The Thurston Mittens the 3rd Veep Megathread

[The Brain]

Yeah, having Hillary a lynch mob away from the White House would be awesome.

[Phillip V]

Obama would be leading polls by double digits if Clinton was his VP nominee.

[The Minsky Moment]

Rasmussen was on the money in 2008, and it only surveys likely voters.

See below, all from Nate Silver:

One definition of how "scientific" a poll is is the percentage of the adult population that it can potentially hope to reach. That isn't a complete definition, mind you -- it's more of a necessary than a sufficient condition -- but it isn't a useless one. By this definition, Rasmussen's polling isn't very scientific: because of certain shortcuts that they take, well over half of the American population will be physically unable to take one of their phone calls.

Rasmussen typically conducts its polling on weeknights, calling between 5 PM and 9 PM over the course of a single evening. They do not call phone numbers back, as most other pollsters do, in the event they don't get an answer the first time. They don't call cellphones -- only landlines. And they speak to the first person they get on the line if they speak to anybody at all; other polling firms use carefully-designed procedures to randomize the selection of respondent within the household (a typical mechanism is something like asking that the adult with the next birthday come to the phone).

The bottom line is this: the sample included in Rasmussen's polling is increasingly out of balance with that observed by almost all other pollsters. This appears to create a substantial house effect, irrespective of whether Rasmussen subsequently applies a likely voter screen.

And on the 2010 midterms:

The 105 polls released in Senate and gubernatorial races  by Rasmussen Reports and its subsidiary, Pulse Opinion Research, missed the final margin between the candidates by 5.8 points, a considerably higher figure than that achieved by most other pollsters. Some 13 of its polls missed by 10 or more points, including one in the Hawaii Senate race that missed the final margin between the candidates by 40 points, the largest error ever recorded in a general election in FiveThirtyEight's database, which includes all polls conducted since 1998.

Moreover, Rasmussen's polls were quite biased, overestimating the standing of the Republican candidate by almost 4 points on average. In just 12 cases, Rasmussen's polls overestimated the margin for the Democrat by 3 or more points. But it did so for the Republican candidate in 55 cases — that is, in more than half of the polls that it issued.

[The Minsky Moment]

One more thing: just focusing on the fact the Rasmussen polls using only landlines, one would expect that such a methodology, while perhaps not too distorting in the middle of the last decade, would become more systematically error prone over time. 

[Eddie Teach]

Obama would be leading polls by double digits if Clinton was his VP nominee.

I don't think there's that many garbons out there.

[garbon]

Obama would be leading polls by double digits if Clinton was his VP nominee.

I don't think there's that many garbons out there.

I don't know that I agree with Philip V about how much she'd change it - but Hillary does seem to have high public appeal these days.

[CountDeMoney]

I did see an interesting stat today, though:  Mittens has the lowest "approval/likeability" ratings for a presumptive nominee during the month before his party's convention since Walter Mondale in 1984.

Walter. Fucking. Mondale.

For those of you that are too young to remember the 1984 race:  that is a really, really bad statistic.

[katmai]

How far in advance of '84 dem convention did Mondale pick Geraldine?

[Razgovory]

I did see an interesting stat today, though:  Mittens has the lowest "approval/likeability" ratings for a presumptive nominee during the month before his party's convention since Walter Mondale in 1984.

Walter. Fucking. Mondale.

For those of you that are too young to remember the 1984 race:  that is a really, really bad statistic.

Yeah, most people don't want to elect Gordon Gecko to the White House.  Except maybe Tamas, and he can't vote.

[CountDeMoney]

How far in advance of '84 dem convention did Mondale pick Geraldine?

Pretty sure it waited until the actual convention.

[DGuller]

Except maybe Tamas, and he can't vote.

Hey, I like to make fun of Tamas as much as anyone, but I'm sure he'd be able to figure it out if he puts his mind to it.

[Neil]

Romney is a notorious spendthrift. This is pure conjecture,

Yeah it is pure conjecture, considering he had no problem running the Olympics over budget and begging the federal government to bail out the overruns.
And let's not forget the cost overruns of the Big Dig.  Yeah, he's a notorious spendthrift, when it's his money.  Got no problem spending tax dollars.

'Spendthrift' means to spend money excessively, not to be thrifty.

[Neil]

I did see an interesting stat today, though:  Mittens has the lowest "approval/likeability" ratings for a presumptive nominee during the month before his party's convention since Walter Mondale in 1984.

Walter. Fucking. Mondale.

For those of you that are too young to remember the 1984 race:  that is a really, really bad statistic.

I seem to remember thinking that Eleanor Mondale was pretty good-looking.

[Valmy]

To me both Obama and Romney are empty suits on 99% of all issues - the living conditions of an average American won't change in the slightest no matter which one of them is elected. Sure, different people will get their panties in a bunch if one of these guys bows to the Japanese emperor or the other guy tells Israelis they are a master race, but beyond that there will be no fucking difference.

I can't believe people get up in arms so much about this.

It is the least meaningful vote I cast.  UNless you live in a swing state it is sort of amusing to see people freaking out about it.

[Valmy]

I did see an interesting stat today, though:  Mittens has the lowest "approval/likeability" ratings for a presumptive nominee during the month before his party's convention since Walter Mondale in 1984.

Walter. Fucking. Mondale.

For those of you that are too young to remember the 1984 race:  that is a really, really bad statistic.

Yeah but Obama is no Ronald Reagan either.