Posted on 10/01/2010 9:31:58 AM PDT by smoothsailing
By Ron Ross
October 1, 2010
Establishment politicians think voters made a big mistake when they nominated Christine O'Donnell in the Delaware primary for Senate. Were the voters irrational or are the political pros just not seeing the whole picture?
Maybe it would help the political experts if they considered the situation from the perspective of a basic tool of probability theory -- "expected value." Expected value can be an immensely useful concept, especially in the context of decision-making. It is the payoff of some outcome times the probability of it happening....
snip
Now apply that concept to analyzing the thinking of voters in the O'Donnell vs. Castle primary contest. The "experts" (Karl Rove, most notably) told voters that even though they might prefer O'Donnell, she would not be able to win in the November general election. According to the pundits, it simply is not possible for a conservative to win in a liberal-leaning state like Delaware. They think nominating O'Donnell reduces the probability of Republicans gaining majority control of the Senate.
Now assume that voters put some credence in the predictions of the analysts and believed that the probability of O'Donnell winning the general election was lower than Castle's chances would have been. Those are the relative probabilities, but what are the relative values of the two possible outcomes?
Voters may have perceived relatively little difference in results between Castle or a Democrat winning in November. An event with a high probability still has a low expected value if the payoff is low. The voters could well have been acting logically and rationally by going with the long-shot....
snip
Voters simply did not place much subjective value on helping someone get elected just because he calls himself a Republican. The voters wanted to aim higher....
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
>>>The establishment types aren’t accepting it gracefully, but the TEA Partiers are force-feeding a long-needed change to the Republican Party.<<<
Absolutely - They need to study a bit of history.
The Whig party died when the Grass Roots movement grew into the Republican Party.
Hmmmm, history repeating itself? Guess we will see if they awaken and smell the TEA brewing.
If it removes the scales from RINOs' eyes, it certainly will.
Ref. your Post #6: Excellent!!!
To begin with, Mr. Ross's "explanation" of statistics is an absolute crock. You don't expect to win $2.50 if you flip that $5 coin -- you expect to win $5, or you expect to win nothing. The expected value is a measure of the probability of getting heads or tails, not the amount you expect to win.
Given his evident ignorance of the statistics behind the metaphor, one already suspects that whatever political advice Mr. Ross attempts to draw from it, will be likewise flawed.
In reality, he's not talking about "expected value" in the statistical sense, he's talking about people's expectations -- their beliefs -- about the possibility of an O'Donnell victory. They're not the same thing, and the difference is important. And more important, those beliefs are not the same as her electoral chances.
"Expected value" (what you believe), can be fine, or a disaster, depending on how realistic your expectations (beliefs) were to begin with.
Just to press the point, a lot of unqualified folks who took out sub-prime mortgages had the expectation that they'd be able to make them work -- if they even thought things through that far. We see how that turned out: it takes more than wishes and beliefs to keep up with your house payments.
What Ross is attempting to do, is lend some sort of mathematical precision to his rather far-fetched explanation of O'Donnell's chances. We see where his beliefs are .... the real question is, where is reality?
Just think how cool it would be if you could do that with a qualified candidate!
I'm not prepared to blow off Mr. Ross as quickly as you are, I think he's on to something.
To reference that highly regarded and world renowned expert of all things, Wikipedia...
"The term "expected value" can be misleading. It must not be confused with the "most probable value." The expected value is in general not a typical value that the random variable can take on. It is often helpful to interpret the expected value of a random variable as the long-run average value of the variable over many independent repetitions of an experiment."
But perhaps it was Pierre-Simon Laplace who said it best when he "published his tract “Théorie analytique des probabilités”, where the concept of expected value was defined explicitly:
Here's hoping Christine O'Donnell emerges triumphant on Nov. 2nd!
CHEERS!!!
Here's the reality test: would you ever expect to win $2.50 on a single toss of a $5 coin? Nope. The probability of winning $5 is 0.5, but that's not the same as expecting to win half the value of the coin. No bank is going to credit you for $2.50 in collateral based on an un-tossed coin.
Ross's dirty trick is in trying to use his false statistical metaphor to fool us into thinking that he has a rigorous mathematical rationale for what follows. But he doesn't.
I can only guess that he's trying to spin O'Donnell's vote tally in the Republican primary, into a winning margin for the general election. Well .... the real math isn't that encouraging.
For example, the actual party affiliation numbers in Delaware are not encouraging for any Republican -- they're outnumbered by more than 3:2 by Democrats, with unafiliated voters comprising an additional 23.4%.
An O'Donnell victory would have to combine a significant difference in turnout between R and D voters (unlikely, since O'Donnell is admittedly "scary" to Democrats, and they're more likely to show up to vote against her, than against a Mike Castle); and she will also need to attract a significant majority of the "other" voters, who are not registered R or D -- and in any case we must assume that independents will show up in sufficient numbers to make up the difference between registered R and D voters.
Look at the one statistic he does provide is a 25% "intensity" gap. Note that this is not a measure of likely voter turnout, but rather a measure of how much they like their candidate. As noted, though -- O'Donnell is polarizing, and the intensity of Democrat dislike of her, is at least a counterbalance to their lack of enthusiasm for Coons.
If the Dems can put this guy up, there is no way they can complain about anybody the TEAparty props up.Isn’t that the Truth!!! There’s so much low hanging fruit with the D party, it’s almost not fair...Patty Murray: Democratic Dummy
Staying out of the statistical weeds, what do you think of this observation by Ross...
No one can say at this point if Christine O'Donnell will win in the general election. According to the polls, the odds are still against her. The Democrat party, however, is reportedly spending a significant amount of money on the Coons campaign. If O'Donnell has no chance of winning, what are they worried about? Why waste their money?
Probably because they think they can use her to nationalize the election and marginalize the Tea Party movement. I believe they see her as a weak, and yet a high-visibility candidate. You'll have noticed that pretty much everything they say and do against O'Donnell in Delaware, makes national news.
If they can make Christine O'Donnell simultaneously look like a fool, and also get her to represent the face of the Tea Party movement, they'll have gotten a twofer that works to help them against other candidates.
And O'Donnell really is not a very good candidate -- especially for Delaware, where the deck is already heavily stacked against Republicans. She has little work experience of any kind, and a very scanty political background. (As opposed to Coons, whose resume looks truly mighty by comparison.)
She has said and done some odd things in the past, and she seems to be on thin ice with respect to what she wrote on her resume. They've already got her playing defense on that stuff, and there's certainly no debate or discussion (that I've seen, anyway) about any serious policy positions she's put forward.
To the general public, she's pretty much whatever bad things the Democrats want to make her into.
IMO.
That's a relief.... ;-) Ya got me.
Then they're obviously delusional. Besides, they don't have to waste money on such a strategy, the LSM will push that meme for free.
No, I think they just want to make sure they keep Delaware blue. In other words, they're being reactionary out of fear.
“As opposed to Coons, whose resume looks truly mighty by comparison”
Don’t you DUmmies ever get tired of shilling for the marxist?
Ah, yes. The old, mindless, "DU" response, which does nothing except to reveal you as having no point, but necertheless an emotional need to spout off anyway.
Compare his accomplishments -- educational and professional -- to those of Ms. O'Donnell. One need not agree with his politics (I don't), to recognize the difference. He's done far more than she has.
To pretend that there is no difference, is just stupid.
Oh, really? You're from PA and I'm from CO, and here we are talking about it. Her difficulties are national news.
And the Tea Party folks are all over the fact that she's one of theirs -- and so are the media.
The Tea Partiers are also holding O'Donnell up as an example for what they can do nationwide. So, for that matter, are the MSM and pundits.
I don't think the D's are really all that worried about keeping Delaware blue -- though they certainly want to be sure of it. I think they're using it for a twofer, as I said before.
“He’s done far more than she has.”
Well let me clue you in on something. People want someone who understands them, who they can look at and say, gee, Christine is a normal person, who has dealt with the same things the rest of us have.
It’s Christine’s advantage that she isn’t a professional politician. That she’s not the inside the beltway, Harvahd professional who is better than us because of the letters after his name. Who’s not a dabbling marxist, because that is the political establishment.
Sure, Christine hasn’t done as much, but Coons, like Obama has hurt America. Why would we want someone who does things that don’t benefit?
O’Donnell is bright, good looking, poised and knows how to keep her head when things get crazy. She’s a pretty good candidate, all in all.
I’m going to track your expectation.
Her disadvantage is that she's not a professional anything else, either.
I can see that you don't think much of people who have actually earned a college degree -- much less three of them. And I guess it's likewise obvious that real-world success doesn't count for much in your world.
Whether or not one agrees with Coons, the fact is that he's a very successful fellow. It's interesting that the Delaware GOP is unable to find a candidate whose resume can compete.
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