So after PPP was the most accurate polling around this cycle, Redstate is still in denial and claiming 'shenanigans'. Apparently, weighing the makeup of the electorate correctly is cheating.
Neil Stevens shares his wisdom in his post titled 'PPP’s polls were rigged all along'.
New York Magazine was trying to be sympathetic to the popular polling figures on its own side of the political, but let out a secret in the process: Public Policy Polling cooked the books all along.
Stevens read an article in the New York Magazine in which PPP's director Todd Jensen explained their accuracy by following through on their hunch that the electorate would consist of the same level of turnout by minorities and youth in 2008.
To Stevens, this is some kind of crazy talk. Speaking of crazy talk, I will let him explain:
I don’t remember anyone willing to say PPP was actively rigging the polls to reach chosen results, but there it is in black and white. Jensen decided in advance what he wanted the electorate to look like, and so tweaked the numbers until he got what he wanted. This isn’t a whole lot different from what Research 2000 admitted to doing, folks.
In science, it’s not just that you got the answer you wanted. It’s the process that matters. PPP, Nate Silver, and the New York Times – the heroes in New York Magazine’s story – are not practicing science. They’re taking their own beliefs and wrapping them up in a cargo cult.
Maybe that’s why Silver didn’t even try to project the House of Representatives this time. I didn’t have time to do any projections this cycle because I had to take a full time job. Nate Silver is a paid professional with the New York Times. What excuse is there for him?
All I have to say is.... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Even the commentors are not having any of it:
Nate Silver isn't a pollster... Nor is he affiliated with PPP. Not sure why you bring him up.
Idon't get it...
Look, in the battle of PPP vs. Jay Cost, PPP won. They made a hunch, but a hunch that had almost 100% accuracy, and was one verified in just about every other bit of state polling. Votamatic and Nate Silver nailed the electoral college, and Sam Wang nailed the popular vote to the tenth of a percent, and called every Senate race accurately. Their "secret sauce" was state polling.
As much as Silver's smug self-satisfaction in the recent interviews puts me on edge, he didn't "choose" a conclusion by selecting only lib-leaning polls. He based it all on state polling.
Plus, I'm really losing track of the argument that Silver was "choosing" a victor at all, when he just predicted who would win, correctly, from a wide range of data. It's not as though he wildly overestimated Dem victory margins. He was generally more modest than PPP and other lib-leaning poll margins, and closer to a weighted average of all the polls he considered.
Nate Silver based his calculations on a number of national and state polls and applied it to his system. He was 49/50 in 2008 and 50/50 in 2012. It's probability and therefore science. It's not an exact science but he has outperformed pretty much everyone else
These arguments are killing us folks. Rove needs to retire. What a disaster.
The objective data was created by how the respondents self defined. This was D+6. Romney/Rove pushed back on this data because they could not convince the media or the money backers they had a fighting chance if they bought into reality. This was a sad case of intentional self dellusion.
I'm sorry, but arguing with someone who got the right answer is a hard sell
The fact that we're still talking about polls -- especially the ones that proved accurate, is very scary. We should be talking about how Gallup and Rasmussen were wrong, not about the ones who guessed right. We're throwing the wrong stones in the wrong direction when we really need to figure out how to refine our message