Some members of this board were overconfident once, so now anyone that thinks Obama looks likely to win are overconfident?
You would have a point, albeit still a weak one, if Kerry and Obama were in relatively the same position poll-wise. But they aren’t. Obama is in a much, much better position than Kerry was. About 7-8 points better, at worst, nationally, and with better electoral college outs and a better ground game.
People feel confident in an Obama victory based on the overwhelming amount of evidence that a victory is likely. That doesn’t mean the situation can’t change, and I see no one saying that.
I think you must have dreamed it. This board was very pessimistic about Kerry’s chances. There were no similar threads, and there were certainly no similar poll numbers.
Gosh, I sure don’t; I’d also love to see those threads, if you wouldn’t mind linking to them. (Of course, if Kerry had had these poll numbers, and not been running against an incumbent with a war on, such threads would have been justified.)
Lots more. Lots of quoting favorable polls, interpreting info favorably their way, and studiously ignoring reality.
Now, this time, think that Obama’s probably going to win. But it irks me that there’s seemingly no recollection of how confidently some folks here pooh-poohed a Bush victory in 2004.
Bricker, I think one of us is misunderstanding the other. I have no doubt that some people were overconfident about Kerry. It isn’t clear to me what that has to do with current confidence in Obama. I maintain that current confidence in Obama is extremely well-founded, unlike confidence in Kerry. So why are you drawing a parallel?
The parallel was a very simple and surface one: look at how confident you (collectively) are now about an Obama victory – but remember how equally confident you were about a Kerry victory.
I’m probably the wrong person to throw the stone, because I share the view that Obama will win, although it’s not a view of brimming confidence. But you’re right – confidence NOW is well-placed; confidence THEN was insanely speculative.
18 days is a long time and a lot of things can happen that change, even reverse the polls. I’ll wait until the late afternoon of Nov. 4th. to call a winner.
Don’t take my word for it–check out the elaborate simulation just run at 538. Once the popular vote margin surpasses four percent, not even one out of a thousand simulations results in the leading candidate losing the election.
In some theoretical United States, it might be possible to win the popular vote by a large margin and still lose the election. It isn’t possible in the real United States. The balance of “wasted” votes in safe-red (Texas) and safe-blue (California) states is too even, and there are too many swing states. As the popular-vote margin passes three or four percent, too many of the swing states swing the same way, and the electoral vote ends up accentuating the popular vote. Bush 41 beat Dukakis by seven points in the popular vote, but 426-112 in the EC. Clinton pasted Bush and Dole by similar margins.