Omens, Augurs, and Polling

Let's talk about superstition. If you wanted an unconventional -- but still accurate -- definition of superstition, you could say that it's the belief that unscientific methods can yield scientific results. Walking under a ladder predicts misfortune, while a rabbit's foot can skew results in your favor. Given this definition, a very short post at Buzzfeed may qualify as superstitious.

"Modern presidents who got re-elected were all leading in the polls at this point in their presidencies — as were some who lost anyway," wrote Zeke Miller yesterday. "Obama is in a statistical tie with Romney in the first Gallup daily tracking poll of the general election, and that might not be enough." The post goes on to spell out Obama's obvious electoral doom with a graphic.

But Nate Silver has a must-read post up about reading polling that pretty much blows this thinking out of the water. And when I say must-read, I mean go read it. In fact, bookmark it and check it later, when some partisan starts waving around some favorable finding or the media starts running wild with their close race narrative.

Silver's post consists of twelve rules to apply when reading about polling and it's the final rule that knocks out Buzzfeed's pseudo-scientific reading of history and the Gallup poll.

CONTINUE TO POST>>

What it Takes to Do Well in a GOP Debate

The first Republican debate is over and it seems the clear winner was Mitt Romney. In fact, National Journal polled political insiders (names at the link) and found 51% of Republican insiders believed Mittens walked away with it. Only 35% of Democrats agreed, but he was the winner among them as well. Among both groups, Michele Bachmann came in second, but I think she benefits from the soft bigotry of low expectations -- she didn't swallow her tongue, claim that the United States was founded to fight communism, or praise President Lincoln's initiative in starting the space program.

So it was Mittens who took the night. The best take on that I've read so far comes from Steve M. at No More Mr. Nice Blog:

...Romney pitches his voice midway between avuncular and angry; his words are pitched the same way. I think he may have a sweet spot: this stuff plays to every Limbaughnista and Fox fan's bitter resentments, but the rest of America has heard this stuff for so many decades -- ever since Reagan, really -- that by now it sounds like harmless common-sense folk wisdom. After all the craziness in the last election cycle, Romney might sound like a return to sanity while promising to do pretty much what the crazy people promised to do. That could work -- and if so, he's really dangerous.

CONTINUE TO POST>>

The Slow Downward Slide of the Tea Party

Yesterday, CNN delivered some bad news for teabaggers (pdf) -- turns out no one likes them.

OK, so I'm overstating the case. I apologize. It actually turns out that they aren't extremely popular. Some people like them. Some people don't. And more people dislike the Tea Party than don't. And this isn't a new trend, as this chart from Nate Silver demonstrates:



The blue line represents the percentage approving of the Tea Party, the red line shows disapproval. As you can see, the trend on disapproval is rising, while approvals have pretty much always been flatlining.

CONTINUE TO POST>>