The Freepers had their own Nate Silver. Man, did he get a lot of shit.

[cali]

We’ll make you a nice crow sandwich for lunch on Wednesday !

Fries with that ?”

In all honesty, I’m glad you were at least charitable with your reply. I was expecting the normal “get out of here liberal troll” that I often get even though I have been a conservative for 25 years and a member here for 8 years.

I will admit I am not a die hard Tea Party conservative but I am right of center nonetheless and often agree with some moderate conservative writers that are blasphemous here. I also will forever admire the writings and policies of my heroes including Teddy Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, George HW Bush. I think our party needs realism, pragmatism, objective and painful embracing of facts and data.

This is why it is painful to see people like Drudge fool people into false hope like Baghdad Bob from a rooftop as the city was encircled by American tanks. Rasmussen and Gallup are running very risky likely voter screens that killed them in 2010. Look it up at RCP, they did the worst of all pollsters, off by 5 to 10 percentage points!

These are what the data tell us:

We will maintain a very SOLID majority in the house. To me, nothing else matters. There will be no disaster policies because of that fact. The conservatives will be writing the budgets and that’s that. We will be fine as a nation because of this.

The Senate could have been ours if we ran more pragmatic candidates in three or four races but as it stands, we will see a 54-46 or 53-47 split in favor of dems.

Here’s where the data are overwhelming but people are swallowing Baghdad Drudge:

Obama has PA, WI, MI, OH and NV. The data are overwhelming on this point. Those states are checkmate. One or two polls showing Romney up or tied vs 10 others that show him down 2 to 4 in each state just don’t pass social science muster. Science has taught me that cherry picking data points RARELY works.

I’m sticking with my previous and painful call:

Obama 294 (303 if he pulls off CO but data too muddy there)
Romney 244

Popular Vote: Obama by 1.8%

The polls are now baked in for 2012 and what could be done has been done. They ate it in 2000 and 2004, it’s time for us to eat it and take it like men. There will be another day to fight!

Lets get ready for a 2/3 Republican super majority in 2014 congressional elections!

137 posted on Monday, November 05, 2012 4:25:28 PM by jackmercer
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 134 | View Replies]

Jack Mercer posted quite a bit before the election.



“And Barones opinion? Is that just wishful thinking on his part?”

That article Barone wrote wasn’t wishful thinking, it was punditry to sell more page views...fun and entertaining no doubt, but nonsense. Though I REALLY wish that anecdotal punditry translated to measurable, social science data, it doesn’t. The worst part is that even some of his anecdotes weren’t based on reality.

When I don’t see historical precedents COMBINED with numbers and data in an article about the election, I don’t take it as a data point, I take it as entertainment. Anyone that looks at that article as anything beyond that, just bought snake oil.

150 posted on Monday, November 05, 2012 9:07:43 PM by jackmercer
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 144 | View Replies]



I didn’t actually nail it completely. I called 290EV (possibly 303EV) and Obama +1.8%.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2955102/posts?page=137#137

I didn’t think Obama had any way in hell to get Florida, still close, but it looks like he will pull it off. Nate Silver did call Florida a few days before the election when the average of polls said different and so did every conservative AND liberal pundit and columnist in the country. As much as I hate to say it, I have to tip my hat to his brain. I do not have the proprietary model equations he came up with but as a scientist, I’d LOVE to see them. He really is the best in the business....he blew everyone out of the water 3 elections in a row now.

Back to your point though, I said that we may do big in 2014 for a very simple reason. Historically, the out-party ALWAYS gains seats in the midterms and right now we already have a very, very significant majority in the House. Adding more will make the House an incredible force at the bargaining table and give the House the mandate in 2014....just like 1998 did.

BUT! I already see some trouble on the horizon. Mitch McConnell came out today swinging and fired quite a shot across Obama’s bow and that could be bad news. He said something (and I’m paraphrasing) like Obama better not try to put something on the table that won’t pass the House. McConnell is up for re-election in 2014 and there are already strong forces in Kentucky moving to primary him. If he thinks of his own skin first, he could screw us.

With a nice cushion of 55 seats in the Senate and the entire Executive, the dems have a lot of leverage to make the House conservatives look unreasonable and dangerous. If the House Republicans pull another 2010 debt ceiling showdown, that will kill us, I mean really kill us.

Obama successfully painted them as obstructionists and the Republican house approval ratings plummeted. Now you can get away with that right after a midterm but not right before. If they do that in first few months of 2013 to force Obama’s hand on a number of issues, it will be ok. If they pull that type of thing in latter 2013 or seem even slightly unreasonable in 2014, Obama, the Senate and their cheerleaders in the media will destroy the conservative house brand and we could have a wave in the other direction.

The only thing that could soften that wave is the fact that 2010 was a major redistricting year and Republican Governors and statehouses carved some nice lines for us. In addition, liberals are living closer together and more densely in large cities which limits their House representation. Conservatives are more spread out in suburbs, exurbs and rural areas so our House districts are more broad and difficult to lose.

Anyway....that’s all amateur conjecture but I think 2014 will be ok as long as we give do what Reagan did, give up 20% of our agenda to gain 80%. But with such a shitty Senate situation, we may have to give up slightly more.

28 posted on Wednesday, November 07, 2012 11:12:14 PM by jackmercer
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]

It's a good thing no one listens to this Jack Mercer- or will listen to him.

[Dawgs]

1. Huh? Most reasonable people, by election day, had 303 EV's with Florida as a toss-up.

Just like Nate Silver. He wasn't the only one.

[kelliekat44]

2. "Obama successfully painted them as obstructionists..? No, they painted themselves as

obstructionists and were proud of it!

And right now, the same team that helped Obama win are working hard on plans for 2014. And we all know what that means? Can hardly wait to see it, especially if the GOP stands in the way of any solutions to our economic and job woes. The PEOPLE are ready for a fight now!

[Hav]

3. Interesting read.

He did indeed get much shit.
He also predicted that the weighting of polls for voter id done by Rasmussen and Gallup and which he thinks doesn't need to be done at all, would cause them to get it wrong. He was right.