Election 2016
gregladen | October 29, 2016You all know what James Comey did. He sent a letter to Congress that will undoubtedly serve to change the vote distribution among the leasing candidates for president enough to possibly change the outcome of the United States election of the President of the United States.
Such an act is treasonous, and had a private citizen, especially a brown one or one with "Hussain" in his name, done something to affect the election to this degree, the FBI would be on that citizen like ugly on an ape. But, James Comey is the head of the FBI, he's white, male, and a Republican. Also, there is an argument…
gregladen | October 29, 2016A Trump-Kaine presidency is now on the table.
It ain't over 'till the lady in the pantsuits wins. Or looses.
Imagine Debbie Downer and Chicken Little have an offspring. It would be me. Or at least, that's how I've felt over the last few weeks as the only person in the Free World who seems to have noticed that the gap between Trump and Clinton is closing, and in fact, was never really that large to begin with. It only appeared large because a fluctuation occurred at about the same time everyone was hoping for a fluctuation, so it became more real than it should have been. The race has…
gregladen | October 27, 2016I've got a new set of electoral college predictions. I'm using the same method as before, but with these differences: a) I had to use less than ideal polls (c rating, a few that overlapped with days prior to POTUS debate III) on the last run, this time no such polls are used; and b) there are some new polls added in this time.
The difference is interesting, and somewhat concerning (compare to this result). For example, in this run, Arizona, Virginia, and New Hampshire go for Trump. Most people think of that as unlikely. Personally, I don't see Virginia doing that. New Hampshire is…
gregladen | October 26, 2016It is fun to look at polls, and using such data, decide which candidate will win which state, and ultimately, which candidate will win the electoral college. A lot of people and organizations do that, and for this reason, I don't. I do not have access to polls that no one else sees. Were I to use polling data to directly predict outcomes per state, I'd use a method like that used by FiveThirtyEight, and probably come up with similar results. How boring. It would be a waste of my time to try to replicate the excellent work done by Nate Silver and his team.
Back during the Democratic Primaries…
gregladen | October 25, 2016This is a fascinating story involving Crazy Eddie, Donald Trump, and this year's election.
Here's what I want to know. Do Democrats across the country have a plan in place to collect usable data (usable in court) to document violation of the consent degree by the Republicans, should they do so?
Also, I'd like to compliment the actors for the excellent choreography, especially the reindeer.
gregladen | October 24, 2016At the moment, this is a nail biter. There is a theory that a strong showing by one party at the top of the ticket brings along those lower down. However, that theory does not apply this year for several reasons. I think it works better for Republicans than for Democrats, for many the top of the Democratic ticket is less inspiring than ideal for this to work (though for no good reason), and this is the oddest election year ever, so in expecting the expected, expect the exceptional.
The Democrats hold 46 seats, and the Republicans 54 (slightly simplified numbers). This is a year in which…
gregladen | October 22, 2016I've been thinking about Trump's attempt to blackmail the voters. He intimates that he might not accept the election results unless he wins. The word goes around that his followers will go to the streets and carry out acts of violence if Trump does not win. It is a bully tactic by a bully's bully.
But I have been having thought about this, about how it is actually likely to go down. I mentioned this already. Some of his supporters will go and take over a wildlife reserve somewhere, for a few weeks. A few others will carry out acts of violence here and there, but by count, not much. Mostly…
gregladen | October 21, 2016A presidential election season involves a series of debates. After the last debate, a day or a few days after, the main candidates attend and speak at a charity dinner run by the Archdiocese of New York, to raise money for Catholic Charities. It is the last event at which the candidates will appear together, and the format is that of a roast.
That is more or less the tradition.
Last night, Secretary Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were at the Al Smith dinner. Here is are the salient facts:
Trump spoke first. He had two or three pretty funny jokes, but the one that I think will go down in…
gregladen | October 20, 2016What really happened the night Osama Bin Laden was killed by Hillary Clinton and her SEAL Team?
Or, was it like this?
Check out this maximally LOL item at Slate for all the details.
gregladen | October 19, 2016It is unfortunate that "all the pundits" are now saying that Clinton will now win no matter what, and that Trump will likely suffer more scandal before the end of the process.
This is unfortunate because a weak get out the vote effort is probably worth a couple of points on election day. It is unfortunate because some Trump scandals increase, rather than decrease, his numbers. He could suddenly gain a couple of points if he says or does just the wright/wrong things. It is unfortunate because, for whatever reason, Hillary "My Middle Name is Target" Clinton has turned into the Teflon…
gregladen | October 18, 2016Steve Schmidt, bless his pointy Republican head, makes a very important point here.
And to underscore the point, let me ask you this: How do we go from having an "election" to having a "president elect"?
The process is actually a bit subtle and somewhat more complicated than one might think. Election day happens, but there is no "president elect" in any official, constitutional, way, for a very long time thereafter.
Though this can vary, the first possible date that we will have a "president elect" in the current election cycle is on January 6th, 2017. Not before.
Of course, what really…
gregladen | October 18, 2016My current model (subject to change) puts Arizona in the Clinton Column. This is the prediction that has resulted in the most head scratching from those observing this, but it turns out that the Clinton Campaign seems to agree. Clinton surrogates, including Chelsea, Michele Obama, and Bernie Sanders will be in the state over the next few days.
Frankly, I worry about good people going to Arizona stumping for a Liberal Democrat. Perhaps that is because of my own experience living there for several weeks. During that time a local desperado was arrested and made a court appearance, and his…
gregladen | October 16, 2016There are some interesting, and in some cases, potentially disturbing, things going on with the state by state numbers in the current election. Most of this has to do with third party candidates, and most of it with Gary Johnson.
First, I'll note, that despite fears among liberals and progressives that a lot of Bernie Bots would flock to third party candidates and eschew Clinton, there is no strong evidence that Clinton is losing much to any third party candidates. However, in some states, especially those with libertarian tendencies, Gary Johnson is doing fairly well. And, this had been…
gregladen | October 13, 2016Or so it is alleged. Rather credibly.
Trump talked about sexual assault in 2005, that was recorded on tape, those tapes released Friday. Trump denied that he actually ever sexually assaulted/groped anyone during the Sunday debate, just a couple of days later.
Meanwhile many Republicans running for Congress distanced themselves from Trump and condemned him.
Then, the rabid right wing Teabagging Republican Trump supporters warned those Republicans that they had to get in line and support Trump or else. So, of course, lacking courage of conviction or ethics or morals or, really, brains, those…
gregladen | October 11, 2016Above is my latest electoral college projection.
This uses the technique previously described. However, instead of using RCP averages for all polled states and then using extreme (non-tossup) states to develop the regression model, this method uses only polling from states with one or more recent poll, and only with good polls. these poll numbers are then "predicted" by black/hispanic/white/Voted_Romney numbers, and that generates a model, based on just over 20 states, designed to predict all the states.
As expected, the r-squared value is much lower using this method, but this method does…
gregladen | October 10, 2016I've made my first stab at a prediction for the electoral college outcome for the US Presidential race, 2016. I use a roughly similar methodology as I did to accurately predict most of the Democratic primaries. However, since primaries are different from a general, the methodology had to be adapted.
For the primaries, I eventually used this methodology. I used results form prior primaries to predict voter behavior by ethnicity, in order to predict final behavior. That worked because primaries are done a few states at a time, and because all the people being modeled were Democrats.
It turns…
gregladen | October 10, 2016You can't say who really won the debate, because on Friday, news broke, confirming other news from the prior Monday (and general suspicians) indicating that Donald Trump is not fit to be President in Yet Another Way, and his campaign essentially imploded. So, instead, we'll ask, "who won the weekend?"
As you know, I'm the last person to write off Donald Trump. From the very beginning, without fail, I've been warning you that he'll do well, that he'll win the GOP debates, that he'll win various primaries, that he'll win the nomination, etc. All of it. I have never once been wrong about this…
gregladen | October 10, 2016Climate change is a settled issue. It is now widely and recognized as real, and as one of the top, if not THE top, existential problems the world faces today. Americans want climate change stopped, and they want the next version of the US Government, the one that starts in January, 2017, to work hard to reduce the human release of greenhouse gas as rapidly as possible.
How do we know this?
Because no one mentioned a thing about it during last night's debate!
A few months ago, I would have expected presidential debates to have included climate change pretty much in every iteration. It…
gregladen | October 9, 2016I have no idea why so many smart people are saying that anything that happened over the last few days changes this election, or destroys the Republican Party. Pay attention, people. that is not what is happening.
The Republican Party has become the party that harbors racism, sexism, misogyny, xenophobia, hate, politically expedient willful ignorance about all things science, classism, anything anti-PC, and dedicated service to the demands of the wealthiest Americans.
Most of that comes from the Tea Party the rest comes from the elite in the party. In this way, the Republican Party…
gregladen | October 8, 2016You know the problem. Not just the release of the "I'd grab her ..." tape, but starting before that. Here, watch:
A roughly written Facebook comment by me, reacting to much of the reaction I'm seeing:
To everyone who is saying that Trump is out of the race because of his admitted preference for sexual assault as a way of getting women to like him: Sorry, you are wrong, and you may be living in a bubble.
Do a transect across humanity, in the US. You will find that a double digit percentage of both women and men (though I'll allow you the possibly true but possibly not true idea that more men…