• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

PoliGAF 2012 |OT4|: Your job is not to worry about 47% of these posts.

Status
Not open for further replies.

thekad

Banned
Like altered pointed out above, it does not matter who wins the popular vote so national poll are worthless in general. I honestly don't even understand why they even bother with them.

highly correlative

Speaking of which, I'm sure someone has done a mathematical calculation of the extremes someone could lose the PV by and still win the presidency.

which shows that the national numbers are important

Eh..maybe Obama losing the popular vote will give the necessary push to get the EC abolished anyway.

I doubt this will ever happen. The Presidency is the grand prize and the smaller states will never sign on to eliminate any power they have over it.
 

SuperBonk

Member
Nate's model adjusts state polling averages based on national trends, especially if the national polls are newer than state polls

Right, I didn't mean to imply they didn't matter all. But national polls are useless without the context of state polls for the purpose of determining the winner of the election.
 

AniHawk

Member
Nate gives them a pretty good weight (4/5 bars), but a three point lead is suspect since every other poll is showing NC being red. Kind of like this latest Iowa PPP poll, except the opposite.

Like Nate says, never cherry pick polls. Look at them as a whole to see what direction the state is in.

that's very strange.

i want to see some more results out of iowa, particularly early voting. if there could be some more corroboration with the 34-35 point lead in early voting, that would be quite the number.

it'd also be important to know how many surveyed would have voted early.
 

Effect

Member
When he was doing debate prep people complained he wasn't campaigning enough.

PoliGAF 2012 |OT5| OBAMA CANNOT PLEASE US

I know but I was glad he was prepping because of how the first debate ended. Campaigning is good but the news narrative is also important as well. The push Romney got should never have happen. To close to the wire is all I'm saying. Anything can happen. Look at the first debate.
 

Opiate

Member
Yes, I think your last sentence is the crux of it. And there I think you may be misinterpreting when people dismiss a poll like Gallup as an outlier.

I want it included in the polling aggregates because I know that cherry picking polls in the aggregates creates a distorted view. The whole point of an aggregate is to capture everything.

I agree, although I'd make one caveat: aggregates should capture everything within the realm of reason, where reason is defined as following the scientific process. A poll that has obviously and clearly flawed methodologies should be ignored, because they are not reasonable. I would not want Nate Silver to factor in a poll that had a sample size of 1, as a deliberately extreme example to clarify the concept.

But me, Ghaleon, I think Gallup's poll is quite obviously bogus. And I dismiss it entirely, based on how disconnected it is from the aggregates, and given the methodology, etc. So I toss Gallup out of my consideration of where the race is at. Thus (though I don't word it this way) "lolz Gallup," "fuck Gallup," etc. I think they're junk right now. But I still want them included in the aggregates.

You should not ignore outliers because they are outliers, you should ignore outliers if their methodology is flawed or if they don't seem to be following the scientific process rigorously. Being an outlier is not, in itself, a logical reason to ignore a poll or evidence of any kind.
 
I know but I was glad he was prepping because of how the first debate ended. Campaigning is good but the news narrative is also important as well. The push Romney got should never have happen. To close to the wire is all I'm saying. Anything can happen. Look at the first debate.

I think Obama is pretty well prepped for a foreign policy debate especially with the topic coming up multiple times in previous debates.

I wonder if there will be any way in the future to just vote electronically from an iPhone or something.
 

syllogism

Member
Did they actually call it an "Aberration" or did they call it "an outlier?"

It is certainly an outlier, and all I'm asking is that people not ridicule outliers. As long as their methodology is sound and they appear to be following the scientific process, there is no reason not to take them seriously and factor them in to our conclusions.
A convincing case can be made that their methodology isn't quite as sound as it used to be, due to response rates being much lower than they used to be and Gallup still not weighing their samples by demographics

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/10/gallup-poll-changes_n_1955949.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/...bama_n_1589937.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000008

This is not to say that I recommend dismissing their results either, but their methodology differs from the rest. As far as I know, at least every national pollsters weighs their samples to compensate for the low response rate, leaving Gallup the only odd one out
 

GhaleonEB

Member
You should not ignore outliers because they are outliers, you should ignore outliers if their methodology is flawed or if they don't seem to be following the scientific process rigorously. Being an outlier is not, in itself, a logical reason to ignore a poll or evidence of any kind.

Yes. That is what I was getting at. I think we are in agreement.
I agree, although I'd make one caveat: aggregates should capture everything within the realm of reason, where reason is defined as following the scientific process. A poll that has obviously and clearly flawed methodologies should be ignored, because they are not reasonable. I would not want Nate Silver to factor in a poll that had a sample size of 1, as a deliberately extreme example to clarify the concept.
Agree, and as I understand it, both TPM and Silver (the two trackers I use) exclude certain polls that are not judged to be methodologically sound.
 
Say, guys, I'm playing around with auto-fetching the xml data from reginfo.gov. Apparently, regulations receiving a status of "Final Rule", "Interim Final Rule" and
"Direct Final Rule" were over 1200 in count from 1981 to 1993, but after that point they've been all under 500. This chart on politifact shows a similar anomaly. Was there something that happened to how they review the regulations at that point?

Also, the terminology confuses me a bit (even though I read the reginfo.gov FAQ). "Interim" and "Final" seem like conflicting terms. Would they be considered completed regulations? Or is there a better place entirely from which to try to extract the data. I'm running under the assumption that this is a good source to extract regulations approved by the President, as I wanted to see for myself exactly how the landscape has changed in the last few decades with respect to them, especially since this has been treated like a hot-button political issue lately. Better sources would, of course, be welcome. :)
 

PantherLotus

Professional Schmuck
if the post election thread isn't this:

PoliGAF 2012 |OT6| Romney loses in landslide, Obama Doomed

... I won't know what to do with myself.
 
I'm slightly worried about the third debate in the sense that Romney got embarrassed so much that he will likely prepare like a mad man for this one; this is basically the end of the line for him. Barring some October surprise, this will be the second to last major news event of the election; the jobs report will be the last, and probably won't have much of an effect.

Romney will try to revive Libya but most of the focus will be on Iran and Syria. But still, Obama needs a repeat performance to seal the deal. Obama tends to play the commander in chief role well but that doesn't mean he shouldn't worry about this debate. I'd imagine Axelrod has complained that if Obama had showed up to the first debate, this election might be over right now
 
if the post election thread isn't this:

PoliGAF 2012 |OT6| Romney loses in landslide, Obama Doomed

... I won't know what to do with myself.

tumblr_l3dkbxrwmv1qc073co1_400.gif

doooomed.


so whats the fox spin going to be incase obama wins?
 
I'm slightly worried about the third debate in the sense that Romney got embarrassed so much that he will likely prepare like a mad man for this one; this is basically the end of the line for him. Barring some October surprise, this will be the second to last major news event of the election; the jobs report will be the last, and probably won't have much of an effect.

Romney will try to revive Libya but most of the focus will be on Iran and Syria. But still, Obama needs a repeat performance to seal the deal. Obama tends to play the commander in chief role well but that doesn't mean he shouldn't worry about this debate. I'd imagine Axelrod has complained that if Obama had showed up to the first debate, this election might be over right now

Wondering, has any data pointed towards Romney actually getting undecided voters after that first debate and stealing away Obama voters, or did his own base just get more excited and the polls just corrected when Obama was at his highest?
 
I agree, although I'd make one caveat: aggregates should capture everything within the realm of reason, where reason is defined as following the scientific process. A poll that has obviously and clearly flawed methodologies should be ignored, because they are not reasonable. I would not want Nate Silver to factor in a poll that had a sample size of 1, as a deliberately extreme example to clarify the concept.



You should not ignore outliers because they are outliers, you should ignore outliers if their methodology is flawed or if they don't seem to be following the scientific process rigorously. Being an outlier is not, in itself, a logical reason to ignore a poll or evidence of any kind.


In statistics, you do ignore outliers
 

Diablos

Member
I'm slightly worried about the third debate in the sense that Romney got embarrassed so much that he will likely prepare like a mad man for this one; this is basically the end of the line for him. Barring some October surprise, this will be the second to last major news event of the election; the jobs report will be the last, and probably won't have much of an effect.
"PD, third debates don't matter. Stop trolling!" ;)

Seriously, I hear you though. Maybe he will but a. Both men don't have as much time to prepare, and b. Obama won't let his guard down. Foreign Policy is probably one of his strongest suits, and no doubt he is prepared to deal with any criticisms that Romney will have, from Libya to China to the defense budget.

Romney will try to revive Libya but most of the focus will be on Iran and Syria. But still, Obama needs a repeat performance to seal the deal. Obama tends to play the commander in chief role well but that doesn't mean he shouldn't worry about this debate. I'd imagine Axelrod has complained that if Obama had showed up to the first debate, this election might be over right now
If he tries to push hard on Libya he's just doing himself a disservice. Obama is prepared to not only take responsibility for any gaps in communication/intelligence blunders/etc. but is well aware of the events surrounding it at this point. What can Romney say to make Obama look bad? It's hard to try and peg him in when he takes responsibility.

I'd have loved to have been able to hear the closed door conversations with Team Obama after the first debate. Hahaha.
 

786110

Member
Romney spends half the debate bringing up Libya the other half repeatedly asking "Mr. President have you looked at your pension?"
 
I'm slightly worried about the third debate in the sense that Romney got embarrassed so much that he will likely prepare like a mad man for this one; this is basically the end of the line for him. Barring some October surprise, this will be the second to last major news event of the election; the jobs report will be the last, and probably won't have much of an effect.

Romney will try to revive Libya but most of the focus will be on Iran and Syria. But still, Obama needs a repeat performance to seal the deal. Obama tends to play the commander in chief role well but that doesn't mean he shouldn't worry about this debate. I'd imagine Axelrod has complained that if Obama had showed up to the first debate, this election might be over right now

If Romney ends up generating a backlog of talking points and anecdotes there is a good chance he'll veer into the Alpha Male interrupt you mode so he can assure he has the final point. This would play well for Obama as it could easily be pointed out that such a hasty and aggressive demeanor when dealing with international conflict can have catastrophic consequences.

I expect it to be a battle of Obama's nuanced policy versus GOP aggression and cowboy style FP. I don't believe the American public wants another term of warfare and don't see the Neoconservative platform playing very well.
 

Y2Kev

TLG Fan Caretaker Est. 2009
I have romnesia. I barely remember late September before sleepy ass Obama almost tanked himself.

Woe is me
 

Diablos

Member
Wisconsin: 50-48 O. (Rasmussen) Wisconsin has been blue in all polls since August.
But it has still been tightening a bit too much lately to say it's Safe Dem. It's probably better to say Lean Dem right now.

I have romnesia. I barely remember late September before sleepy ass Obama almost tanked himself.

Woe is me
I really do wonder what the polling would look like right now if he turned in even a half-decent debate.

I don't think they'd still be at Sept. numbers, things definitely would have tightened.
 

Brinbe

Member
Nice, Nate's latest piece pretty much confirms what we've all been saying. http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytime...-forecast-on-resiliency-in-swing-state-polls/

One of the risks in focusing too much on the results of any one poll, like the Gallup national tracking poll, is that you may lose sight of the bigger picture.

On Thursday, that story was one of President Obama continuing to hold leads in most polls of critical states. Of the 13 polls of swing states released on Thursday, Mr. Obama held leads in 11 of them.

Also

Still, the volume of strong polls for Mr. Obama in other swing states carried the day. In particular, although the Marist poll is a modest outlier in Iowa, Mr. Obama seems to lead in the consensus of polls in both Nevada and Iowa by a wider margin than he does nationally.

Winning in either of those states — along with Wisconsin and Ohio, where the same is true — would suffice to give him 270 electoral votes barring a surprise elsewhere, as in Pennsylvania.


Mr. Obama may be benefiting from early voting in Iowa, where both polls and statistics on ballot requests suggest that he is well ahead among those who have voted so far.

In Nevada, Democrats made a late surge in voter registration totals. They have about a 70,000 voter lead in registration totals among active registered voters, or 120,000 voters considering inactive voters as well.
 

AniHawk

Member
Wisconsin: 50-48 O. (Rasmussen) Wisconsin has been blue in all polls since August.

nervous about wisconsin. i give it the benefit of the doubt, but if that state goes, it probably wins romney the election. obama would need colorado and nevada (or iowa) to win if new hampshire, wisconsin, and virginia all broke for romney.
 

Brinbe

Member
But it has still been tightening a bit too much lately to say it's Safe Dem. It's probably better to say Lean Dem right now.


I really do wonder what the polling would look like right now if he turned in even a half-decent debate.

I don't think they'd still be at Sept. numbers, things definitely would have tightened.
Well, he has Bill and Michelle stumping for him across WI today and the NBC/Marist poll had him up 6%

Mellman: Obama 51 Romney 43 in Nevada

They were the only pollster who had Reid winning in 2010.
Wonderful =)
 

Jackson50

Member
I'm surprised Obama isn't doing much, much worse there
To a point I've made previously, it shouldn't be surprising because voters typically evaluate the economy from a national perspective. And the national trend has been positive for Obama. Thus, even in a state experiencing languid growth, such as NV, Obama's position will reflect the national economy. Mind you, localized effects are not entirely immaterial. But they are overshadowed by national factors.

As I said in my post, commentators are sometimes too quick to focus on the details of states and communities, which can downplay, if only by implication, how much national forces shape elections. In fact, the unique features of states have become less important over time. Andy has shown that states have become more similar in their partisan shifts from election year to election year—that is, the shifts (or “swings”) have become more uniform across states. The most consequential economic fact is the national trend and perceptions of that trend.

http://themonkeycage.org/blog/2012/02/14/swing-state-economies-do-they-even-matter/
I really hope NOVA delivers...
They do. Their miniseries, The Fabric of the Cosmos, was incredible. You should watch it.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom