Except it isn’t since you-- you know-- didn’t even respond to anything actually contained in the article. Shocking, right?
When Harold Camping predicts the rapture, I don’t need to parse his reason the first time, much less the third…:rolleyes:
Luckily, we’re not talking Harold Camping. He’s actually got real, hard data as well as historical evidence to back up his claims. You’ve got… well, nothing, because you haven’t attempted to respond to anything contained with the article.
So, he proves himself hugely incompetent at analyzing the data last time. Nate, much better. But you keep telling us Nate’s conclusions aren’t to be trusted, and this guy’s (an admitted partisan, to boot), are? No doubt he can spin pretty rationalizations, both sides spin very nicely, thank you. But it is irrelevent if he constructs a nice spin, if he’s wrong.
You really don’t think his analysis 4 yrs ago might be relevent at all, in a “consider the source” kind of way? Why ever not?
And I’ve watched plenty of other Dopers respond to the content of your posts. I’d rather ask you to consider it from this perspective. But you’re not considering.
No respected polling operation controls for party identification, as far as I know. That would be like controlling for vote total. You’re manipulating the results to get your pre-ordained outcome.
Link from the cite you didn’t bother reading. And thanks for the mild condescension!
Like Knorf says, party affiliation is not a demographic. An individual’s party affiliation might change from day to day and poll to poll.
The best way to predict how people are going to vote is to poll them and ask them. The polls actually do show a little bit of what you and Dan are saying- that affiliation will not favor the Democrats quite as heavily as it did in 08- but the polls still show a Democratic advantage, especially in the swing states.
The best way to predict how states would finish in 08 was to look at the polls. I think that’s still the best way.
lol
“He’s actually got real, hard data as well as historical evidence to back up his claims.”
What did he have in 2008?
He’s ignoring lots of real, hard data that wouldn’t fit with his prediction. Nate uses all the polls he can get.
Basically, I find Nate’s argument waaaay more convincing then Dan’s.
soft, fake, anecdote, of course!
Bullwinkle: Hey, Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat!"
Rocky: (plaintively) “Again?”
I’m thinking anus lint, but I don’t have any polls to back that up… so YMMV
If each of those assumptions were true, I would still say that there may be mitigating circumstances that will offset each of those conditions. One of them is the state of Republicans as a whole, as described by McLaughlin: “The obvious conclusion is that the largest factor in the partisan composition of the electorate in 2008 was that Republicans stayed home.” In their own words of the time, they were facing an inexperienced hard-liberal academic with Marxist tendencies and terrorist friends…apparently that wasn’t reason enough to go vote. I do recall people saying (or posting) that McCain wasn’t Conservative enough, and threatening to stay home for that reason.
I didn’t vote for Obama; I, like many thousands of independent voters in my state thought it was a coin toss, but certainly worthwhile to show up and give it a best guess, plus vote in all the other contests downticket. Now according to McLaughlin, again, “the largest factor in the partisan composition of the electorate in 2008 was that Republicans stayed home.” This year, Republicans put forth a huge effort to mount a capital-C conservative challenge to Obama, and they could not do it - Romney is even less appealing to the so-called Republican Base than McCain was. For some reason though, conservatives are expected to do exactly what they didn’t do in the last Presidential election, and go vote, and damned if I know why that is. It’s the same opponent.
Good faith predictions, therefore, would either figure the possible non-participation of GOP voters into the numbers, or come up with a reason for it being applicable in 2008 but not 2012. McLaughlin does neither here, and that alone is suspect.
I hereby reserve the right to mock the OP in the event of an Obama re-election.
Tee. That has to be one of the most intelligent, well thought-out posts I’ve ever read in the elections forum.
I figure OMG will read about 5 words of it and dismiss it. But that’s about 2 words more than he usually reads before dismissing someone who disagrees with him, so I feel like you’ve definitely made an achievement here!
The difference is that this time is that he is trying to find his ass using both hands.
. . . Because he’s the same color?
If you don’t trust the polls, you don’t trust the polls. But I don’t understand all this talk of independents and R’s and D’s. why split it up that way? The national polls are showing Obama and Roney neck and neck, or even Romney ahead. You like those polls, don’t you? You like the bounce - enormous bounce, really - Romney got after Colorado?
So your argument really is that there’s something wrong with the state polls - specifically the ones in OHIO, and Virginia and Wisconsin and Iowa?
God knows you might be right - there may be something wrong with them (God, lets hope not).
But why bother arguing there’s something wrong with all the polls? Why not just say there’s something wrong with the ones you really don’t like?
In case you missed it the news cycle is being cravenly manipulated for profit. Or did you not catch Trump’s stunt? First it gets reported as ‘news’ on the co network his show runs on, then picked up by every other 24hr news cycle looking to fill time and sell advertising. Not one news outlet dared to identify it is the manipulation of the news cycle it was, by an supreme attention whore, for ratings and profit.
It’s the same with the election reporting, especially the polls. If it was one sided, how would that help the news cycle? Better to glom on to any piece of unnewsworthy trash talk by any idiot including S Palin, just to fill the cycle, keep the fires burning, keep everyone tuning in.
Does anyone seriously think a significant portion of American’s actually trust Mittens? My dog wouldn’t. Manipulating polls isn’t rocket science, you can always pretty much get what you’re hoping for by gaming the questions. These are the very factions responsible for the extreme polarization of America.
I think the Pubs are buying into it, think it really is close, and honestly can’t smell the change, that’s been in the air for over a decade, when it comes to things like gay marriage and abortion.
Paint me unconvinced that anyone but Mittens is toast.
Based on real, hard data as well as historical evidence, I predict OMG will not post in this thread after the election.