Imagine yourself on a high-speed train barreling across the country on election night. You know you are coming to a junction where there are seven spurs and you know that the train is going to take one of them on a random basis. Six of them are fine, you will continue on your trip in safety. But you have been told that one has faulty rails that will result in the locomotive catastrophically jumping the tracks.
This is not a situation conducive to comfort and ease but it is exactly where we are with respect to Nate Silver's prognostication. He is giving Romney a one in seven chance of winning tomorrow. You can bet that if I were in that train I would be doing whatever I could to improve chances the train would take a good track, even to the last second. I wouldn't be sitting complacently in the club car congratulating myself on having avoided disaster.
The problem is that many people see an 86.3 to 13.7 percent advantage and because of the wide disparity of numbers underestimate the actual danger. But, provided Silver's numbers are right, there is still a one in seven chance that disaster will strike. We are quite far from a quaranteed victory so this is not the time for complacency.
I just wanted to take a moment off from making calls to remind people of the true situation. Now it's time to go back to work. Thanks.