Posted on 09/02/2012 1:07:33 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
This year’s American Political Science Association conference was set to be in New Orleans this weekend. Suffice it to say, that didn’t happen.
It’s a shame, not least because one of the panels was going to highlight five new studies on how to forecast American presidential and congressional elections, all of which are highly relevant to 2012. But just because those studies’ authors didn’t get the chance to present their work in person doesn’t mean we can’t take a look at it here, at least at the four papers we’ve obtained from the authors (the author of the fifth is in the process of updating his, and we'll post it later). So how do the models work, and what do they predict for this year’s elections?
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Study: “History and Primary: The Obama Re-election.” Who did it: Helmut Norpoth and Michael Bednarczuk (SUNY, Stony Brook University).
The variables: Uniquely among the studies here, Norpoth and Bednarczuk do not include any economic variables. Instead, they simply use the share each major party candidate got of the primary vote in the New Hampshire primary. To account for presidents who run unopposed, they set a maximum possible vote share of 65 percent, and a minimum possible share of 35 percent. That is, if a candidate got between 65 and 100 percent of the vote, that’d be inputted as 65 percent, and if a candidate got between 0 and 35 percent of the vote, that’d be inputted as 35 percent.
How well it does: The model has an adjusted R-squared value of 0.89. In plain English, that means that it explains about 89 percent of variation in party vote shares between presidential elections.
What it predicts: The model forecasts Obama will get 53.2 percent of the two-party vote and Romney will get 46.8 percent.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
We also won’t have a country anymore, I am more concerned about that. America as we know it will be finished
Not really. They take physics course where they learn “If you drop something, and it falls, it is gravity”.
By the way, if any one wants to question my academic qualifications, I have a degree in both Business and Electrical Engineering - where I took real Math, Physics, and Chemistry.
But astrologers are saying Obama will loose.
Smells like it! Looks like it! It is it! Bull Poop!
Obviously they’ve been sniffing the airplane glue.
Obviously they’ve been sniffing the airplane glue.
One thing this election is going to tell us is if the takers now outnumber the givers. If the freeloaders now outnumber the workers.
BS on the polls, pure BS...but, the Romney campaign needs to get this stuff out there(my mom forwarded this to me - no, I don’t have ONE source for it all):
Why Mitt Romney is Unlikable!
A lot is being said in the media about Mitt Romney not being “likable” or that he doesn’t “relate well” to people. Frankly, we struggled to understand why. So after much research, we have come up with a Top Ten List to explain this “unlikablility.”
Top Ten Reasons To Dislike Mitt Romney:
1. Drop-dead, collar-ad handsome with gracious, statesmanlike aura. Looks like every central casting’s #1 choice for Commander-in-Chief.
2. Been married to ONE woman his entire life, and has been faithful to her, including through her bouts with breast cancer and MS.
3. No scandals or skeletons in his closet. (How boring is that?)
4. Can’t speak in a fake, southern, “black preacher voice” when necessary.
5. Highly intelligent. Graduated cum laude from both Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School...and by the way, his academic records are NOT sealed.
6. Doesn’t smoke or drink alcohol, and has never done drugs, not even in the counter-culture age when he went to college. Too square for today’s America?
7. Represents an America of “yesterday”, where people believed in God, went to Church, didn’t screw around, worked hard, and became a SUCCESS!
8. Has a family of five great sons....and none of them have police records or are in drug rehab. But of course, they were raised by a stay-at-home mom, and that “choice” deserves America’s scorn.
9. Oh yes.....he’s a MORMON. We need to be very afraid of that very strange religion that teaches its members to be clean-living, patriotic, fiscally conservative, charitable, self-reliant, and honest.
10. And one more point.....pundits say because of his wealth, he can’t relate to ordinary Americans. I guess that’s because he made that money HIMSELF.....as opposed to marrying it or inheriting it from Dad. Apparently, he didn’t understand that actually working at a job and earning your own money made you unrelatable to Americans.
My goodness, it’s a strange world, isn’t it?
*****************************************************
Personal Information:
His full Name is: Willard Mitt Romney
He was Born: March 12, 1947 and is 65 years old.
His Father: George W. Romney, former Governor
of the State of Michigan
He was raised in Bloomfield Hills , Michigan
He is Married to Ann Romney since 1969; they five children.
Education:
B.A. from Brigham Young University,
J.D. and M.B.A. from Harvard University
Religion:
Mormon - The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints
Working Background:
After high school, he spent 30 months in France as a
Mormon missionary.
After going to both Harvard Business School and
Harvard Law School simultaneously, he passed the Michigan
bar exam, but never worked as an attorney.
In 1984, he co-founded Bain Capital a private equity
investment firm, one of the largest such firms in the
United States.
In 1994, he ran for Senator of Massachusetts and lost
to Ted Kennedy.
He was President and CEO of the 2002 Winter Olympic
Games.
In 2002, he was elected Governor of the State of
Massachusetts where he eliminated a 1.5 billion deficit.
Some Interesting Facts about Romney:
Bain Capital, starting with one small office supply store
in Massachusetts, turned it into Staples; now over
2,000 stores employing 90,000 people.
Bain Capital also worked to perform the same kinds
of business miracles again and again, with companies
like Domino’s, Sealy, Brookstone, Weather Channel,
Burger King, Warner Music Group, Dollarama,
Home Depot Supply and many others.
He was an unpaid volunteer campaign worker for
his dad’s gubernatorial campaign 1 year.
He was an unpaid intern in his dad’s governor’s
office for eight years.
He was an unpaid bishop and state president of
his church for ten years.
He was an unpaid President of the Salt Lake
Olympic Committee for three years.
He took no salary and was the unpaid Governor of
Massachusetts for four years.
He gave his entire inheritance from his father to charity.
Mitt Romney is one of the wealthiest self-made men
in our country but has given more back to its citizens
in terms of money, service and time than most men.
And in 2011 Mitt Romney gave over $4 million to charity,
almost 19% of his income.... Just for comparison purposes,
Obama gave 1% and Joe Biden gave $300 or .0013%.
Mitt Romney is Trustworthy:
He will show us his birth certificate
He will show us his high school and college transcripts.
He will show us his social security card.
He will show us his law degree.
He will show us his draft notice.
He will show us his medical records.
He will show us his income tax records.
He will show us he has nothing to hide.
Mitt Romney’s background, experience and
trustworthiness show him to be a great leader and
an excellent citizen for President of the United States.
You may think that Romney may not be the best
representative the Republicans could have selected.
At least I know what religion he is, and that he won’t
desecrate the flag, bow down to foreign powers,
or practice fiscal irresponsibility.
I know he has the ability to turn this financial debacle
that the current regime has gotten us into. We won’t
like all the things necessary to recover from this
debt, but someone with Romney’s background can do it.
But, on the minus side, he never was a “Community
Organizer”, never took drugs or smoked pot, never
got drunk, did not associate with communists
or terrorists, nor did he attend a church whose pastor
called for God to damn the US.
Things have changed since 2008, but they are still weighting their polls the same.
A model that ignores economic numbers is not a model at all. It is like predicting an nfl game winner based on what each team had for dinner last Wednesday.
Well, frankly, I hope the Dems believe this, so they’ll get cocky, louder, and nastier before the election. That will help to display to voters just what they’ll have if they vote for Obama, again.
Oh, yeah, I remember those models! They predicted Democrat wins in the 2010 midterm elections!
Oh, right formulas for resistors ~ know that one well. Now, how about topology? Not sure the cow colleges get up to that one.
These modelers are the real airheads, or they have been sniffing too much glue.
Waste of bandwidth.
Usually no one loses by getting less votes than his same party predecessor ~ McCain got fewer votes than “W” ~ but in this case Obama has to lose 10 million votes before he gets down that low so there is a cushion of sorts.
Don't just tut tut models that show Obamugabe winning ~ show the specific errors ~
Only voter fraud will give Obama the win...
If so then, it is greatly deserved. The GOP nominated the ONE person in the party who could not credibly go after Obama on one of the two glaring issues where the vast majority opposes Obama (Healthcare and the economy). If Romney and McCain are the best the party can come up with in nearly a decade, then it deserves to die.
(But sadly, the GOP has already spent a lot of effort in the past 18 years conspiring with the Dems against the US population, and has made it much more difficult for 3rd parties to become viable contenders.)
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