Obama versus McCain (versus the rest)

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Interesting look back at what was happening at this time 4 years ago. Kerry was ahead by 2-3 points in most polls, with only Zogby and Rasmussen showing Bush ahead.

Presidential Election Polls 2004 RNC Zogby Presidential Election Gallup Polls Press Releases Democratic Presidential Campaign Polls

[NoMyths]

Originally Posted by dolfin

These "national" polls mean zilch to me anyway you look at it. Most of these are polling less than 1,500 likely voters, except for PEW which hits on a whopping 2,300 telephone interviews.

It would be funny to see them broken down by state, though. "6 out of 9 likely voters in Delaware to vote Dem."

FiveThirtyEight.com

[JPhillips]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Probably picking up what this poll picked up

WASHINGTON (AP) - The presidential race tightened after the final debate, with John McCain gaining among whites and people earning less than $50,000, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll that shows McCain and Barack Obama essentially running even among likely voters in the election homestretch.

The poll, which found Obama at 44 percent and McCain at 43 percent, supports what some Republicans and Democrats privately have said in recent days: that the race narrowed after the third debate as GOP-leaning voters drifted home to their party and McCain's "Joe the plumber" analogy struck a chord.

Three weeks ago, an AP-GfK survey found that Obama had surged to a seven-point lead over McCain, lifted by voters who thought the Democrat was better suited to lead the nation through its sudden economic crisis.

The contest is still volatile, and the split among voters is apparent less than two weeks before Election Day. ... The new AP-GfK head-to-head result is a departure from some, but not all, recent national polls.

Obama and McCain were essentially tied among likely voters in the latest George Washington University Battleground Poll, conducted by Republican strategist Ed Goeas and Democratic pollster Celinda Lake. In other surveys focusing on likely voters, a Washington Post-ABC News poll showed Obama up by 9 percentage points, while a poll by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center had Obama leading by 14. A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, among the broader category of people registered to vote, found Obama ahead by 10 points.

Polls are snapshots of highly fluid campaigns. In this case, there is a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points; that means Obama could be ahead by as many as 8 points or down by as many as 6. There are many reasons why polls differ, including methods of estimating likely voters and the wording of questions.

Of course, a national poll means zilch without breaking it down by state.

The likely voter screen on that is pretty strong pro-republican. The registered number is 47-37 Obama.

After looking at the cross tabs I'm sure this is what I was polled on a few days ago.

[JPhillips]

Originally Posted by Mizzou B-ball fan

Interesting look back at what was happening at this time 4 years ago. Kerry was ahead by 2-3 points in most polls, with only Zogby and Rasmussen showing Bush ahead.

Presidential Election Polls 2004 RNC Zogby Presidential Election Gallup Polls Press Releases Democratic Presidential Campaign Polls

That page only shows SUSA and ARG polls favoring Kerry. SUSA is solid, but ARG has a well earned reputation for being unreliable.

[Neon_Chaos]

Why is it that you guys still use the electoral college thing?

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by Neon_Chaos

Why is it that you guys still use the electoral college thing?

It's in the Constitution.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by Neon_Chaos

Why is it that you guys still use the electoral college thing?

To make sure the redneck voters in Western Pennsylvania still have a say in the final results.

[gstelmack]

Originally Posted by Neon_Chaos

Why is it that you guys still use the electoral college thing?

It keeps New York and Los Angeles from deciding who the next President will be...

[Fighter of Foo]

Plus it's fun fucking with all the people who can't read a poll.

[stevew]

fuck murtha.

[Daimyo]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

It keeps New York and Los Angeles from deciding who the next President will be...

Of course, to do that you have to make the vote of a citizen of Montana worth four times as much as the vote of a citizen of California...

[Big Fo]

Originally Posted by Neon_Chaos

Why is it that you guys still use the electoral college thing?

Because Democrats in Texas and Republicans in New York are subhuman thus their votes shouldn't count.

[flere-imsaho]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

It keeps New York and Los Angeles from deciding who the next President will be...

Hey! And Chicago!

[gstelmack]

Originally Posted by Daimyo

Of course, to do that you have to make the vote of a citizen of Montana worth four times as much as the vote of a citizen of California...

I bet he provides at least four times as much food

I never understood the electoral college until I saw the map of the 2000 election results and went "oh, now it makes sense".

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

Optical Scan FTW

I worked as a poll person in 2000, and we used the Optical Scan. By far the best way to go. I just can't understand why more States didn't go to that over this mess they are using.

[molson]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

I bet he provides at least four times as much food

I never understood the electoral college until I saw the map of the 2000 election results and went "oh, now it makes sense".

Was it this map?



As a country, we've decided that all that red is worth SOME kind of bonus, even though the actual votes behind them were basically a tie. You need broad popular and geographic support to win a presidential election in the US.

I've never decided if that was a good idea or not, though I lean towards it. It kind of just fits in with the rest of our system, and the importance of states (small states have incredibly disproportinate senate representation, for example, and nobody seems to be up in arms over that).

(This one's actually 2004 - 2000 didn't work for some reason).

[BrianD]

Originally Posted by Flasch186

BrianD, you are right and im all ears if you can explain to me how Im not correct in my interpretation as I want to know if Im off base. I believe she was saying 'if [and only if]'. Is that not accurate or a misinterpretation or some sort of bad assumption?

Here is the analogy I was thinking about. Assume I make the statement, "if the Green Bay Packers play an NFL game in Mexico, there will be a big fan turnout". I think in general we can assume this is a true statement. You definition of "big" may be different than mine, but it is hard to find fault with the statement.

What I haven't said is that if and only if the Packers play in the NFL game will there be a big turnout. You could replace the Packers in my statement with the Bears, or the Patriots, or just about any team in the league (maybe not Miami) and that statement would still be true. The fact that I only gave one example doesn't mean that is the only true example.

Now assume that I am the assistant coach of the Bears and a Packer assistant coach delightedly calls a Chicago talk-radio station to parrot my quote that "if the Green Bay Packers play an NFL game in Mexico, there will be a big fan turnout". It probably doesn't make me look good to the Chicago media. I may have been speaking about the Packers specifically for another reason, but because I didn't give more than one example, people can accurately quote me with just the one.

This isn't a perfect analogy, but I am like Biden in this story. (Forget the fact that there are 2 presidential candidate and way more NFL teams.) Biden says that if Obama is elected, he will face a crisis from people who will want to test him. He didn't say that it is any different for McCain, but he (foolishly) didn't say anything at all about McCain. Now Palin can say the same thing Biden did with a changing around of the words which really doesn't change the meaning. Palin also hasn't said that the same wouldn't be true for McCain because she is just quoting Biden. When you hear 'if' from her, you associate that with 'if and only if' because she is on the side opposite you and you are expecting the attacks to be as strong as possible.

That is the beauty of this situation for the Republicans. The Biden quote was pretty unambiguous. Reps can repeat the quote without embellishment and it sounds harsh. The Democrats have basically responded in two ways. 1 - it was a perfectly reasonable thing to say because every president faces challenges. 2 - if you parse the words in just the right way, you might see that the statement really wasn't about Obama.

1 is fairly weak because "every president faces challenges" doesn't address the "electing Obama will cause a crisis" statement. 2 is pointless because you can't parse away the words because it is fairly unambiguous.

The real response should have been that Biden did in fact say that electing Obama will result in a crisis brought on to test him. Since the whole speech was about Obama in particular, his is the only name that was brought up. Had the discussion also included McCain, Biden would have commented that a different crisis would have come up to challenge him.

A second decent response would have been to say that Obama will face a crisis because he is young and people will want to test him. Obama will show everyone that he knows what to do and he will win the challenge. I think this is really what Biden was going for, but he didn't say it very well.

In the current state of "gotcha politics", the first reaction is always to deny. Once you deny, you look worse when you keep denying. Had they thought a little more and owned their statement with an amendment to make it more clear, they would have been better off.

[Flasch186]

you are right in the above and I take back everything I said. Thank you for taking the time to explain the positions.

[molson]

I don't think the whole quote thing is a big deal, but I heard the audio of Palin's response this morning, it wasn't really a hardcore attack, she said, "Why is he saying that, if I had said that you guys would be clobbering me. I'd like to hear him explain what he meant". Pretty reasonable sentiment.

[JPhillips]

Originally Posted by GrantDawg

I worked as a poll person in 2000, and we used the Optical Scan. By far the best way to go. I just can't understand why more States didn't go to that over this mess they are using.

Cheap, easy and reliable. What's not to like?

[molson]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

Cheap, easy and reliable. What's not to like?

Some people are uptight about the government "collecting data" like that (whether or not that info is actually retained). Like they'll be able to track us or something.

I agree it's the right thing to do though. It's not that friggen complicated. We've accomplished much more impressive stuff as a species then have a reliable voting process.

[Flasch186]

Originally Posted by molson

I don't think the whole quote thing is a big deal, but I heard the audio of Palin's response this morning, it wasn't really a hardcore attack, she said, "Why is he saying that, if I had said that you guys would be clobbering me. I'd like to hear him explain what he meant". Pretty reasonable sentiment.

I had a problem with the 'if' and attached an existing 'and only if' that didnt exist. When analyzing that the second part actually was attached in my head and hence forth removed and than reanalyzed, I realize that I was wrong.

I agree that she wouldve been hammered for it but only due to the bias towards ratings/readers.

[larrymcg421]

Originally Posted by molson

Was it this map?



As a country, we've decided that all that red is worth SOME kind of bonus, even though the actual votes behind them were basically a tie. You need broad popular and geographic support to win a presidential election in the US.

I've never decided if that was a good idea or not, though I lean towards it. It kind of just fits in with the rest of our system, and the importance of states (small states have incredibly disproportinate senate representation, for example, and nobody seems to be up in arms over that).

(This one's actually 2004 - 2000 didn't work for some reason).

Okay, but what's silly about this argument is it still happens on the state level. For example, look at California. Look at all that red, but the state still went to Kerry. Also look at Pennsylvania, Oregon, or Washington. The electoral college doesn't force you to have broad geographic support. You can still take the entirety of a state's electoral votes by appealing to the urban areas.

I still can't figure out how on earth people think it's okay to say people who live close together deserve less voting power than people who live far apart.

[cartman]

There's another map I saw that painted a more realistic picture. That one is absolute, 100% or 0%. I'll see if I can find it again, but it showed shaded boxes depending on the closeness of the vote, with white where there was a 50/50 split, and gradually getting darker blue or red as it went towards 100%. There were a lot of light colored counties on that one.

[lordscarlet]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't electoral votes based on population? Its not so much that Wyoming's votes are worth more. It's just that a close win in a state is just as valuable as a landslide win.

[Klinglerware]

Originally Posted by cartman

There's another map I saw that painted a more realistic picture. That one is absolute, 100% or 0%. I'll see if I can find it again, but it showed shaded boxes depending on the closeness of the vote, with white where there was a 50/50 split, and gradually getting darker blue or red as it went towards 100%. There were a lot of light colored counties on that one.

Here is the "Purple America" map of the 2000 Election...

[larrymcg421]

Originally Posted by lordscarlet

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't electoral votes based on population? Its not so much that Wyoming's votes are worth more.

Well, it doesn't work out exactly tied to population. Every state gets a minimum of 3 electoral votes, no matter how small they are, so some states are getting more than they would if there was a flat population per electoral vote ratio.

It's just that a close win in a state is just as valuable as a landslide win.

That is one of the silliest parts of the electoral college. If we really had three viable partoes, people would be winning all the electoral votes in a state with less than 40% of the vote.

[Klinglerware]

Originally Posted by lordscarlet

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't electoral votes based on population? Its not so much that Wyoming's votes are worth more. It's just that a close win in a state is just as valuable as a landslide win.

Electoral votes are the sum of a state's Senators + Representatives. Since all states have 2 senators, smaller states have a very slight over-representation in the electoral college relative to their populations.

[lungs]

No wonder I'm voting for Obama, he has secretly been hypnotizing us!

http://www.pennypresslv.com/Obama%27...s_Speeches.pdf

[molson]

Originally Posted by lordscarlet

It's just that a close win in a state is just as valuable as a landslide win.

That's up to the states though. They could proportion it out by county, congressional district etc. (Maine and Nebraska do the latter, though they've always had sweeps and have never split the vote).

[molson]

I like those shaded maps except I think they're too easy to give a "split" color. 60/40 is a pretty dominant margin, but the map just gives slightly varying shades of red-blue.

[larrymcg421]

There's a proposal I've seen from some states meant to make the electoral college meaningless. The idea is that the state will allocate their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote. However, it doesn't go into effect until enough states (that make up 270 electoral votes) also pass the law.

[lordscarlet]

the bottom thing is neat: 2008 Electoral Map Predictions: 10-14-2008 | Political Maps (found it from the purple map above)



EDIT: Embedded

[Ryan S]

Originally Posted by Klinglerware

Here is the "Purple America" map of the 2000 Election...

What happened in Maine and Vermont?

[adubroff]

Originally Posted by larrymcg421

That is one of the silliest parts of the electoral college. If we really had three viable partoes, people would be winning all the electoral votes in a state with less than 40% of the vote.

A third party would capable of preventing both of the two main parties from achieving a majority would have a huge impact on the electoral college itself. It's very likely that if a third party could do that, they could demand almost anything from the main parties....In a close election, that party might only need to win one or two states.

[Buccaneer]

To me, the election has boiled down to a simple view:

I will not vote Democrat because of substance.
I will not vote Republican because of style.

There are more ways than one to vote against a one-party government and I may exercise that right. But I will not I will not help the Republicans carry Colorado for the presidency.

[Buccaneer]

Another Election Prediction:

45% of the population would vote for Obama (including those against McCain).
45% of the population would vote for McCain (including those against Obama).

The key will be what percentage of the population will actually get out and vote for (or against) a candidate.

[digamma]

Originally Posted by Buccaneer

Another Election Prediction:

45% of the population will vote for Obama (including those against McCain).
45% of the population will vote for McCain (including those against Obama).

The key will be what percentage of the population will actually get out and vote for (or against) a candidate.

I'm not sure I follow. Do you mean that 45% of the population would vote for Obama if they voted? And the key is seeing how many of those who would vote for Obama actually show up to vote for Obama?

[Buccaneer]

Yes, I meant "would" (as in theoretically). My brain said 'would' but my fingers typed 'will'.

[flere-imsaho]

Another election cycle, another instance of Republicans telling me that I'm anti-American. As Jon Stewart said, "Republicans love America, but just hate half the people living in it."

[CamEdwards]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

Another election cycle, another instance of Republicans telling me that I'm anti-American. As Jon Stewart said, "Republicans love America, but just hate half the people living in it."

I've been called a racist, a fascist, a corporatist, paranoid, delusional, evil... and that was just the last phone call with my mom the Democrat!

Seriously, again I feel the need to point out that the emnity on the right is equaled by the emnity on the left, and good people on both sides become targets of it.

[Flasch186]

I have no idea since im a guy but I heard Palin spent up to $150K on clothes....is that a lot for a Pol? i honestly have no clue and since I got married I even have less of a clue and have stopped buying clothes for myself entirely (mostly since what I buy gets met with shakes of the head and disapproval which is repeated when I attempt to wear said item(s) and then get pushed into something bought for me.....by her.) plus Im not a Pol..

[JPhillips]

It seems to be unprecedented. It's also fun to note that the RNC had to foot the bill because McCain-Feingold made that sort of purchase with candidate funds illegal. It's another thing that doesn't really matter substantively, but Lord does it make the McCain team look even more inept.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by Ryan S

What happened in Maine and Vermont?

A power blackout due to the damaging energy crisis.

[JPhillips]

Here are three fake commercials for McCain done by Hollywood directors. The first one isn't great, but the last two are pretty good.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by Flasch186

I have no idea since im a guy but I heard Palin spent up to $150K on clothes....is that a lot for a Pol?

Male candidates spend thousands of dollars on suits, but nobody cares. If she didn't get more fashionable clothes and upgrade her appearance, we'd here the cries of how poor her appearance was. Female politicians walk a tightrope of fashion at all times. Male politicians put on one of their 20 navy suits with a red tie and think nothing of it.

[Alan T]

How is Palin's wardrobe any worse than John Edwards' haircut? Both were stupid stories and not a big deal at all. Sure it probably hurts their attempts at the "common person" feeling like that candidate understands them when they spend more on clothes or a haircut then many people can spend on things like food... but otherwise does it really matter? Of course I probably feel that way about 85% of the random things people bring up against Democrats or against Republicans in this thread trying it to make the candidate look like the worst person ever

[Flasch186]

their not any different. The haircut I have a point of reference on and KNOW that that is a ridiculous way to spend your money! I dont even know how much a suit costs and the one time I had to buy one was years ago and I was absolutely blown away by how expensive they seemed to be. If someone only bought suits I could easily see how you could get to 150K....That might only be about 35 suits....which 35 suits is a lot IMO but perhaps suits can be even more expensive than I imagine.

[Dr. Sak]

Originally Posted by Mizzou B-ball fan

To make sure the redneck voters in Western Pennsylvania still have a say in the final results.

Please tell me you are kidding with the redneck comments?

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by Klinglerware

It's as I always suspected- there are no people in Maine or Vermont

SI