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Thread: Delusional Numbers

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    Default Delusional Numbers

    How do campaigns turn out to be complete disasters without the loser foreseeing it ahead of time? How did Romney followers swear that Obama reaching over 330 electoral votes was impossible let alone even winning 270? How did Scott Walker utterly destroy the Democrats recall when Democrats proclaimed that the momentum and the public was on their side?

    Nate Silver has some answers on the delusional numbers political campaigns tell themselves, with emphasis on the Romney campaigns internal polls they based their strategies off of.
    http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes...y-be-to-blame/

    The key point for future GOP candidates?
    campaigns would be wise not to have their pollsters serve as public spokesmen or spin doctors for the campaign. Campaigns have other personnel who specialize in those tasks.
    The role of the pollster should be just the opposite of this, in fact: to provide a reality check such that the campaign does not begin to believe its own spin.


  2. #2
    Darkside Medic Senior Member rory_20_uk's Avatar
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    Default Re: Delusional Numbers

    Americans appear to like winners. To ever entertain anything less that total victory will cause persons to leave from the outset.

    In the UK, to state one is rich or sucessful in a campaign is equally toxic - especially if Tory.

    An enemy that wishes to die for their country is the best sort to face - you both have the same aim in mind.
    Science flies you to the moon, religion flies you into buildings.
    "If you can't trust the local kleptocrat whom you installed by force and prop up with billions of annual dollars, who can you trust?" Lemur
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    Senior Member Senior Member gaelic cowboy's Avatar
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    Default Re: Delusional Numbers

    Bill Maher put his finger on it for me

    They slew him with poison afaid to meet him with the steel
    a gallant son of eireann was Owen Roe o'Neill.

    Internet is a bad place for info Gaelic Cowboy

  4. #4
    Standing Up For Rationality Senior Member Ronin's Avatar
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    Default Re: Delusional Numbers

    cognitive dissonance is a powerful force, you can see it in religion, but to see it so clearly in politics is more rare.
    facts that go against the "truth" get absorbed nonetheless and reworked to fit into the "truth"
    it's funny to see them smack against the wall of reality though.
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    ‘Abdü’l-Mecīd-i evvel Member Kival's Avatar
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    Default Re: Delusional Numbers

    Quote Originally Posted by gaelic cowboy View Post
    Bill Maher put his finger on it for me

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7WYtsWtHlk
    We really need better math and statistics education all over the world...

    ‘Abdü’l-Mecīd-i evvel

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    The Black Senior Member Papewaio's Avatar
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    Default Re: Delusional Numbers

    When you have two teams striving to win and stating that they will do so. Well outside of a draw, one of the teams has to be wrong.
    Our genes maybe in the basement but it does not stop us chosing our point of view from the top.
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    ‘Abdü’l-Mecīd-i evvel Member Kival's Avatar
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    Default Re: Delusional Numbers

    Quote Originally Posted by Papewaio View Post
    When you have two teams striving to win and stating that they will do so. Well outside of a draw, one of the teams has to be wrong.
    That's not the problem. Of course claiming to win is okay but not being able to interpret statistics as a campaign manager? That's terrible.

    ‘Abdü’l-Mecīd-i evvel

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    Nobody expects the Senior Member Lemur's Avatar
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    Default Re: Delusional Numbers

    For what it's worth: "49% of GOP voters nationally say they think that ACORN stole the election for President Obama. We found that 52% of Republicans thought that ACORN stole the 2008 election for Obama, so this is a modest decline, but perhaps smaller than might have been expected given that ACORN doesn't exist anymore."
    Last edited by Lemur; 12-05-2012 at 21:48. Reason: Formatting; decided a single sentence was better set off with quotes than indentation. That's right, I'm gangsta.

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    The Black Senior Member Papewaio's Avatar
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    Cool Re: Delusional Numbers

    Quote Originally Posted by Kival View Post
    That's not the problem. Of course claiming to win is okay but not being able to interpret statistics as a campaign manager? That's terrible.
    Why would the GOP need statistics. That is for god less homosexuals and other deviants.

    All it requires is outsourcing without tender to your buddies and she will be right. None of this internal IT resourcing using open source shennigans and highly scalable cloud compute.
    Our genes maybe in the basement but it does not stop us chosing our point of view from the top.
    Quote Originally Posted by Louis VI the Fat
    Pape for global overlord!!
    Quote Originally Posted by English assassin
    Squid sources report that scientists taste "sort of like chicken"
    Quote Originally Posted by frogbeastegg View Post
    The rest is either as average as advertised or, in the case of the missionary, disappointing.

  10. #10
    smell the glove Senior Member Major Robert Dump's Avatar
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    Default Re: Delusional Numbers

    Quote Originally Posted by Lemur View Post
    For what it's worth: "49% of GOP voters nationally say they think that ACORN stole the election for President Obama. We found that 52% of Republicans thought that ACORN stole the 2008 election for Obama, so this is a modest decline, but perhaps smaller than might have been expected given that ACORN doesn't exist anymore."
    I also heard a lot of blaming Gov Christie, as if New Jersey would have changed anything.

    The DuffelBlog did a satirical piece on how a few thousand delayed absentee votes would have given Romney the election, and for its first few hours of publication it showed at the top of google searches and was carried by several conservative bloggers and quite a few facebookers before people pointed out that it was a joke and an impossibility, at which point the parties deleted the references to the "story"
    Baby Quit Your Cryin' Put Your Clown Britches On!!!

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