Jesus H, please don't say this to me now. I cannot survive until election day thinking that there's a better chance the GOP takes the White House than not, let alone that you think both McCain's election and his death are certainties.
I wish you would stop that. It's really not cool for those of us who are desperately hoping that their plans for the coming year are not going to have to involve moving to Canada.
Look, if Democrats go on the defensive just because some watery tart got nominated running mate, and are running around scared, then we deserve to lose the election.
Most of the national polls suggest McCain is slightly ahead. I know the state-level polls show Obama with an EC majority, but honestly, I trust the US-wide polls more. (There's only one case, in US history, where the undisputed EC winner was the undisputed popular vote loser.)
I think the margin of common error (primarily due to cell-phone voters and the unkown efficacy of the field campaigns, espeically Obama's) is significanltly greater than McCain's margins in national polls.
Further, one of the reasons there have been so few elections where the popular vote went one way and the EC the other is that there have been relatively few elections that were very close in popular votes. A cross-outcome like that isn't likely, because chances are someobeody will win the popular vote by at least 3%. But within 3%, the chance becomes significant. The following graph is based on simulations run from June polling data, so it wouldn't look quote the same now. But the general spread is interesting.
I dunno, out of 4 extremely close, undisputed elections (1880, 1884, 1960, 1968) the EC and PV winners were different in only 1 of them. I'm not saying it can't happen this time, but I just wouldn't put must weight on state polls this far in advance when more national surveys are conducted than in individual states, and trend lines can be more easily detected. I'll look at electoral vote projections the week before Election Day, and worry about them then.
I understand the sources of error in these surveys, but I prefer not to assume their biased one way or another (baring clear evidence to the contrary). Doing so provides too many opportunities to discount unpleasant news.
I'm not discounting anything. I would say that if there's a large error, it's probably undercounting Obama's likely vote. But I'm not at all convinced there is such a large error. My point is that even relatively small errors are larger than McCain's reported margin, so we can't have justified confidence in suppositions of who would win, if the election were held now. At even money, I'd bet on McCain. But I don't think I'd give 3-2. And since we're still in the period that was expected to have a small, temporary bounce for McCain, David's Chicken Little routine is just silly.
As one of the few people in the parts of livejournal I hang out in who hopes this is true, I'm *really* not sure how much to believe polls at the moment. Partly I'm skeptical of the importance of polls this far out from election day; mostly I'm unconvinced pollsters have good samples (e.g. I'm suspicious of the big shifts in party identification.)
Regarding this morning's news about Merrill, Lehman and AIG:
"Samuel Hayes, finance professor emeritus at Harvard Business School, said the Bush administration may get a lot of blame for the situation, which could benefit Obama."
That, and it means that the i-bankers who typically fling money at the Republicans aren't in any shape to do so.
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Please tell me you're being fatalistic.
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Still, McCain's lead is modest, we haven't seen the debates, and we have almost two months to go. So don't write things off yet.
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Of course, the election won't be held today, which is why I'm not giving up hope yet.
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Further, one of the reasons there have been so few elections where the popular vote went one way and the EC the other is that there have been relatively few elections that were very close in popular votes. A cross-outcome like that isn't likely, because chances are someobeody will win the popular vote by at least 3%. But within 3%, the chance becomes significant. The following graph is based on simulations run from June polling data, so it wouldn't look quote the same now. But the general spread is interesting.
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I understand the sources of error in these surveys, but I prefer not to assume their biased one way or another (baring clear evidence to the contrary). Doing so provides too many opportunities to discount unpleasant news.
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Seriously, we always knew it was going to be a close race once the primaries were over.
As long as the Obama campaign doesn't throw it, I'm not going to worry about polls.
Besides, didn't the polls in 2004 have John Kerry decisively winning?
Have some schedenfreude
"Samuel Hayes, finance professor emeritus at Harvard Business School, said the Bush administration may get a lot of blame for the situation, which could benefit Obama."
That, and it means that the i-bankers who typically fling money at the Republicans aren't in any shape to do so.