Languish Presidential Election!

[derspiess]

I don't know what it is with the incessant poll reporting Phillip.

Obama is the clear favorite, has been for months. Romney has about zero chance to pull this thing off.

Let it go.

Giving up is in your blood, isn't it?

[Eddie Teach]

I suspect this pic might be more apt.

[CountDeMoney]

and President Obama's problems with white voters.

President Obama's not the one with the problems.

[Eddie Teach]

and President Obama's problems with white voters.

President Obama's not the one with the problems.

He's the one who needs something from them, not the other way around. Guess he shouldn't have taken their guns. 

[DGuller]

So, the legitimacy of outlier polls depends on the narrative you want to build?

No, it depends on other polls and if the candidates are actually contesting the state. You do not need to be so offended by the posting of polls.

I don't have to be, but I am.  Intellectual dishonesty grates me, especially one that involves misuse of numbers, and cherrypicking polls ranks right up there.

[Razgovory]

Well the issue of polls will be settle in a few days anyway.  Hopefully.  I'd really rather not have a repeat of 2000.

[Razgovory]

Also I learned something through all this.  Dguller is a Jew.  I had no idea.  I thought he was just a Russian.  I guess he's up a peg in the grand scheme of things.

[Sheilbh]

So, the legitimacy of outlier polls depends on the narrative you want to build?

No, it depends on other polls and if the candidates are actually contesting the state. You do not need to be so offended by the posting of polls.

It's a bit tedious though - not you necessarily - but the amount of attention that polls get in the media during an American election.  It's almost as if the polls are the story and the campaigns mere accidents that happen alongside it while the polls should be detail and sort-of evidence for the story of the campaign and the argument between two candidates. 

I've read a number of British journalists who are baffled by it, but I think it's possibly because during our elections there's only a few national polls a week - by all the major papers - and for the most part there's no constituency level public polling.

[Razgovory]

So, the legitimacy of outlier polls depends on the narrative you want to build?

No, it depends on other polls and if the candidates are actually contesting the state. You do not need to be so offended by the posting of polls.

It's a bit tedious though - not you necessarily - but the amount of attention that polls get in the media during an American election.  It's almost as if the polls are the story and the campaigns mere accidents that happen alongside it while the polls should be detail and sort-of evidence for the story of the campaign and the argument between two candidates. 

I've read a number of British journalists who are baffled by it, but I think it's possibly because during our elections there's only a few national polls a week - by all the major papers - and for the most part there's no constituency level public polling.

Yeah, your system election system is a bit better.  I'm tired of Presidential campaigns lasting two years.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah, your system election system is a bit better.  I'm tired of Presidential campaigns lasting two years.

I find American Presidential elections boring and really not very nice.  But I love the primaries.

But we've really the same problem traditionally.  Everyone knows roughly when the PM'll call an election (this may change with the fixed term Parliaments introduced by this government) so there's a good year or so when everyone's effectively electioneering but not really.  It is nice only having 4-6 weeks of active campaigning though.

[Count]

So, the legitimacy of outlier polls depends on the narrative you want to build?

No, it depends on other polls and if the candidates are actually contesting the state. You do not need to be so offended by the posting of polls.

It's a bit tedious though - not you necessarily - but the amount of attention that polls get in the media during an American election.  It's almost as if the polls are the story and the campaigns mere accidents that happen alongside it while the polls should be detail and sort-of evidence for the story of the campaign and the argument between two candidates. 

I've read a number of British journalists who are baffled by it, but I think it's possibly because during our elections there's only a few national polls a week - by all the major papers - and for the most part there's no constituency level public polling.

Maybe polls correlate less to the results in your elections? I'm fairly sure Nate Silver was way off when he tried to predict the British elections in 2010.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah Nate Silver got it really wrong, but 2010 was an exceptional year.  Generally polls work less well in our elections - unless there's a landslide like 1997.  There tends to be lots of local trends and unusual bumps that make the national average and swing work less well - so the media spends less time reporting them.

2010 was the first year where we had American style exit polls though and the BBC and Sky ones were both more or less accurate.  Personally I hate them because they kind of suck the fun out of election night.  The first hour or so, before the results start coming in, is spent discussing what it'll mean if the exit poll is right.  Then as the results come in it's whether the exit polls were right.  As they were in 2010 it removed the fun of the actual surprises through the night

[Count]

Yeah Nate Silver got it really wrong, but 2010 was an exceptional year.  Generally polls work less well in our elections - unless there's a landslide like 1997.  There tends to be lots of local trends and unusual bumps that make the national average and swing work less well - so the media spends less time reporting them.

2010 was the first year where we had American style exit polls though and the BBC and Sky ones were both more or less accurate.  Personally I hate them because they kind of suck the fun out of election night.  The first hour or so, before the results start coming in, is spent discussing what it'll mean if the exit poll is right.  Then as the results come in it's whether the exit polls were right.  As they were in 2010 it removed the fun of the actual surprises through the night

I hate exit polls because of the false hope in 2004. KERRY LANDSLIDE!

[Sheilbh]

Apparently we don't have American style exit polling, Silver bemoaned this in 2010:

At a bare minimum, it is disappointing that the BBC and other organizations do not do American-style exit polling, with detail on voting patterns by racial, religious, gender and economic class. Such exit polling would allow the pollsters to weight and calibrate their surveys more effectively, while also making additional tools available to forecasters. If we'd known, for instance, that Labour would lose relatively little of their vote among religious minorities and working-class city dwellers, but more among middle-class suburban whites, we could probably have done a relatively good job of forecasting the election, even without local-level data. Indeed, in an American context, these effects would be discussed and analyzed ad nauseum.

Personally I wish we had less, that which we had got it right enough

[Razgovory]

Yeah, your system election system is a bit better.  I'm tired of Presidential campaigns lasting two years.

I find American Presidential elections boring and really not very nice.  But I love the primaries.

But we've really the same problem traditionally.  Everyone knows roughly when the PM'll call an election (this may change with the fixed term Parliaments introduced by this government) so there's a good year or so when everyone's effectively electioneering but not really.  It is nice only having 4-6 weeks of active campaigning though.

American campaigns have a fairly bitter tone.  Not usually from candidates themselves, but from their flunkies.  It's kinda sad because a lot of these people would be friends (and sometimes are).  George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, though they never ran against one another and are reportedly good friends these days.