Nor was Bush as consistently ahead in state polls in 2004. There was some hope about ground game or getting undecideds, and some cherrypicking of polls etc.

You’re cherry-picking right now.

Bush was ahead 2.1 points in RCP national polls on election day, Obama was only ahead by .7. Moreover, Romney led in national polls in the weeks leading up to the election, while Kerry never led. Gallup had Romney up 5-7 points in the weeks leading to the election, based in part on a huge 9000-voter survey checking party identification.

You say, “pay attention to the polls”, but then ignore Romney’s strength relative to Kerry’s in the major national polls as soon as those polls are inconvenient to your argument.

In other words, you do exactly what you gripe about others here doing in order to support your dubious opinion that Obama’s victory was easier to see coming than Bush’s.

But nothing on the scale I have seen at Hot Air and in the conservative echo chamber.

What scale? Is your analysis here based on math, or just your gut feeling?

Let’s take a look at DailyKOS diaries from 11-1-2004.

Hey look! A prediction poll! What percentage of DailyKOS readers thought Kerry would win the day before the election?

97.4% think Kerry wins with over 270 electoral votes.
65.4% think Kerry wins with over 300 electoral votes.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/11/01/67841/-Electoral-Vote-projection-thread-poll

Wow! Seems like they were even more confident than HotAir readers!

Now that the data has contradicted your false assumptions, will you acknowledge your mistake, or will you dig in your heels and start cherry-picking data to try and resuscitate your false narrative?

Here are some other funny Kos diaries from 11-1-04:

Election Prediction: Kerry with 51% of Vote; 316 EVs
Stephen Yellin predicts Dems retaking WH, Senate and House
GREAT News: I called 50 voters in Ohio, 0 for Bush!!!!!!
Kerry’s horoscope for tomorrow is great!
What the Heck EV Prediction: Kerry 360
Republicans Know. (Lots of speculation that they know they’ve lost)
1960 / 2004 parallels
The Stars say Kerry Wins
John Stewart Wins it for Kerry!
Larry Kudlow Throwing in the Towel on Bush
Scientific prediction (predicts K – 323 EV)
The case for the Kerry landslide
Gallup numbers are even better than they look!
FanFREAKINGtastic poll info for our side!!!

I could go on and on….

There are many dozens of these if you’d care to look…

So my point is that Math matters, and that you would be smart to take Nate Silver seriously from now on.

agirlacamera on November 7, 2012 at 1:04 PM

Honestly, could you miss the mark any more than you have right here?

First of all, HA readers are pretty much primae facie *not* low-info voters. Anyone who regularly reads a political blogis more informed than about 90% of the electorate. And yes, that also applies to people at HuffPo (the political part of the site, at least, not the part that only does Katy Perry/Selena Gomez news), DU, and Kos.

Secondly, we weren’t paying attention to polls? Ed Morissey does more analysis of poll cross-tabs than just about any other pundit on the internet. That’s what all of the snark form liberals is missing. You act like Republicans wanted to predict the election by using Tarot Cards or a Ouija Board. Of course math matters. Of course polls matter. We didn’t buy the polls, because we were certain that turnout wouldn’t match 2008, so D+6 or D+7 was unrealistic for sampling. We ended up being both correct and incorrect; turnout wasn’t nearly as high as 2008 for Obama, yet turnout was also depressed for Romney, so D+6 ended up being accurate.

It’s the same mistake Silver made at BP, that complexity by itself is an indicator of higher quality. PECOTA ended up being outdone by simpler projection systems like CHONE and Marcel, which used much simpler modes of statistical analysis. Marcel in particular was the simplest type of regression analysis possible, yet it often provided a better predictor than the over-complicated systems like PECOTA.

The issue I have is when people treat Reason/Math like a deity and Silver as a unique prophet, called upon to interpret divine information for the masses.

This was nonsense and we were right to call it such. Things happen in campaigns, like debates. Romney had a 1-5 point lead in RCP before the hurricane.

The takeaway should be the polls are not biased (though individual polls often are) but they can change and quickly, so getting the vapors over their state is pretty stupid.

Plenty of high-information voters looked at the same data as Nate Silver did, and came to a different conclusion about it’s meaning.

Again, there were about 10 poll aggregators. They ALL predicted an Obama victory.

Anyway, I won’t keep insisting since I think clearly the lesson HAS been learned and Hot Air will definitely start paying attention to polls.

Chameleon on November 7, 2012 at 1:22 PM

No, I think that is a false equivalency. “Unskewing”, propped up by conservative media as a whole, is pretty unique to this election. Nor was Bush as consistently ahead in state polls in 2004. There was some hope about ground game or getting undecideds, and some cherrypicking of polls etc. But nothing on the scale I have seen at Hot Air and in the conservative echo chamber.

It may be harsh, but surely there’s no excuse for that kind of wrongness. I can imagine low-information voters who pay no attention to politics having no clue about the state of the race, sure. But HA readers are just as misinformed if a whopping 94% are expecting a Romney victory even as of virtually all swing state polls have Obama in the lead. So my point is that Math matters, and that you would be smart to take Nate Silver seriously from now on.

agirlacamera on November 7, 2012 at 1:04 PM

It’s only harsh because you are harsh.

Plenty of high-information voters looked at the same data as Nate Silver did, and came to a different conclusion about it’s meaning. So what? The way you tied their error to a needless and stupid insult reveals more about you and your critical thinking skills than it says anything about them.

It may be harsh, but surely there’s no excuse for that kind of wrongness.

What do you expect? Partisans always engage in wishful thinking prior to elections. All high information posters know this.

Go back and read the Kerry-will-win-in-a-landslide threads from Halloween ’04 on DailyKos.

The fact of the matter is that people use reason primarily to reinforce their own opinions or wishes. We all do, and that includes you. Ironically, you are using your reason to puff yourself up as a rational thinker (what you want to believe), while making a dubious assertion that wishful-thinking among partisans is related to knowledge of election issues.

According to the survey yesterday 94% of Hot Air readers thought Romney would win. Which is you what you would expect from low, low, low information voters.

agirlacamera on November 7, 2012 at 12:48 PM

What a revealing comment, which is what you’d expect from someone with low, low, low rational argumentation skills.