Why do Team Obama and Team Romney run so many ads here in Colorado?
So very, very many. May God, the FSM, and Eugene Polley be praised for the mute button.
The answer is that their internal calculations resemble those of Nate Silver over at 538 dot com. I would invite interested readers to click over, observe the right column of charts and tables, and page down until you see the map labelled "Return on Investment Index" ... which title shouldn't surprise anyone who actually read the title of this diary before clicking.
I here reproduced the associated table:
Order |
State |
Rating |
Order |
State |
Rating |
Order |
State |
Rating
|
1 |
Nev. |
10.4 |
6 |
Colo. |
3.0 |
11 |
Mich. |
1.1
|
2 |
Ohio |
8.9 |
7 |
Fla. |
2.0 |
12 |
Ore. |
0.9
|
3 |
N.H. |
5.6 |
8 |
Wis. |
1.4 |
13 |
Minn. |
0.8
|
4 |
Iowa |
4.3 |
9 |
Pa. |
1.4 |
14 |
Maine 2 Dist. 2 |
0.8
|
5 |
Va. |
3.6 |
10 |
N.M. |
1.4 |
15 |
N.J. |
0.2
|
Discussion below the Orange Squiggle of Power.
The "Rating" columns are the data which requires explanation.
Imagine, if you will, that the 2012 election comes down to one state, like 2000 and Florida.
And that furthermore that one state comes down to one voter.
And effectively that one voter chooses who our next President will be. That is, after several billion dollars of campaign spending, the United States winds up with One Voter Who Decides.
This is obviously a fairly unlikely scenario, but it is possible. The "Rating" assigns a relative chance to the voters of each state that they will be that one voter who chooses the next President. So Nevada has a Rating of 10.4, while New Jersey has a rating of 0.2. This means that a voter in Nevada has a likelihood of being the One Voter Who Decides about 520 times that of the New Jersey voter. Nate is comparing one tiny probability to another even tinier probability.
Obviously it is unlikely that someone in a deep red or blue state will be the O.V.W.D. And while larger states have more Electoral College votes, they also have more voters.
So why bother you with all this? Because if you have a chance to volunteer, and the ability to travel; or money to donate that you can somehow target; Nevada is lovely between now and November. Or Ohio, New Hampshire, Iowa, Virginia, Colorado, or Florida.
Just don't turn on the television. Seriously, don't. You'll regret it.
While we're at it, notice the trend lines of Nate's prediction of Obama's chance of winning. It has slowly trended upwards and is now at a high of 70%. I'm sure Team Romney has their own analysis, and if this continues you will see Romney attempt a Game Changer. The return of Snow Snooki is upon us!