memorialising my predictions

smoke

here's an awful lot of it gathering.   i freely admit to the flicker of hope that kerry could still win, but much more than that i'm sickened by the thought of all this being true. 

it finally broke into tv news last night.  watch oberman and read his blog follow up.   this is the first article i read about it.  if nothing else check out these graphs of some florida counties. some are claiming (i haven't seen demonstrative links) that the discredited AP exit polls in states like ohio and florida actually hold up against counties with paper records, then consistently deviate in auditless ones.  that'll really be something if true.  blog scuttlebutt is that the dems are working quietly and will fight when the numbers add up.

on a different note, looks better than .

 

our money, our values

lue states pay for everything. 90% of the red states have a negative net contribution to the federal govt. blue states export tax revenue, the reds import it. this means that red states don't cover the services they consume, much less contribute to national ones. please tell me how i'm wrong, but if you do, explain it with a pretence of separation. i.e. if big red is a separate country, what is their budget like? and if you want to rattle on about china and other international threats, tell me why old blue couldn't sustain a military budget similar to the one we have now? big red couldn't afford a military. they'd be a big, angry canada.

i know secession seems farfetched, but when you consider things from a longer term perspective, don't changes seem likely? if you looked at a map of north america in 200 years, wouldn't the stranger scenario have it look the same? 

more practically and in the nearer term, maybe the dems should develop a federalist theme of keeping money closer to home. our money, our values. why should big, rich, liberal states like new york and california let the midwest decide how to spend their money? i don't generally like thinking that way, but maybe the reds need to be starved out. probably a slow process to make changes like that, but i bet some pain could be created soon enough. it also seems like an issue that could take hold in congressional races and even cut across party lines among red officials in blue states. 

mandate schmandate

knew this would happen and it's driving me up the wall.  it's no surprise that they claim it, but that the media sings right along is ridiculous.   i just dictionary.com'd it to see what it really means.  to my surprise, i didn't find a definition that matched this usage.   A command or an authorization given by a political electorate to its representative is the genre, but that's as close as it gets.  you could apply that definition to any election that produces a winner.   they use mandate to mean that the people are overwhelmingly unified and speaking with clarity to their leader.  this may be true, but only for 51% of the country.  the other half couldn't be screaming their disagreement more loudly.  and really the republicans aren't even that unified.  many don't want more reckless tax cuts, unnecessary wars, and unchecked spending.  they want true conservatism. 

i doubt if many would dispute the suggestion that holding the election a few days earlier or later might produce the opposite result, at least electorally.  same for 2000.   the country is teetering between two sharply opinionated halves.   we didn't have a spoiler this year, so one guy was bound to get a majority.   as i pointed out yesterday, reagan, with 58% and every state but one, could claim a mandate.

it's fitting that their first message is deceptive.   it also reveals the insincerity of their desire to bridge the divide.  they couldn't care less.

concession

well what to say... at the risk of sounding sour, my biggest concern is that we face another divisive four years. emboldened and with an even more compliant congress, who knows where they'll take things. but don't tell me about a mandate. when reagan took every state except mondale's home state, that was a mandate. bush has been lucky to face two milquetoast competitors. clinton would've cleaned his clock.

in any event my prediction was significantly off and my streak is over.

mood erosion

hile i was just stocking up on my weekly supply of rice and beans, i ran into an american friend, which is kind of typical in notting hill.  what's probably also typical, but surprises me nonetheless, was her resignation to kerry's looming defeat.  at worst she should see it as close.  check out this in the washington post today:

Bush's aides predicted victory when talking on the record, pointing to polls showing that the race remained a tossup, both nationally and in key states. But despite the insistence that all was well, the erosion in the moods of Bush's inner circle over the past two weeks was unmistakable. Several of his close advisers said they were concerned because the president had achieved no last-minute momentum, and Democratic turnout was looking as if it might swamp the Bush-Cheney campaign's projections.

A Republican official who is privy to Bush-Cheney strategy and polling said that as the incumbent, Bush should be further ahead of Kerry in polls. "Some of them have been moving in the right direction, but it isn't enough," the official said. "Karl [Rove] is a big believer in the bandwagon effect, but there has been nothing over the past week for the president to use it to turn it around."

there's more of this out there and similar stuff speaking to the upbeat atmosphere in the kerry camp.  both sides know it's close, but they also know kerry has the edge.

so why do so many think kerry is losing?

watching cnn doesn't help.  last night i watched them quote their outdated poll, rather than their fresh poll.  the new poll had just been quoted minutes earlier by cnn europe, but when they went to the live guy on the campaign trail, he quoted one several days old, that of course was much more favourable to bush.  these were both cnn/gallup polls.  they did it again an hour later.  when the problem is chronic, how can this be anything other than deliberate?  what they also don't report is the misrepresentative party id in their sample.  they have their pollster reasons for not adjusting, but isn't it relevant to mention that in the latest gallup poll, which shows a neck and neck race, republicans were over-sampled by 5 pts and dems under-sampled by 4? 

btw, 5-4 was my prediction of any supreme court vote resulting from this election.

5-4

y slide rule is going to be a lonely little dude tomorrow.     but i'm buoyed in anticipation of all the election law i'll be learning over the next few weeks.

ohio's jim crow voting act was upheld last night by a three judge panel.  fittingly, the two republican appointees said yea and the clinton appointee, nay.  i love america's legal system and will argue heatedly why it's not over lawyered or excessively litigious. that a close election spills into the courts seems natural to me, but the partisan decision making that sat the current president and the developing redux really hurts.   

"It is confidence in the men and women who administer the judicial system that is the true backbone of the rule of law. Time will one day heal the wound to that confidence that will be inflicted by today’s decision. One thing, however, is certain. Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year’s Presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the Nation’s confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law.      Stevens, J., dissenting,   Bush v. Gore Dec 12, 2000

penultimate

hen i find myself in agreement with tucker carlson, it makes me want a bath.  in any event he's off on the electoral count, but has the gross percentages right.   not much to say about osama, but what a treat to imagine rove's (and moritz's) glee, only to have it make no difference.  democracy corps (dem pollster) says it helped kerry, but their question was pretty slanted:

-It makes me think that George Bush took his eye off the ball in Afghanistan and diverted resources to Iraq.
-It underscores the importance of George Bush's approach to the war on terrorism.
By 10 points (46 to 36 percent), voters were more likely to think that Bush took his eye off the ball.

zogby has new mexico back at a tie.  that'd be great.  in fact he has kerry leading or tied everywhere he's tracking except nv and oh.  bush can at least be happy he won't have to stay up past his bedtime tuesday.

that makes me think of another prediction category...  what will bush do with his retirement?  i predict he'll be an ineffectual board member of several oil, gas and timber companies, the occasional speaking engagement at oral roberts university will keep him 'polished', and he'll join the oj (people pay to play golf with me) circuit. 

saturday

here should be even odds on whether kerry breaks 300.  if you don't see kerry as the favourite to take 270, you're a pessimist or a republican.  though my confidence in some states is waning, i'm locking down my prediction from thursday.  kerry has the momentum.  bush is stuck nationally at 48 and that's where he will finish - or worse.   

despite all the obvious (some even compelling) arguments, osama's video won't make a discernible difference.  more than anything, the video inspires a "butt out of our election" sentiment.  the basic notion that it'll shake people one way or the other underestimates the public's ability to assess these things.  typical media overthink.   

if a story could surpass the election itself on monday, it would be more bad news for bush.  but that won't happen.  monday news will be dominated by 'tomorrow america votes', problems in florida, and poll stories.   the thing is done.

friday...

othing is compelling me to change my electoral count today, which is good because i need to make my national prediction.  i've been thinking for a while that it'll be around 52/48, but here's my official popular vote prediction: kerry 51%, bush 48%, and nader/other 1%.

just in case nobody is reading the links, here's my thinking on why ties go to kerry and stuff.  the 'incumbent rule' is the idea that the sitting pres usually does equal or worse to where they're polling right before the election.  so assuming that holds true, and that things remain pretty constant for the next four days, bush's numbers aren't going to change much.  the challenger, however, usually gains.  i think i read somewhere that the average is 4 points.  so kerry's numbers represent his floor, while bush's numbers represent his ceiling.  a number of articles have been written about this recently and mysterypollster has some good explanations.   so if a state shows a tie, i figure bush will stay where he is and kerry will pick up a bit.  in states where bush leads, but is showing numbers below 48, i'm figuring kerry will pass him in the end.  michigan and minnesota from zogby's state poll yesterday are good examples of this (although i don't accept that bush is leading in either of those states).

the feedback was fun yesterday.  if anybody comes back today, make your national predictions in the comments on this post.  price is right rules are not in effect.

thursday before...

zogby fans should be happy. his battle state tracking yesterday finally had kerry up in ohio which is consistent with most pollsters. if you do the tally using zogby numbers, giving the michigan(47/47) and iowa(45/45) ties to kerry, kerry takes it with 288 to bush's 250. but that's not my prediction.

i'm still saying kerry's gonna take florida, arkansas, new mexico and i'm adding colorado. so today's bet is 326 for kerry and 212 for bush.

another interesting bit from zogby's stuff is the daily variation in his national tracking numbers. he says that yesterday kerry had a 5% lead in the numbers for just that day. even with that strong one day showing, kerry trails in the 3 day aggregate on both sides of it. i doubt zogby is unique in this, he just occasionally shares the daily numbers. for the poll obsessed.