2024 Presidential Election thread

[Motown Bombers]

 

[oblong]

8 minutes ago, Motown Bombers said:

Has there ever been a former Vice President who endorsed the candidate of the opposite party?

Well you could go all the way back to the first VP, John Adams. But that's not fair.

 

In recent times maybe John Nance Garner.  He was FDR's VP in his first two terms and they had a falling out and he became a critic.  I don't know if he endorsed republicans but he wasn't happy with Roosevelt.

 

[mtutiger]

18 minutes ago, Motown Bombers said:

Basically, Silver is unskewing polls. Even though his polls has Harris up, he believes she is going to fall back down, so he's skewing them to Trump. Basically, after all his talk about trusting the data, he isn't trusting the data. Places like Decision Desk HQ have Harris in the lead, and Cook has been moving a bunch of down ballot races towards Democrats. 

Setting aside the quality of polling hasn't been great (ie. a lot of Rasmussen/Trafalger fly-by-night stuff) and Silver seemingly takes these entities at face value, my understanding is that he built in an expectation of a Convention bounce into his model. Polls since the convention have shown maybe 0.5-1% gain nationally, which is below whatever the model expects, so the model penalizes Harris and will do so until this effect is no longer taken into account in the model.

If that is indeed the case, one would expect to see Harris' odds in the model increase starting next week and run closer to DDHQ or 538 (debate impacts nothwithstanding). Of course, a lot of folks don't trust Nate Silver these days (TBH, I'm not sure he's the God that he's treated as in the pundit world myself) and, if said effect doesn't wear away and bring about odds changes, it will end up raising more questions IMO

Edited September 6 by mtutiger

[Motown Bombers]

 

[gehringer_2]

52 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

Setting aside the quality of polling hasn't been great (ie. a lot of Rasmussen/Trafalger fly-by-night stuff) and Silver seemingly takes these entities at face value, my understanding is that he built in an expectation of a Convention bounce into his model. Polls since the convention have shown maybe 0.5-1% gain nationally, which is below whatever the model expects, so the model penalizes Harris and will do so until this effect is no longer taken into account in the model.

If that is indeed the case, one would expect to see Harris' odds in the model increase starting next week and run closer to DDHQ or 538 (debate impacts nothwithstanding). Of course, a lot of folks don't trust Nate Silver these days (TBH, I'm not sure he's the God that he's treated as in the pundit world myself) and, if said effect doesn't wear away and bring about odds changes, it will end up raising more questions IMO

I recently read that polling response rates are now under 1%. There is almost nothing 'random' about who and why some people still answer a phone or text. So they are no longer actually random sampling, what they are doing is regressing the survey data they can get to correlate well with what they expect as a reasonable outcome or past outcomes and then reporting that their poll is reproducing a reasonable outcome. But any idea that they are getting a representative sample of the population - which is the fundamental assumption undergirding sampled polling, is pure fantasy today. What they are doing will work as long as change remains incremental, because linearity will always hold well enough over small increments. But they are guaranteed to miss anything big happening. Which is not to argue that it is, only they the polls are locked into methodology making them likely to miss it.

Edited September 6 by gehringer_2

[mtutiger]

12 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

I recently read that polling response rates are now under 1%. There is almost nothing 'random' about who and why some people still answer a phone or text. So they are no longer actually random sampling, what they are doing is regressing the survey data they can get to correlate well with what they expect as a reasonable outcome or past outcomes and then reporting that their poll is reproducing a reasonable outcome. But any idea that they are getting a representative sample of the population - which is the fundamental assumption undergirding sampled polling, is pure fantasy today. What they are doing will work as long as change remains incremental, because linearity will always hold well enough over small increments. But they are guaranteed to miss anything big happening. Which is not to argue that it is, only they the polls are locked into methodology making them likely to miss it.

Your comments re: response rates are spot on. And pollsters do try to weight and correct samples based on various factors to try to correct for the issues.

Silver's model is a different discussion.... the polls show somewhere around a 3-4% nationally, and aggregate averages of the swing states, at least at this moment, show Kamala over 270 *based on polling today*... yet, unlike every other aggregator, he's showing a 62% probability that Trump wins.

Ultimately, the aggregator discussion is a discussion about nothing, the difference between Kamala having a 55% win probability (what 538 and DDHQ show) and what Silver shows isn't that statistically huge. But given his reputation, a lot of people do hang off of his every pronouncement and, lo and behold, here we are talking about it. 

[Motown Bombers]

 

[mtutiger]

Again, still kinda ambivalent, but wow nonetheless.

[Motown Bombers]

Emerson lately has tended to be a right leaning poll. 

Edited September 6 by Motown Bombers

[Motor City Sonics]

10 hours ago, oblong said:

Have you seen the house on Pelham, just N of Outer Dr with the big banner of Trump raising his fist after some glass cut his hear?

 

I flip it off every time I drive past it. 

[gehringer_2]

4 hours ago, mtutiger said:

But given his reputation, a lot of people do hang off of his every pronouncement and, lo and behold, here we are talking about it. 

I think you have to pretty much start being skeptical of anyone/everyone once they start getting a little famous or making big  $$. It's a very distorting thing.

[chasfh]

4 hours ago, Motown Bombers said:

 

The plan is working according to plan … 

 

[mtutiger]

1 hour ago, gehringer_2 said:

I think you have to pretty much start being skeptical of anyone/everyone once they start getting a little famous or making big  $$. It's a very distorting thing.

The mask slipped a bit with COVID... prior to, he was much more focused on the data, but he kinda veered off and became what he had previously loathed, a pundit. That continues apace today, along with the gambling (which, tbh, should instantly make people skeptical of his model for ethics reasons IMO).

There's a bit of a historical parallel to a figure that comes up in engineering ethics in my field: William Mulholland. Mulholland is the man most responsible for making Los Angeles what it is today, a thriving metropolis, completing the LA Aqueduct and other public works projects that delivered water from the Sierra Nevadas down the otherwise dry and barren LA Basin. Mulholland was a self taught civil engineer, no formal schooling, and, from the ground floor, worked his ass off to climb the food chain to become Chief Engineer at the DWP. (Obviously a lot of the work he did in the early years wasn't good, such as swindling landowners in Rural California, but strictly from an engineering perspective, the body of work was impressive). At his height, he could have run for Mayor... and to this day, Mulholland Drive and other things in LA are named after the guy.

But as his career went on, he got distracted. He got lazy. He became further and further resistant to criticism. And eventually his career ended: the St. Francis Dam, which he inspected hours prior, collapsed and killed over 400 people.

The parallel to Silver is that he hustled and built a model that saw great success in prior election cycles, particularly in 2012. And who knows, maybe he's got it all figured out this time too.... but he seems... distracted to me. He seems like he dedicates a lot of time to other pursuits, such as sports gambling and poker, and he's incredibly resistant to any sort of criticism that he gets. Gets really defensive. And is just coasting on his reputation. 

That's when I start asking questions.... as adults, no matter what we do for a living, you always have to be learning, you always have to be trying to improve yourself, and you should never be getting high off of your own supply. Because that's how you lose a step, and that's when bad things can start happening career wise.

Edited September 7 by mtutiger

[oblong]

19 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

The mask slipped a bit with COVID... prior to, he was much more focused on the data, but he kinda veered off and became what he had previously loathed, a pundit. That continues apace today, along with the gambling (which, tbh, should instantly make people skeptical of his model for ethics reasons IMO).

There's a bit of a historical parallel to a figure that comes up in engineering ethics in my field: William Mulholland. Mulholland is the man most responsible for making Los Angeles what it is today, a thriving metropolis, completing the LA Aqueduct and other public works projects that delivered water from the Sierra Nevadas down the otherwise dry and barren LA Basin. Mulholland was a self taught civil engineer, no formal schooling, and, from the ground floor, worked his ass off to climb the food chain to become Chief Engineer at the DWP. (Obviously a lot of the work he did in the early years wasn't good, such as swindling landowners in Rural California, but strictly from an engineering perspective, the body of work was impressive). At his height, he could have run for Mayor... and to this day, Mulholland Drive and other things in LA are named after the guy.

But as his career went on, he got distracted. He got lazy. He became further and further resistant to criticism. And eventually his career ended: the St. Francis Dam, which he inspected hours prior, collapsed and killed over 400 people.

 

I learned about him after watching Chinatown and reading a few books about the movie.  The character of Mulray was loosely based on Muhlholland. I had no idea on the history of the valley. 

[oblong]

3 hours ago, Motor City Sonics said:

I flip it off every time I drive past it. 

I see it 4-5 times a day. I go on brief 5 minute walks thru out the day and on my walk I see it as I come up Westminster Ct. looking right at me.  

[Motown Bombers]

 

[Mr.TaterSalad]

Mother Jones: Lie by Lie: A Timeline of How We Got Into Iraq

The irony of Haliburton Cheney speaking out against someone who lies to their supporters is quite rich. Haliburton Cheney literally lied all the time to get us into a war in Iraq so the company he was affiliated with could get no-bid contracts to work on the oilfields in Iraq. 

I hate Trump and want to see him defeated and sent to the dustbin of history. But I refuse to let history be whitewashed over and forget about what Haliburton Cheney and DubyaMD did to get us into the Iraq War and repercussions of their lies.

Edited September 7 by Mr.TaterSalad

[LaceyLou]

10 minutes ago, Mr.TaterSalad said:

Mother Jones: Lie by Lie: A Timeline of How We Got Into Iraq

The irony of Haliburton Cheney speaking out against someone who lies to their supporters is quite rich. Haliburton Cheney literally lied all the time to get us into a war in Iraq so the company he was affiliated with could get no-bid contracts to work on the oilfields in Iraq. 

I hate Trump and want to see him defeated and sent to the dustbin of history. But I refuse to let history be whitewashed over and forget about what Haliburton Cheney and DubyaMD did to get us into the Iraq War and repercussions of their lies.

He's so evil that even **** Cheney won't vote for him.

[Mr.TaterSalad]

1 minute ago, LaceyLou said:

He's so evil that even **** Cheney won't vote for him.

Lying your way into a war that killed over 4,000 American servicemembers and hundreds-of-thousands of Iraqi civilians and caused upheaval in the Middle East is pretty darn evil. There isn't much more evil in this world than the horrors of war. Were that war a legitimate action, needed to save human beings from extermination or to liberate an entire continent or free people from bondage like WW2 or The Civil War, it would be a different story.

But Iraq and Saddam Hussein were no threat to the Untied States or any of our western or eastern allies. And while Saddam was himself a brutal tyrant and dictator, we can't be in the business of policing the world and removing every dictator from power. We certainly shouldn't be doing it so a company that the Vice President of the United States is affiliated with can get no-bid contracts to work on the oil fields in that country. The case for that war was all built on lies, fabrications, and doctored intelligence. Cheney had a huge hand in creating and promoting those lies to get us into a war in Iraq. So again, it's ironic that Cheney would be condemning someone else for lying to their supporters when he and Bush lied to an entire nation.

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, Mr.TaterSalad said:

. The case for that war was all built on lies, fabrications, and doctored intelligence.

the funny thing is that to be fair to the neo-con intellectuals, some of them were making the case for military action to remove Hussein without the lies. Before the WMD machine cracked up and Hans Blix hadn't been libelled, guys like Wolfowitz were arguing that the sanctions regime was a failure. That they were more effective at killing Iraqi children with poor medical care and malnutrition and destroying what was left of Iraqi civil society than they were at dislodging Saddam. There was a reasonable argument there, but of course it wasn't one that was moving US  public opinion very much, so that's when when the Bush admin decided to crank up the false WMD marketing, and for that, I agree completely that in a reasonable world Bush, Cheney, Tenet and Rumsfeld should all have gone to jail because they knew exactly what they were doing. Well that Shrub knew what he was doing is probably an overstatement, but he was certainly much too eager to be misled.

[oblong]

Meanwhile in 2024….

i don’t see the point in bringing up something from 2003 as it relates to today unless it’s to somehow bring legitimacy to the idea that maybe his vote for Harris now is wrong.  Grow up. You are going to agree with people on issue A and disagree on issue B. That is how the world works.  

[LaceyLou]

4 minutes ago, oblong said:

Meanwhile in 2024….

i don’t see the point in bringing up something from 2003 as it relates to today unless it’s to somehow bring legitimacy to the idea that maybe his vote for Harris now is wrong.  Grow up. You are going to agree with people on issue A and disagree on issue B. That is how the world works.  

True. No more purity tests-that is how we got Drumpf in the first place.

[Mr.TaterSalad]

34 minutes ago, oblong said:

Meanwhile in 2024….

i don’t see the point in bringing up something from 2003 as it relates to today unless it’s to somehow bring legitimacy to the idea that maybe his vote for Harris now is wrong.  Grow up. You are going to agree with people on issue A and disagree on issue B. That is how the world works.  

This is far bigger than agreeing and disagreeing on where we stand on Issues A or B. Cheney sanctioned mass murder of people based on fabrications and lies. He sanctioned the brutal use of torture on other human beings like water boarding, using aggressive dogs towards people, and other methods. Ironically too, he's undemocratic like Trump is. Remember, Cheney tried to usurp the legislative branch of government and our system of checks and balances by pushing the Unitary Executive Theory while in the White House. 

[Mr.TaterSalad]

1 hour ago, gehringer_2 said:

the funny thing is that to be fair to the neo-con intellectuals, some of them were making the case for military action to remove Hussein without the lies. Before the WMD machine cracked up and Hans Blix hadn't been libelled, guys like Wolfowitz were arguing that the sanctions regime was a failure. That they were more effective at killing Iraqi children with poor medical care and malnutrition and destroying what was left of Iraqi civil society than they were at dislodging Saddam. There was a reasonable argument there, but of course it wasn't one that was moving US  public opinion very much, so that's when when the Bush admin decided to crank up the false WMD marketing, and for that, I agree completely that in a reasonable world Bush, Cheney, Tenet and Rumsfeld should all have gone to jail because they knew exactly what they were doing. Well that Shrub knew what he was doing is probably an overstatement, but he was certainly much too eager to be misled.

You and I both know if we're being intellectually honest that Cheney,  Bush, Rumsfeld, Rice, Brehmer, Wolfowitz, etc. should have been tried in an international criminal tribunal for war crimes, for doctored intelligence, and the use of torture against other human beings.

Not only the WMD marketing either, but they actively told us that Saddam was intent on and in the process of developing a nuclear weapons program to become a world nuclear power. They said with certainty that those famous aluminum and metallic tubes were undoubtedly going to be used for nuclear weapons. They hyped up Saddam building a nuclear weapon with yellowcake uranium from Niger. They warned of a dirty bomb going off in a major American city. 

They also fabricated Saddam's ties to Al Qaeda, Bin Laden and 9/11. They tried to imply that Saddam had some role in 9/11 and an affiliation with Bin Laden. All lies!

There are plenty of effective avenues to win this election without Cheney or Bush supporting Harris.

Edited September 7 by Mr.TaterSalad

[RatkoVarda]

I could be wrong, but a **** Cheney endorsement is probably net neutral, but could be a small net negative. Suspect that Harris will not tout this at all.