# Clinton v Trump - The Stretch Run Thread **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [September 30, 2016, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-v-trump-the-stretch-run-thread/767277 "2016-09-30T11:21:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 425
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2016, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-v-trump-the-stretch-run-thread/767277/425 "2016-10-06T23:07:23Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > @LSLGuy: > Ok it’s a bogus analogy. So instead imagine one election predictor who pretty accurately predicts early and another who eventually settles on an accurate prediction late. “But a whole bunch of stuff happened in the middle so you can’t blame the guy for only being accurate late”. Sure, but one guy didn’t agree all that middle stuff made much difference and another did. Who’s better at predicting? Depends. If the stuff in the middle ends up netting to approximately zero then the early predictor was right, but for the wrong reasons. If the stuff in the middle ends up netting to a big change away from the opening day conventional wisdom, the early predictor simply ends up wrong. So which scenario do you want to posit? Said another way, the early predictor ASSUMES that nothing that could possibly happen later could possibly make any significant difference. That seems a might tall and fragile assumption. Certainly millions (billions?) of dollars and millions of man-hours are spent by each campaign in the belief that what they’re doing has some meaningful influence on the outcome. Perhaps we could persuade both sides to simply shut up and stay home and we’ll all learn on Nov 8th who’s running when we read our ballots. You’re not seriously suggesting the latter would deliver the same results as current reality. Because that’s what the early prediction amounts to saying. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-v-trump-the-stretch-run-thread/767277)._