2-b.examiner.com/sites/default/files/styles/image_content_width/hash/70/77/7077260751abb19283fcd454527e1a19.JPG

Hey if you see everything said as projection it all makes sense.

http://www.unskewedpolls.com/

wow this "unskewed" poll analysis is...impressive.

"No serious observer of American politics or pollster believes that Republicans make up only 24 percent of the population. Is it precisely this under-sampling of Republicans, and proportional over-sampling of Democrats, that skews this survey."

http://www.examiner.com/article/is-the-latest-washington-post-abc-poll-skewed-for-obama

I don't know the intricacies of polling, so a basic question: if you randomly survey a large enough sample, wouldn't any Democrat/Republican tilt presumably correct itself?

(Within reason; I realize you have to make adjustments for geography and demographics. But do they ask people to self-identify by party when they're polled?)

"He's got a disaster overseas in the Middle East and in Northern Africa that he said he could solve, which he didn't,"

strangely on the mark?

saw him walking out in arlington whistling, also

"I will solve this disaster" -- Barack Obama

A little something to chew on -- Bill Kristol, one year ago today, following a certain GOP debate in Orlando.

Reading the reactions of thoughtful commentators after the stage emptied, talking with conservative policy types and GOP political operatives later last evening and this morning, we know we’re not alone. Most won’t express publicly just how horrified—or at least how demoralized—they are. After all, they still want to beat Obama—as do we. And they want to get along with the possible nominee and the other candidates and their supporters. They don’t want to rock the boat too much. But maybe the GOP presidential boat needs rocking.

The e-mails flooding into our inbox during the evening were less guarded. Early on, we received this missive from a bright young conservative: “I'm watching my first GOP debate...and WE SOUND LIKE CRAZY PEOPLE!!!!” As the evening went on, the craziness receded, and the demoralized comments we received stressed the mediocrity of the field rather than its wackiness. As one more experienced, and therefore more jaded, observer wrote: “I just thought maybe it’s always this bad...they’re only marginally worse than McCain and Bush.”

Here was Kristol scrambling this morning:

"They need to focus on the next four years. If this election is just about the last four years, that's a muddy verdict. Bush was president during the financial meltdown. The Obama team has turned that around pretty well. The Clinton speech at the convention was very important in that way -- how horrible was it four years ago. He's got to make it a referendum on the choice of the next four years, and explain what Obama would do over the next four years that would be bad for the country, and what he would do that would be good for the country."

Some pretty big concessions there--wouldn't be surprised to see the middle part turn up in an Obama ad. Kristol then went on to say that Romney should really focus on foreign policy in the remaining six weeks. Basically, a complete 180 from what they've been doing the past six months.

That's some big-time flailing.

Half these GOP-to-centrist pundits don't even know what Obama would do that would be bad for the country, they just know Romney should be telling them what it is so they can repeat it.

so much just devolves to "What Romney should do is be a likable human being providing an intelligent political alternative to Obama." well no fucking shit.

what Romney really needs to do at this point in the race is give voters some reasons to vote for him. As long as he continues to not provide such reasons he risks losing this election

many xxps but anyone know how they determine how polls are "skewed" and what they do to unskew them? I mean I'm just a hopeless socialist but it just seems really unreasonable that Romney is leading 7 to 10 points...

Is it anything fancier than assuming pollsters ask more liberals and so they use some sort of democrat-voter-reduction stat?

Nope that's basically it.

I believe that the unskew-er lives in Fox News reality and thus thinks it's ludicrous that there are more Democrats than there are Republicans, and so corrects the polls so that the Democrats aren't "oversampled."

What's really going on here, I think, is that there are a lot of people who are basically Republicans but don't identify as such, more so than the same group of people for Democrats. Think southern Illinois farmer dude who thinks they're all rotten, wouldn't call himself a member of any of those joke parties, but in reality has only ever voted for one Democrat and that was the guy who liked guns, hated abortion, and talked more about subsidies than the Republican.

What's really going on is likely that they are already accounting for all these party sampling differences somewhere in their polling methodology.

I don't know the intricacies of polling, so a basic question: if you randomly survey a large enough sample, wouldn't any Democrat/Republican tilt presumably correct itself?

― clemenza, Sunday, September 23, 2012 12:32 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah, the larger the sample the less you'll need/want to weigh, but nobody does massive political polls / the gain in knowledge is not worth the resources - polling 200k people doesn't tell you 100x more than polling 2k people / you prob will fuck something up in your methodology anyway

Plus also, the numbers in the original poll are very close to what Pew found earlier this year:

http://www.people-press.org/2012/06/01/trend-in-party-identification-1939-2012/

Republican 24, Dem 32, Independent 38

The funny thing is, pretending Romney has a 7-point lead in "unskewed polls" is not going to help you on Election Day.

the romney campaign does not seem particularly convinced that he is winning in 'unskewed polls' but maybe they should read more crazy ppl blogs

Gallup says that 27% of those polled identify as Republicans, vs. 35% who identify as Democrats. If you were to correct for those identifications so that there was an equal amount of Republicans and Democrats, you'd get results that lean Republican. And those "unskewed" polls are about 8% better for Romney, so I suspect that's exactly what the dude is doing.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/15370/party-affiliation.aspx

xps

Mitt needs to go back in time and redo that secret fundraising video--unskewed, he's probably only given up on 40% of the country.

if you adjust the taxes paid for how god dang hard he worked for the money, he's paid 40% his entire life

If you adjust the 2008 election results to who John McCain thought should win the election, the results may surprise you!

yeah the same ppl moaning 'liberal bias' about the polls were doing the same thing in 08 and 06. tbf dems were doubting the polls in 04 also but there the argument was 'poll shows bush w/ very slight lead BUT cell users w/o landline aren't being polled = kerry probably REALLY w/ small lead'. still the 'actually the polls show romney w/ huge lead' myth is enough to hang onto for conservatives to know that obv obama stole the election if/when he wins, just like in 08.

on the right you see a lot of "Rasmussen is the most accurate poller, why do lefties discredit their polling" stuff. Which comes from 08 when Rasmussen continued to show a tight race as everyone else had Obama breaking away post-Lehman. But in the week before the election Rasmussen's polls moved towards everyone else's ~mysteriously~ and on Election Day they arguably were closest to the final results. This somehow makes Rasmussen the "most accurate polling org," even though it was obv the company saving their reputation.

even if rasmussens were incredibly accurate the night of the election, it was basically a luck thing, I imagine the vast majority of the polls had the right number within their margin of error

yeah it's statistical noise, but its a myth you see a lot of that entirely discounts rasmussen's strong GOP bias before the final week.

If only conservatives went by the playbook of reality... they might be more sufferable!

man, this 60 minutes double interview. i hate everyone.

Lol at Romney in this CBS interview, dude looks like a carrot

Dude (Looks Like a Carrot)

a lovely blue incandescent guillotine

whoops:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSAGR0arBUo

Indeed, sir:

Romney, who has come under fire from Republicans for not holding enough public events, told reporters that it was Obama’s decision to not use federal funds in 2008 that is forcing the Republican to spend more time behind closed-doors fundraising instead of out greeting voters.
Romney held no public events on Saturday, instead fundraising in California. He had one rally on Sunday in a Denver, Col. suburb. His campaign is launching an Ohio bus tour on Monday with vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan. Romney won’t join the bus tour until Tuesday.
“I’d far rather be spending my time out in the key swing states campaigning, door-to-door if necessary, but in rallies and various meetings, but fundraising is a part of politics when you’re opponent decides not to live by the federal spending limits,” Romney said without being asked about his campaign schedule.

Filthy Rich Republican Complains Of Unfair Advantage Conferred By Financial Resources

“I’d far rather be spending my time out in the key swing states campaigning, door-to-door if necessary, but in rallies and various meetings, but fundraising is a part of politics when you’re opponent decides not to live by the federal spending limits,” Romney said without being asked about his campaign schedule.

dying

yeah that is about the funniest thing ever

Wow, will definitely be keeping an eye out for the byline "Ginger Gibson" after that

she needs to learn how to spell "your".

http://i47.tinypic.com/i1zlt2.jpg

lol @ newt for continuing to bang away on his space drum and lol @ mitt for weathering out a terrible week of criticism only to have newt stand up and shout "AND ANOTHER THING!"

The reckoning:

If the Republican ticket loses in November, the rush by Mr. Ryan and other 2016 hopefuls to position themselves for the Iowa caucuses “is going to look like Best Buy the night after Thanksgiving,” said Craig Robinson, a former political director of the Republican Party of Iowa. “I hate to say this, but if Ryan wants to run for national office again, he’ll probably have to wash the stench of Romney off of him.”