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Thursday, November 8, 2012

How Science Defeated The Republican Pollsters

Nate Silver - He got Game Baby!
The statistical scientist Nate Silver did it again this election cycle.

Regular readers know that Dredd Blog observes Nate Silver's enquiries before and during elections because of his track record of phenomenal accuracy.

There has been a link to Five Thirty Eight (Nate Silver) on Dredd Blog for a long time now, because I understand that there is a scientific reason why Nate Silver not only gets it, he gets it right time and time again.

That reason is: he lets reality do the talking, and lets the bloviating do the walking (Guardian).

That is not the way of Republican pollsters like Karl Rove and those who work for him, who are notorious for not letting reality, the facts, or the numbers get in the way of their play pretend during elections or anything else they do:
'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''
(Dumb & Dumber -> Bleak & Bleeker, quoting Karl Rove). Their philosophy and doctrine includes denial of scientific methodology, along with replacing science with wishful thinking and whimsical analysis.

This inevitably leads them down the primrose path, a path that leads those who believed those right wing pundits to be greatly disappointed when the results come in.

The democrats were likewise displeased with Nate Silver during the lead up to the 2010 election, because he saw their landslide loss coming, and said so.

Regular readers know that Dredd Blog began to warn the democrats, a year prior to the 2010 elections, that they were courting an election disaster:
I mean in the upcoming elections, since they have shown, up until this point, that they will pay any amount for war, but very little for domestic needs.

The people have polled against the wars for years now, to no avail. The people overwhelmingly voted the neoCon republican hawks out, to give the democrats a chance to do what the people want.

Nevertheless, the wars continue, now having lasted longer than WW I and WW II combined.
(How Much Will Democrats Pay For War?, 11/25/09). The second post of that series delved into the subject a bit more:
In the first article the critical issue of the [Obama v McCain] campaign was mentioned, which was the fact that it was a rejection election. The people rejected something.

That subject is all important to understanding what went down, so in the article we answered the question by saying that it was the Bush II status quo mentality and politics that was rejected.

The Bush II regime's despotic ideology does not sit well with Americans, and in fact it does not sit well with humane people across the globe. Not surprisingly then, it was soundly rejected.

...

A 9-point loss in the House popular vote would translate into a projected 65-seat loss for Democrats. Or, if we adjust the Rasmussen poll to account for the fact that the Democrats' performance in the popular vote tends to lag the generic ballot, it works out to a 12.4 - point loss in the popular vote, which implies a loss of 79 seats!
(Democrats Pay How Much For War? - 2, 4/10/2010, emphasis added). If Dredd Blog can see ahead not being paid a penny for it, not having advertisers, then how does Dredd Blog do it?

Respect for readers requires the use of credible, proven resources so that Dredd Blog readers are not led astray to become disappointed, but rather are forewarned.

The use of Nate Silver as one source is because he has proven himself over and over again, even having success with predictions  and analysis in the game of baseball prior to eventually focusing on elections (Wikipedia, Nate Silver).

Anyway, I chose Nate Silver vs Karl Rove for today's post to draw upon the radical difference and distinction between reality and play pretend currently at work in our political process.

One thing I see coming is that the Republican elite will be in a civil war of sorts for a while, perhaps behind closed doors, now that some of them are realizing that their game is way off, but some are not realizing it.

Foresight must be based on the most sound and accurate scientific methods of observation available, as well as a grasp of history, both recent and ancient.

UPDATE: Kos and Lizner both did a great job too (see On Average).

Warning: R-Rated language:


1 comment:

  1. Accord: "As much as the Republican Party is a radical party, and a nearly all-white party, it has also become the Fantasyland Party. It’s an isolated and gated community impervious to any intrusions of reality from the “real America” it solipsistically claims to represent. This year’s instantly famous declaration by the Romney pollster Neil Newhouse that “we’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers” crystallized the mantra of the entire GOP."


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