Am I missing something?

[lookin]

While I watched most of the Democratic convention highlights on PBS, I did tune in to CBS in time to hear Scott Pelley echo the standard refrain that the presidential election is neck and neck. One of the other commentators had asked the White House for their reaction to the close race, and their reaction was that they are paying more attention to the electoral votes than to the popular vote.

That's what I've been looking at too, and the predictions there seem anything but close. In fact, Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight blog is the one I check most days and he's giving Obama better than 75% odds. He has a very good track record and missed only one state in 2008. He also correctly predicted all thirty-five Senate races.

Does anyone else look at the electoral college projections? Is Silver's blog a reasonable interpretation of what's going on?

I know that a lot can happen in two months but, until a lot actually does happen, I'm feeling pretty good about Obama's chances. Anyone else?

[Lucky]

The John Roberts Supreme Court will decide that the electoral college is unconstitutional, thus allowing the Court to pick the next president. You didn't think that once having done it they wouldn't want to do it again?

[Guest epigonos]

Lucky only Earl Warren speaking for his court has ever suggested that the court would if it had the power declare a part of the U.S. Constitution unconstitutional. He was speaking after the court handed down its "one man one vote" decision. One part of that decision declared all state constitutions that created legislatures with a house based on any criteria other than population that that section null and void. Thus states, like California, couldn't have a State Senate with two senators from each of its counties. When asked by a reporter why such a senate was acceptable at the federal level but not at the state level Warren responded that the U.S. Supreme Court had within its power to right to declare any part of or all of a states constitution unconstitutional. He went on to state that in this case it was unfortunate that the court didn't have the same power regarding the U.S. Constitution.

[AdamSmith]

One suspects the Chicago machine that is O's campaign org will have seen this potential bungee pit among many potential grimpens that lurk, and will have strategized how to wrongfoot it.

How to erect a Kryptonite barrier between this election's outcome and the Supremes' capability to fuck with it cannot but have been uppermost in the hive mind of Axelrod et al.

No?

[TampaYankee]

The John Roberts Supreme Court will decide that the electoral college is unconstitutional, thus allowing the Court to pick the next president. You didn't think that once having done it they wouldn't want to do it again?

The Electoral College is definitely constitutional. The only way to make it not so is either through an amendment or by way of an eraser.

[TampaYankee]

While I watched most of the Democratic convention highlights on PBS, I did tune in to CBS in time to hear Scott Pelley echo the standard refrain that the presidential election is neck and neck. One of the other commentators had asked the White House for their reaction to the close race, and their reaction was that they are paying more attention to the electoral votes than to the popular vote.

That's what I've been looking at too, and the predictions there seem anything but close. In fact, Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight blog is the one I check most days and he's giving Obama better than 75% odds. He has a very good track record and missed only one state in 2008. He also correctly predicted all thirty-five Senate races.

Does anyone else look at the electoral college projections? Is Silver's blog a reasonable interpretation of what's going on?

I know that a lot can happen in two months but, until a lot actually does happen, I'm feeling pretty good about Obama's chances. Anyone else?

As usual, you are not missing anything. The electoral college is the game lest we forget the Constitution and the 2000 Bush/Gore race.

The news hypes the neck and neck race because the American culture sees everything as a simple horse race even if it is not. News is also more in the market of selling controversy than informing the public. It is all about ratings and circulation. If you haven't noticed, the entire media sphere has moved in the direction of tabloid journalism no matter what trappings they hang to obscure that fact. Murdoch has had a profound and deleterious effect on journalism. Bill Paley and Edward R Murrow wouldn't recognize the landscape these days beyond the superficial trappings.

[MsGuy]

The NYT has an analysis of the post convention tracking polls that currently gives Obama a 79% chance of winning a majority in the electoral college.

Personally I find betting odds resulting from real life people betting their own real life money on the election results an objective way of forecasting the election. Currently, folks are offering pretty good odds that Obama will carry Ohio and also that he will carry Florida (odds not quite so strong there). Given that there is no reasonable path to victory for Romney that does not go through Florida and only the most tenuous routes that do not also include Ohio, things are looking up for the good guys. Or not, lol, depending on your preferences.

[Guest hitoallusa]

I see Murdoch's mistakes as an opportunity for the media to correct itself. It was something bound to happen anyway and it should act as a wake up call for everybody working in the media. To me what Murdoch did wasn't right but it had a positive effect in exposing the media and help it to correct itself.

As usual, you are not missing anything. The electoral college is the game lest we forget the Constitution and the 2000 Bush/Gore race.

The news hypes the neck and neck race because the American culture sees everything as a simple horse race even if it is not. News is also more in the market of selling controversy than informing the public. It is all about ratings and circulation. If you haven't noticed, the entire media sphere has moved in the direction of tabloid journalism no matter what trappings they hang to obscure that fact. Murdoch has had a profound and deleterious effect on journalism. Bill Paley and Edward R Murrow wouldn't recognize the landscape these days beyond the superficial trappings.

[AdamSmith]

I see Murdoch's mistakes as an opportunity for the media to correct itself. It was something bound to happen anyway and it should act as a wake up call for everybody working in the media. To me what Murdoch did wasn't right but it had a positive effect in exposing the media and help it to correct itself.

How can this happen absent a fundamental restructuring of the business incentives that drive media today, as noted above?

And from where, in turn, would that descend unto us?

[lookin]

Thanks all for the thoughtful responses.

The New York Times poll is actually the FiveThirtyEight poll I mentioned above. They joined forces last year, one more reason I give some credence to it.

From Nate Silver's NYT blog today:

On Friday, we began to see reasonably clear signs that President Obama would receive some kind of bounce in the polls from the Democratic convention.

Mr. Obama had another strong day in the polls on Saturday, making further gains in each of four national tracking polls. The question now is not whether Mr. Obama will get a bounce in the polls, but how substantial it will be.

Some of the data, in fact, suggests that the conventions may have changed the composition of the race, making Mr. Obama a reasonably clear favorite as we enter the stretch run of the campaign.

. . .

In fact, Mr. Romney has never held a lead over Mr. Obama by any substantive margin in the polls. The Real Clear Politics average of polls put Mr. Romney ahead by a fraction of a percentage point at one point in October 2011, and he pulled into an exact tie at one point late in the week of his convention, after it was over, but he has never done better than that.

That makes this an extremely odd election. You would figure that at some point over the past year, Mr. Romney would have pulled into the lead in the polls, given how close it has usually been. John McCain held occasional leads in 2008; John Kerry led for much of the summer in 2004; and Michael Dukakis had moments where he was well ahead of George H.W. Bush in the spring and summer of 1988. But Mr. Romney, if there have been moments when his polls were ever-so-slightly stronger or weaker, has never really had his moment in the sun.

. . .

Certainly, Mr. Romney will win his fair share of independent voters because of the economy — and if there are substantive signs of economic decline in October and November, probably enough to win him the election.

But unless there is some change of course, it looks increasingly as though he lacks the appeal to the voting blocks that might allow him to win 51 percent of the vote rather than 49 percent.

. . .

I will acknowledge that there is the risk of jumping the gun with this analysis. Our forecast model began to see Mr. Romney’s subpar convention bounce as a bearish indicator for him early during his convention week. Now that Mr. Obama appears to be making gains when Mr. Romney did not, it has become more entrenched in seeing Mr. Obama as the favorite — enough so that it now gives him almost a 4-in-5 chance of victory. Taking the temperature of voters around the party conventions is tricky: it is a period when a lot of undecided voters start to tune in for the first time, but it is also associated with volatile polling. Every election is different, and no statistical method to analyze them is beyond reproach.

But in the immediate term, it seems like the upside case for Mr. Romney is that Mr. Obama’s polls cool off quickly — and soon revert to where they were before the conventions, with Mr. Obama about two points ahead in the polling average. That’s certainly a very winnable election for Mr. Romney, but nevertheless one where he is the modest underdog.

And Mr. Romney’s downside case is that Mr. Obama’s polling bounce will be a little stickier, and that Mr. Obama will already be fairly close to having achieved 50 percent of the vote with precious few undecided voters left in the race. That would make Mr. Romney a clear underdog — perhaps even one who needs some foreign policy or economic crisis to intervene to give him much of a chance at winning.

One of the commenters remarked on just such a possible foreign policy crisis, mentioning Canada's closing of its Iranian embassy on Friday and the opening of a window of opportunity for Israel to attack Iran before our November election. I can't yet sink to that level of cynicism, although scoring my daily fix of optimism is not the cakewalk it once was.

[Lucky]

What was missing from my comment above was a photo representation of my tongue in my cheek. I guess that one can be too dry on the internet. My point was that we have a Supreme Cort that once tasted the heady power of picking the president, and that now they know the thrill, so look for them to go to any length to do it again. Sure, the electoral college should be just fine, but then, we thought that the state of Florida should be able to count their votes.

[Lucky]

Today's NY Times reminds us that the Supreme Court will be having a say in this election:

"In the last few weeks, nearly a dozen decisions in federal and state courts on early voting, provisional ballots and voter identification requirements have driven the rules in conflicting directions, some favoring Republicans demanding that voters show more identification to guard against fraud and others backing Democrats who want to make voting as easy as possible.

The most closely watched cases — in the swing states of Ohio and Pennsylvania — will see court arguments again this week, with the Ohio dispute possibly headed for a request for emergency review by the Supreme Court."

[MsGuy]

It appears that Romney is conceding Pennsylvania and Michigan to Obama, so the contested states are now down to nine. Yea for the good guys!

Ten little, nine little...

(not sure whether this picture passes current MER posting standards )

[Guest hitoallusa]

Oh my they are so cute.. I love to play hide and seek...

[AdamSmith]

...getting moist here...

(As Eddie Murphy's 'grandmother' said of no less than Mike Douglas -- 'Only white man can make me moist'!)

[Lucky]

I was so wrong! And Lookin was singing the praises of Nate Silver before the rest of the world was...

[lookin]

Perhaps I was a Nate Silver follower somewhat early in this election, but MsGuy was the one who showed us how to make money off of it.

If we'd bought 75-cent Obama when they were selling it, we'd have had a 33 percent return in a month.

And those who had bet a hundred dollars on the chance that Obama would win the Electoral College by 91 points would now have enough to spend an hour with someone like Benjamin Nicholas! Plus twenty bucks worth of Handi Wipes.

Talk about cleaning up!

(Please note this is not a picture of Benjamin Nicholas and is for illustrative purposes only.)

[Guest hitoallusa]

Well I think he needs more than handi wipes...

Perhaps I was a Nate Silver follower somewhat early in this election, but MsGuy was the one who showed us how to make money off of it.

If we'd bought 75-cent Obama when they were selling it, we'd have had a 33 percent return in a month.

And those who had bet a hundred dollars on the chance that Obama would win the Electoral College by 91 points would now have enough to spend an hour with someone like Benjamin Nicholas! Plus twenty bucks worth of Handi Wipes.

Talk about cleaning up!

(Please note this is not a picture of Benjamin Nicholas and is for illustrative purposes only.)

[AdamSmith]

Well I think he needs more than handi wipes...

My tongue, to begin with.

[Guest hitoallusa]

Oh my AS you need to brush your teeth and gargle before you kiss me then...

My tongue, to begin with.