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by kubla000 on Thu May 08, 2008 at 10:03:06 AM PDT
:-)
Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities.
- Albert Einstein
by Walt starr on Thu May 08, 2008 at 10:04:54 AM PDT
[ Parent ]
When will we see demographic based regressions of the 50 states? I appreciate the Poll Average Regressions, however you've been proven more accurate when you go based on Demographics of certain states.
by Steven R on Thu May 08, 2008 at 10:07:06 AM PDT
Thanks for all you do - and don't take the 1st job offer.
Jabberwonk! Reality Based Liberal Link Dump
by Jimmy Crackcorn on Thu May 08, 2008 at 10:14:57 AM PDT
"You know what the real fight is? The real fight is the definition of what is reality." Bernie Sanders
by shpilk on Thu May 08, 2008 at 10:32:30 AM PDT
It's "Poblano", not "Pablano": the second letter is an "o".
Generally, when you request major effort, it helps to get the person's name right. ;-)
© sardonyx; all rights reserved
by sardonyx on Thu May 08, 2008 at 10:29:30 AM PDT
I said here on Tuesday night, and I've said it again. Although Barack over-performed some of Poblano's projections north of Indianapolis, Poblano was pretty much spot on with his analysis. This wasn't luck. The dude is good.....
Big up to you P.
by rapcetera on Thu May 08, 2008 at 01:24:48 PM PDT
Thanks for doing this, Poblano, and thanks for giving it its rightful tribute, Meteor Blades.
"And life is grand/and I will say this at the risk of falling from favor/With those of you who have appointed yourselves/To expect us to say something darker."
by Oregon Bear on Thu May 08, 2008 at 10:05:25 AM PDT
But it doesn't tell me what really matters about this election...namely how Obama's support amongst gay/lesbian dentists compares to Clinton's negatives with Inuit single mothers between the ages of 32 and 54.
Has news coverage of presidential candidates always been so obsessively concerned with polling minutiae, or is this just the first time I've noticed? Every time I watch the mainstream news they throw tons of statistical info and demographic breakdowns at me, and none of it informs me in the least about the candidates.
by Jeremy Henderson on Thu May 08, 2008 at 10:41:04 AM PDT
There is a whole lot of information on Poblano's site, I think the data you are looking for is probably there somewhere...
"They're trying to fool you. They're trying to scare you. And they're not telling you the truth." Obama '08
by bawbie on Thu May 08, 2008 at 10:43:07 AM PDT
Seriously, I wanted to tell Poblano to "Get a life" with all the data that was on there.
But then, where would political geeks like me go to get their data?
"I hate the gooks. I'll hate them as long as I live." -- John McCain
by wmtriallawyer on Thu May 08, 2008 at 10:06:40 AM PDT
All this attention, it can't be long before Barack calls him up for a Jobby Job
by Steven R on Thu May 08, 2008 at 10:07:53 AM PDT
because then he'll stop blogging :(
by unertl on Thu May 08, 2008 at 10:11:11 AM PDT
by TheOpinionGuy on Thu May 08, 2008 at 10:30:16 AM PDT
my rudimentary espanol skills lead me to believe that he's a he.
John McCain won't insure children
by Magster on Thu May 08, 2008 at 10:34:08 AM PDT
nothing about the gender of the person, actually.
by Mother of Zeus on Thu May 08, 2008 at 10:40:53 AM PDT
...Spanish speaking (subcontinent) Indian, in which case choosing a name ending in a vowel would be more likely to indicate the chooser is female, according to usual Indian naming conventions.
by Sir Walter Raleigh on Thu May 08, 2008 at 11:12:55 AM PDT
He said so on his site when this came up earlier. I can't find the link; it's buried back in his archive somewhere, though.
"Getting reelected is the only true moral imperative that politicians believe in." -- Anon
by zackamac on Thu May 08, 2008 at 11:21:05 AM PDT
The Corrupt Bastards Club: What the GOP calls itself behind closed doors.
by 8ackgr0und N015e on Thu May 08, 2008 at 06:39:21 PM PDT
But that goes without saying..
McCain wants to send your job overseas.
by GoogleBonhoeffer on Thu May 08, 2008 at 10:12:15 AM PDT
diaries since before he even created 538..... He's the master and I don't know a thing about him. He must have some formal political science studies though, and I agree with his analysis about 99.999999999% of the time. He is much smarter than a lot of the "pro's" and I'm extremely pleased that he is starting to get some "props." 538 is a daily read!
But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false--about Hope ~BHO -6.38/-7.08
by OH 09 Dem on Thu May 08, 2008 at 10:40:00 AM PDT
KO seems to be pretty good about picking up on this sort of thing.
Nicely done Poblano!
Fight The Smears
by Rappaccini on Thu May 08, 2008 at 10:17:11 AM PDT
Does he want to go public with his name? Maybe he can dress up as a chili pepper -- or a sausage, like one of those mascots at baseball games?
by zackamac on Thu May 08, 2008 at 10:40:28 AM PDT
Between Bill Orally, and a Chili Pepper.
I'd choose the Chili Pepper.
Poblano wouldn't be so bad.
Big Papi, The Hoff, Cher, Madonna Poblano!
by Rappaccini on Thu May 08, 2008 at 10:51:21 AM PDT
...and you're just using models, wouldn't Pablano's predictions be rather fatalistic? So why would Obama hire him?
I'm so bitter that people grimace when they see me walking down the street.
by Junkyard Dem on Thu May 08, 2008 at 10:20:04 AM PDT
Pablano's predictions could be used to stear advertising dollars and directed campaigning. You could know, based upon a counties demographics, what type of Barack to portray... It's like taking a survey of the land and knowing exactly where and how to campaign. Not by the individual person but by an area's geographic make up.
by Steven R on Thu May 08, 2008 at 10:23:02 AM PDT
They're not fatalistic. His primary election models are updated constantly (also, they've been undergoing continuous improvement based on studying patterns of past errors in the predictions). More importantly, the demographic model provides a baseline for the expected vote outcome and definitely helps in targeting of markets. But his general election models use a combination of "history," demographics, and recent polling results.
by zackamac on Thu May 08, 2008 at 10:43:56 AM PDT
Ortiz/Ramírez '08
by theran on Thu May 08, 2008 at 10:57:24 AM PDT
... is that nothing either campaign did in the last two months makes a bit of difference: demographic groups vote for Obama or Clinton in some proportion, and if you add up the groups, you get the vote. That's why some call it fatalistic.
Kaus criticized it because he was convinced that the Wright affair was a game-changer, but Poblano's model completely ignored any "Wright effect" and still beat everyone. My guess is that Wright, or the gas tax pander, simply confirmed to people what they already believed: redneck types uncomfortable with electing a black man used Wright as justifying evidence, and educated liberals used the gas tax pander as justifying evidence, but they'd have voted the same way anyway.
by Joe Buck on Thu May 08, 2008 at 11:23:20 AM PDT
Pob retrains his linear model fairly often, to incorporate recent voting. So there is some interaction between the states, though only through demographic features.
Moreover, what the campaigns did between then and now was to motivate their base. What they did not do was completely change the identity politics map in two months, which nobody would have expected anyway.
The game is to build a coalition and maximize it. What we saw is that Wright and Gas taxes had basically no effect on Obama's ability to do this, bloggers freaking out aside.
by theran on Thu May 08, 2008 at 11:32:09 AM PDT
Back and forth between CNN Politics and 538 when the Indiana vote was coming in - the total vote, projected spread and demographics were very helpful in my keeping my sanity that evening!
by griz4u on Thu May 08, 2008 at 10:36:24 AM PDT
our Ben Franklins, Thom Paines, John Adams, etc.,etc. I've said it before and I still believe it... these are the people...our smart, hardworking bloggers... that are the 21st Century patriots.
by merryberry on Thu May 08, 2008 at 01:59:52 PM PDT
it's pretty much always on my screen.
~Doc~
-7.88 -8,77 Just a wine sipping, brie eating, $6 coffee drinking, Prius driving, over educated, liberal, white, activist, male New Englander for Barack Obama.
by EquationDoc on Thu May 08, 2008 at 10:08:14 AM PDT
John McCain - Like W. Only Older.
Funny McCain Pics archive updated regularly
by InsultComicDog on Thu May 08, 2008 at 10:25:50 AM PDT
I wrote him asking him why he named his blog 538, but he has not replied. Do the numbers mean anything special?
Anyone know? why?
by wuod kwatch on Thu May 08, 2008 at 10:14:55 AM PDT
There are 538 votes in the electoral college
Obama or Die!
by bigmikek7 on Thu May 08, 2008 at 10:16:27 AM PDT
how come i didnt figure that out! thanks
by wuod kwatch on Thu May 08, 2008 at 10:19:19 AM PDT
538.
by Chammy Nooks on Thu May 08, 2008 at 10:16:32 AM PDT
by wuod kwatch on Thu May 08, 2008 at 10:19:31 AM PDT
And this is the first question in it.
John McCain is likeable enough, but he doesn't know Shiite from Shinola.
by sab39 on Thu May 08, 2008 at 10:29:39 AM PDT
he's posted it's from a spare bedroom.
Nice to see him getting his due recognition.
3 June 2008: I join the Democratic Party
by Rorgg on Thu May 08, 2008 at 10:18:37 AM PDT
He's obviously a latte-sipping elitist, with his "extra bedroom". Us working, hard-working Americans, white Americans don't have fancy "extra bedrooms" to play in. No, we develop our sophisticated spreadsheets standing up at the kitchen table, where God intended regressions to be run, dammit!
by tomchaps on Thu May 08, 2008 at 10:45:44 AM PDT
either, if he has enough spare time to be insightful and accurate!
by Rorgg on Thu May 08, 2008 at 11:10:17 AM PDT
with all of the state-by-state general election polls, some weighting, and a dash of the election results from 2004 and 2000.
I found 538 a week ago, and just ended deleted everything I'd been working on myself. Poblano is a statistical genius, and has to be the biggest spreadsheet geek in the world.
Kudos to him.
Obama/Kennedy '08
by Yirmiyahu on Thu May 08, 2008 at 10:33:04 AM PDT
election night, I had 3 tabs running...
DK, CNN excellent county maps returns, and 538.
I guess everyone's got their own blog now.
by zonk on Thu May 08, 2008 at 10:40:35 AM PDT
despair is the worst sin
by jakarta on Thu May 08, 2008 at 11:28:56 AM PDT
wide narrow
View Story | 251 comments