Posted on 11/02/2010 4:51:20 AM PDT by Maceman
Makes perfect sense to me. Cell phones surely have replaced pay phones in many places.
Why pay for a landline if you don’t need one? We’ve got cell phones, skype, etc.
I am sure you are right about the polling data being skewed because of it.
There was a "Bradley effect" in 2008, just not big enough to make any difference at all in the ultimate outcome (1.37 points)! http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2126751/posts
Otherwise, Scott Rasmussen called 2008 fairly accurately, so I need to believe Scott this time.
A quite reasonable conclusion, actually.
I do get extremely tired of all the arguing over the meaning of polls, though. Why is it so critical that we "know the results" now instead of in 12 hours?
If the polls are wrong, my guess is that they're underestimating GOP votes/turnout. Anyone basing turnout on 2006 or 2008 is going to be flat-out wrong. But even those adjusting their turnout models to 2010 reality is probably going to err on the conservative side, and I think they've all missed just how much of a "wave" is coming.
Oh, dear God! They have gone beyond delusional into fantasy land.
Some good, level headed thinking. I’m not buying all the hype. An election tidal wave that some people are talking about doesn’t happen that often.
“I want what Nate Silver is smoking. But you’d have to live in California to get that stuff after today.”
I am not a pollster; but I do much work in statistics for a living. Silver is a careful statistician and highlights some of the problems of polling and statistics. Nothing he said in that article is weird or not a solidly supportable argument. And, he concedes up front he is going to look at the arguments that would suggest a better performance by rats than the polls suggest.
In other words, he’s not in stoner-land.
I understand that, but I am also a realist and I understand the media industry.
Silver gets paid by one of the most leftist of all leftist of the lame stream media to write provocative pieces that generate web traffic. He had to write this “piece” to appeal to the rabid moonbats that read that rag.
“Yep, you beat me to the post. This article is totally reminiscent of the last few days before the 2008 election here on FR.
“The “Bradley effect” and the “Pumas” were supposed to beat Zero, and all the polls were wrong...”
Nice try, but much of this was accurate and did occur. The big thing in 2008 was the economy which ultimately gave the election to Obama. When Palin was added to the ticket, McCain suddenly was even and in some ahead. There wasn’t any data on record showing an economic slide a month or two right before the election which put many people off.
If you reread what you were referring to, you will also find that it was said that the American people would never accept Obama’s direction. Obama’s fall in popularity is faster than any president ever in modern history. Ultimately, what was written, that you are referring to, was correct.
And you don’t get what Nate Silver is doing (because you aren’t that smart). Nate Silver is a joke of an analyst, but this column of his is just a mirror one where he talked about how Republicans could do better than expected.
You realize they have the same article from the Republican point of view saying there could be a 77 seat swing in the house?
People need to stop just randomly bashing the media and academia, that will not help our country.
Beg to differ. Notice I said "the last few days before the 2008 election" when everything: TARP, Palin, etc. was baked in.
Two days before the vote, the national polls had pretty much clustered around a 2-6% Obama win, but much of FR was in denial. The polls were right, and FR was wrong.
welcome to FReeRepublic,perhaps you’ve missed what academia has called patriots over the last 30 years. Maybe you’ve missed, the vitriol coming from the President and the left.
I would believe few responsible voters have ditched their landline phones. The Dems would have to get an unbelievable percentage of cell-phone using Obamatons to win. Even so, I doubt that the polls that accurately predicted an Obama victory in 2008 would be bad now after only two years.
I think he had a piece a few days ago listing 10 reasons why the Republicans should do very well in the election...this is his attempt to give the other side of the story.
It always makes me ponder why supposedly credible main stream media outlets publish this kind of nonsense which they know will be proved completely wrong the next day. Why do they do this? Why do they deliberately and repeatedly go out of their way to absolutely prove how wrong they’re prognostications are?
Obviously, commercial polling outfits like Rasmussen couldn’t get away with these kind of ridiculous predictions, as they’d pretty much be out of business the next day. So why do newspapers do this?
Is it because they already know they have no credibility to lose anyway, so they might as well just go the all-propaganda route? Or do they believe we are so stupid and with such short memories that we’ll simply forget two days later how wrong they are, and continue to attribute them credibility the next time they pontificate their obviously false predictions?
Personally, I think it is the latter case: they think we’re stupid and have the attention spans of Tsetse flies. But there’s more to it than that. Media outlets still operate as if we have no other information sources than the three network channels and a local newspaper at out disposal. Fifteen years ago it wasn’t a big deal to be consistently wrong because, since they all deliberately make the same wrong predictions in lockstep, it somehow looked like everyone was trying their best but the job was just to difficult for anyone to get right, and there were no other information sources to invalidate this falsely presented world view anyway.
But now all of that has changed. With multiple cable news channels, multiple talk radio channels, and unlimited information on the Internet, the Big Few can no longer control the flow of information. They can no longer knowingly make false predictions that are proved to be wrong the next day and still maintain credibility. People have discovered more truthful and more accurate sources of information, analysis, and prognostication.
And yet the Big Few continue to plod along and spew out their propaganda as if the world has not changed. The big meteor has smashed into their world, and yet all they can do is still shuffle about, looking for that last particle of sustenance as the dimming sunlight snuffs out any chance of their continued existence.
At this point, democrat retention of the House could be a lot worse for their collective and individual futures than losing big would be. Tar and feathers are not far from becoming a reality already, if they retain the House ...
Regards
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