The three polls are remarkably consistent. They show Oz leading 48-45, 48-45 and 48-46.
71 thoughts on “Dr Oz is ahead in all three post-debate polls”
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The three polls are remarkably consistent. They show Oz leading 48-45, 48-45 and 48-46.
Comments are closed.
Recent elections have shown that most polls are wrong yet people still obsess over them as if they were from the oracle of Delphi. Who the hell responds to polls these days? Decades ago I talked to a phone pollster and told him that I would lie at every question. He was ok with that. Nowadays nobody answers their phone and I would guess most polls have a very small pool to choose from. Every poll result should list the exact phrasing of the questions and the source of responders. Every pollster should have their lifetime batting average listed. Most pollsters these days have an agenda like every other entity and the average Joe ignores them.
True dat.
It has become almost impossible to construct a representative sampling of the electorate, and many voters who do participate are being deliberately deceptive. They may even lie about whether they are voters.
Welcome to the human race. We can observe this very dynamic playing out in Russia, but then turn around & say, “But that could never happen here.”
Only, if Russians are human & Russians are racists, there’s nothing stopping us from being both those things, ourselves. Look at the bloody Germans & that clown Macron.
And in the UK, that idiot Labour candidate thought a socialist fantasy would be a people pleaser, just throwing away a winnable race. To the likes of BoJo. Followed by Liz Truss & her rightwing fantasy.
I like how John Oliver showed our own Right’s enthusiastic praise of the Truss plan, the jackasses saying we ought to take our cues from her. Shortly before the markets kicked her knees out from under her & her out of 10 Downing scant days later.
These 3 polls are Republican internal polls with really bad methodologies and should be ignored. The crosstabs look nothing like the voting electorate and are nothing but spinning a certain loss in these races.
Which is why Fetterman still ahead at 538. Also, 538 does not make predictions rather it just gives odds ie some fool at MSNBC predicted Trump had a .0whatever % chance of winning in 2016 and Nate/538 had Trump’s chances in the 30+ % range. 538 actually had the margin basically correct ie 2% in favor of HRC, but that pesky Electoral College which Reps have learned to worship, eh.
btw, was a member at 538 in 2008 when Nate was spot on re: the winning margin which put him on the political map. Also a member of 538Refugees when Nate briefly went to the NYTimes. 2008 was wild in that many astute Rep pundits/bloggers thought no way in hell would America ever elect a Black man, but (8) yrs of Cheney/Bush made all things possible, eh. TBF I had my doubts as well. Digressing.
Yielding back the balance of my time …
Sorta like (4) yrs of Trump made it possible for sleepy Joe to become potus! 😮 The yin/yang of presidential politics.
Why are you forever “Yielding back the balance of my time …” then saying one more thing? It’s not like we’re time-constrained here. That said, I basically agree with what you’re saying.
Side note: In one more week this happy horseshit will be over, we will know which of this fossils will be running the place and we can all get back to our main mission of arguing over which tits are natural.
The yielding back I “stole” from an infrequent, sarcastic liberal poster at 538Refugees @ 2010/11. As someone who posted religiously at a few political blogs from 2003 to 2012 it was usually just to amuse myself political blogging being so much nonsense.
My last frequent political blog was Althouse which is 95/5 conservative. Indeed, it’s a lot more fun being in the minority at a yahoo/redneck/maga Rep blog. 😛
Basically chose to stop wasting my time. My mom passed away April 2016 at 94. Told folk after Trump won the Electoral College my mom had an inkling he may become potus and said that’s it, I’m outta here …
Yield back the… What was it, the ballast? Or was it the ballots?
Eenie-meanie, Japanesey, the spirits are about to speak… This time, for sure!
Said Robert Benchley: “1 2 3, Buckle my shoe.”
I keep saying to myself, I choose not to waste my time. Yet, here I still am. 🙂
Hmm. I don’t like this pendulum take that journos are so fond of. The details matter.
The Dems have factions, to left & right of Biden. The “leftists” wanted Bernie. The “centrists” didn’t like anyone who was running. When Joe finally got into the race, the centrists pounced. Joe turned out to be way more to the right than the leftists wanted & way more to the left than the centrists bargained for. Everybody’s pissed off at the way the whole world has disintegrated into piles of shit.
Now the fractured Dems are poised to get what we just saw happen in Italy. When parties with much in common split themselves over minutiae, someone extreme, antithetical to both sides gets an opening. There, but for the grace of God…
Wait! What? The same thing is happening to us? But what did we do to deserve this? Hmm. I can’t imagine. I mean, who could’ve seen this coming?
Just like no one could’ve imagined what the 9/11 terrorists were gonna do. But we did have the intel. We chose not to believe it. Now all the Dems are going to throw up their arms & say there was nothing I could’ve done differently.
Factions, party political philosophies notwithstanding many were gushing re: 2020 turnout. Seriously, 66.8% is still piss poor for the supposed leader of the free world, One third of eligible voters don’t care. American “democracy” in a nutshell!
As always, “we” get the govt we deserve. And so it goes …
Pardon, but how does that saying go? I think it should be “Turnout is always 2020.” Right? 🙂
They are not very good, but they are the only post-debate polls available. I keep checking for updates.
On a related topic, 538’s model now says that the most likely scenario is GOP control of both houses:
In their multiple iterations (House/Senate):
50/100 GOP/GOP
0/100 DEM/GOP
33/100 GOP/DEM
17/100 DEM/DEM
“Dr. Oz Makes A Geography Goof And Twitter Puts Him In His Place”
ok, ok, PA may be just as entertaining as GA …
Twitter is being a bit persnickety there. Although Philadelphia is not technically on the Atlantic, it was at one time the most important Atlantic port in America, and is still the #2 Atlantic cargo port in terms of foreign imports.
Then there’s London, once the largest in the world, but now #2 in Britland. #1? The Port of Immingham, also known as Immingham Dock in Lincolnshire. Who knew? (Well maybe Adam) London itself is not exactly Surf City.
1.Heinlein was interesting in that he was the only libertarian/conservative among the big three science fiction writers of the 1950s – Clarke, Asimov and Heinlein. Other significant science fiction writers were regarded as liberal leaning as well – Bradbury, L Sprague deCamp, John Wyndham.
2.Heinlein wrote a number of short stories for pulp science fiction magazines like Astounding Science Fiction. A number of these stories were rewritten for radio and aired on the radio programs Dimension X and X Minus One.
3.Manson watch: Although Charles Manson could only read at an elementary school level, a fellow prisoner must have read to him Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land, because Manson not only claimed it as an influence, he even named one of his children Valentine Michael Manson after Valentine Michael Smith.
If one is a true believer in science, than religion is usually a bridge too far hence, ergo, therefore tend to be more liberal.
Crazy, cuckoo Manson notwithstanding …
Copernicus, Galileo*, and Newton, not to mention that Belgian priest who was one of the first big Big Bangers might quibble.
*The Church came down on Galileo largely because the Pope mistook an attack by Galileo on a fellow scientific thinker, whom G considered a wanker, as a personal attack on him, the Pope himself being a dabbler in science.
Mind you it didn’t hurt Copernicus that he was pretty much under the protection of a local lord, in the same way Luther was under the protection of the Elector of Saxony a little later.
Yeah, let’s elect another proven scam artist…
We’re moving toward a country controlled by scam artists – TV pitchmen, reality TV stars, swindlers, televangelists. How long before we put Alex Jones in the White House and Jim Bakker on the Supreme Court?
Re: Bakker scotus is already totally controlled by the Catholic church!
Strict constructionists my ass!
Praise the lord! Oh the irony many immigrated to America fleeing religious persecution. 😮 You can’t make this shit up!
As always, America survives despite itself …
Re: Baker Scotch. Where can I get me some? Are they selling it in churches? That explains why I never seen it.
Let the record show GW is fixated re: PA senate race. Why? Dr. Oz fetish? You decide.
Indeed, the more entertaining race is GA by far.
Yielding back the balance of my time …
btw, MO elected a dead man senator (3) wks after he died in a plane crash! 😮
It is possible that the Georgia result might neutralize the expected disaster in Pennsylvania, but neither candidate has any reason to be confident. The latest poll shows that Warnock is dead even with Walker. In the other two most recent polls, the Atlanta Fox affiliate shows Walker up by three, while a slightly earlier poll from Siena College shows Warnock up by three. That one could be quite a nail-biter.
538 shows that the most likely outcome has them only 2/10 of a point apart.
It appears that control of the Senate will go down to the wire. It seems almost certain that the GOP will win control of the House.
My post was not concerning results/outcome per se, rather entertainment value. Your continued PA fixation notwithstanding.
And yes, mid-terms always favor the opposition party regardless.
I update Pennsylvania because it seems to be changing. A seat thought to be safely blue is creeping over toward the red side. Fetterman led every poll before the debate, and has trailed in every poll since the debate.
But to your point, Georgia is blue now and is in danger of turning red, which has the same impact. That’s the one that totally befuddles me. I can see why people might prefer Dr Oz, even if I disagree with his positions, but if I take a hard look at Herschel Walker, I think he should get about zero percent of the vote for head of the local ASPCA, maybe 5% if he were running against Michael Vick. And yet he’s running neck-and-neck for a seat in the U.S. Senate. One expects complete morons to get elected to the House, especially in this age of safely gerrymandered seats, but one always kinda hopes that the Senate elections will produce a higher caliber of talent, whether blue or red.
PA is lean Dem for the past 30 yrs re: potus. GA is still lean Rep and would currently have (2) Rep senators if not for the 50% rule causing (2) senate run-offs Jan 2021 when many Rep voters stayed home. Again turnout/GOTV. IOW GA Reps screwed themselves with the 50% rule. And Warnock would probably currently be toast if GA Reps had nominated a “rational” candidate other than HW which is very hard to find in the current Rep landscape.
Many of these Rep senate races being close has to do with Trump hand picked, Fascist/maga/clueless candidates winning the primaries. Again, shooting themselves in the foot, but, but, but they still may win as their demi-god lord and savior proved in 2016. HRC also being a god awful candidate helped immensely. Digressing.
IOW in the current Rep party absolutely nothing disqualifies you.
Isn’t anyone going to mention how horrendously stupid Oz’s answer to the abortion question was? “I don’t want the federal government in the {hospital} room.” THAT IS WHAT ROE DID, YOU PINHEAD! By making abortion a constitutional right, it kept EVERYBODY out of the room except the woman and her doctor. “I want the doctor, the woman, and local government in there” because blah blah blah. Oh, yes, that’s MUCH better. There are already MAYORS in some places who want ordnances to ban abortion in the THEIR cities, just in case their state does not do the “right” thing.
I mean really, even for a Republican or a conservative, wouldn’t that answer rule out Oz? Doesn’t it make him a guy who will say anything, no matter how awful, to advance himself? Jeebus.
“Doesn’t it make him a guy who will say anything, no matter how awful, to advance himself?”
Yes. That’s exactly what it makes him.
Or, as the GOP calls it – the perfect candidate.
I wonder what he really thinks. He is a doctor. I’m guessing that he’s just pandering to the base by reciting the official talking points, and he was trying to adjust or soften the official party line “on the fly,” which resulted in that strange answer. Yeah, it’s a decision between a woman, her doctor, and some ignorant local politicians.
As the good lord intended.
Doug Mastriano is one of those truly scary GOP candidates that the Democrats spent money boosting in the primary hoping he would be easily beaten. Fortunately, that seems to be working out, but I don’t think it was a risk worth taking.
As for Doc Oz and his abortion answer, I agree it didn’t make a lot of sense. A woman. her doctor, and her local government? But in a Machiavellian sense it might have made enough sense to work for him. His answer was basically that he is pro life but will let states decide on abortion policy and so won’t vote for a federal ban. He has to figure he already has pro-life voters because they will be actively opposed to Fetterman. Maybe Oz won’t vote for an abortion ban, they will be thinking, but Fetterman will vote to ban state restrictions. At the same time, he is telling pro-choice voters he won’t vote for a ban. His position strikes me as one that was heavily focus grouped.
That kind of thinking isn’t limited to Pennsylvania either. Rafael Warnock is pro-choice, but Herschel Walker paid for two of his own children to be aborted. But most pro-choice GA voters are going to hold their noses and vote for Walker anyway because Walker’s personal character is less important to them than his vote in the senate.
I’m unfamiliar with US gubernatorial debates…
Apart from political junkies, how many people watch them?
I’d assume the junkies are already committed, but how do they affect voter turnout?
Turnout looks the key to these midterms…
Both ends of the political spectrum are rusted on, but will they show up?
Will the MAGA crowd show up to vote for a RINO candidate?
Will dem progressives turnout to support an establishment offering?
I suspect the Democrats are less politically fractured…
But maybe more importantly, who might show up who ordinarily wouldn’t?
As an amateur psychologist, I can’t see an avalanche of voters turning out to kill Fetterman based on his cognitive impairment, well outlined beforehand.
I can see a kickback against Walker’s continued hypocrisy…
And speaking about Walker, who knows how many pitchforks the Supreme’s killing Roe vs Wade will bring to the party?
The GOP own that sucka!
A brief intro to US gubernatorial debates –
We take only the finest goobers, line them up and ask them questions. After each question, they say a thing – generally nothing to do with the question, just a talking point from their onslaught of ads, or something insulting about their opponent.
No one points out that they haven’t answered the question. Everyone pretends that both sides (sorry, no third parties; this used to be allowed and occasionally funny, but then one of them won) having aired their views, the whole thing has been informative and useful for choosing whom to vote for.
People don’t actually watch. They used to, but now you just look at the clips online so you can quote them to explain why you voted for the guy you were going to vote for anyway.
NEVER underestimate the fracturedness of the Democrats.
This is just the latest example of how the “mainstream” press lets the GOP set the terms of coverage. The papers/media make conscious choices to allow Fetterman’s health to be the talking point, rather than his success in *still making better policy points than Oz.*
It’s a little more complicated than that. When I look at Fetterman and his wife, something says “Woodrow and Edith Wilson”. Oz is horrible; Fetterman is way Left and possibly dysfunctional. If the Democrats hadn’t blown it in the Primary, Lamb would be running away with it.
Something even worse may have happened in Wisconsin where the Dems may have picked the one candidate who wasn’t going to beat Mr. Glorious 4th in Moscow, Ron Johnson.
And what is your idea of the mainstream, Mother Jones?
Actually, the more I think about it, the more I think the mainstream media did the Democrats a disservice by not covering Fetterman’s health more honestly. With the exception of that NBC reporter who interviewed Fetterman with the closed captioning set up, but also reported honestly about how he struggled making small talk prior to the interview (and was roasted by many other reporters for doing so), the MSM kept reporting Fetterman’s impairments were mild. But then we all saw the debate performance which proved widespread journalistic malpractice. My point is that if his actual condition were reported honestly from the start, it might have given the Democratic Party an opportunity to push him to withdraw so they could replace him on the ballot. If that happened, the Democrats would probably be poised to pick up the seat.
In the end though it might not have mattered as far as Senate control is concerned because Real Clear Politics is currently forecasting the GOP to win the Senate races in Az, NV, and GA. Given the GOP’s atrocious Senate candidates, it means we may really be about to see that Red tsunami after all. Still that might not be a terrible outcome for the Democrats as far as 2024 is concerned. The economy is going to get worse before it gets better. While most of that blame would fall on the president regardless, if the GOP controls congress they will share in and least some of it.
Am I the only one that was wondering if Fetterman would wear a suit and tie to the debate or just wear that hoody he wears everywhere else? I was kind of disappointed he didn’t go with the hoody.
But as for the substance of the debate, Fetterman’s medical condition is clearly a legitimate issue, but one his campaign has been trying to obfuscate since his stroke. When pressed about his refusal to release his medical records his campaign released a letter from his doctor saying he was medically fit enough to be a senator (arguably the only necessary qualification is a pulse), but refused to allow his doctor to answer reporters questions. They also said the voters of PA would have the opportunity to judge his fitness for themselves by watching him debate. I don’t know what’s in his medical records, but they really shouldn’t have argued that his debate performance would demonstrate his fitness.
I have tremendous sympathy for Fetterman as my mother had a stroke that left her suffering from aphasia. Hopefully, he will be able to make a full recovery or at least something close to it. But really the one essential duty of a senator is to be able to cast votes and I am sure he could handle that. Even if he had problems voting I am sure Bob Casey would be willing to help him.
If we went back 7 years ago, I would have been quite happy with the prospect of the GOP capturing the House and Senate. As it is, I am more ambivalent. While I will be happy that the GOP will have the power to block particularly objectionable nominees, I fear that they will just block all of them. This country really needs to step back from the all out war over judicial nominees. The GOP succeeded in creating a 6 – 3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court. But to do that they employed tactics that understandable enraged the Left. They can afford to be magnanimous with Biden nominees. It would not only be the decent thing to do it would be the smart thing to do. Hopefully, if they don’t block Biden’s nominees just because they can, it would help ease the anger on the Left that could lead to the end of the filibuster and the packing of the Supreme Court. But most of the GOP is too cowardly to stand up to the party’s base.
Honestly considering what brain dead retards a lot of senators are, having a pulse is about right. Right now I’ll vote for anyone who isn’t GOP even is I disagree with their policies, because the GOP has become and anti-democracy cult. You see how they’re trying to put in laws that allow a state legislature to overturn a state election if they THINK, without even proof, that the election is fraudulent? Which means they don’t even need to think it, just pretend to think it. This is some fucked up shit.
Michael, as a Republican from 1956 through 1971, (non-voting) 1972-2018 (voting – but not for Trump), I have no ambivalence whatsoever. The Trump Party, which is what it is, can’t be conceded either Chamber. Weekly impeachments, undercutting Ukraine, Speaker McCarthy or Jordan, crashing the National Credit (we came very close to doing that when the Tea Party first emerged), Senator Herschel Walker: no fucking way. And “if they don’t block Biden’s nominees just because they can”, c’mon; there’s a better chance that the sun will stop moving through the sky than that they will. Last I heard Garland isn’t on the Court yet. Btw those tactics understandably enraged me too particularly when McConnell did his 180 in 2020. Democrats can still be total airheads (Jayapal anyone?) but Trumpists are trying to pre-rig elections, make us a theocracy, subvert the electoral process through that Constitutional Convention scheme and somehow realign us as useful idiots for Emperor Xi’s northern wingman, and somehow redo the last election. Scoundrels, cowards, morons, liars, and lickspittles. Damn near the whole lot.
You are a person of good will; almost no Trumpist can lay claim to that.
Amen.
Thank you for not lumping me in with the Trumpists.
I don’t think the Democrats are conceding control of Congress to the GOP, but there are reasons that a red wave seems to be growing and not all of those reasons can be reduced to Putin’s war causing inflation. Not all GOP politicians are Trumpists either. Unfortunately, given how our democracy is at stake, Democrats ran an awful lot of ads trying to make sure the Trumpiest candidates won GOP primaries because they thought they would be the easiest to beat. It’s looking like some of those candidates, some truly scary ones, are actually going to win. The Democratic ads might not have changed primary outcomes, but they wouldn’t have spent so much money on them if they didn’t think they would have an impact.
You can rest assured that my vote won’t be contributing to a GOP takeover of Congress. I live in the Bronx. I don’t even know who the GOP candidate against Chuck Schumer is and I am not sure if a Republican is even running for Congress in my district. What I am struggling with is what to do about Lee Zeldin. Zeldin voted against certifying the 2020 election. I feel that should disqualify him from getting my vote. But crime is surging in NY. Bail reform is forcing judges to release defendants without bail even if they were already waiting for trials in the 5 or 6 previous arrests where they were released without bail. Some such defendants have gone on to kill people. Zeldin wants to reform the bail reform to allow judges to consider public safety when making bail decisions. Governor Hochul says no. We have a new DA in Manhattan, Alvin Bragg, that instructed his prosecutors to charge armed robbery as a misdemeanor unless someone was seriously injured. Zeldin has promised to fire Bragg. Hochul has refused. I’m reminded of something someone told me in 1993 when I was campaigning for Rudy for mayor. This man was supporting the Right to Life Party nominee, George Marlin. “The lesser of two evils is still evil,” he told me. He also told me my mother would be ashamed of me for supporting Rudy, but the guy was a loon. But he turned out to be more right about Rudy than any of us knew then. But 29 years later I am starting to think Zeldin might be the lesser evil. I don’t think Hochul is evil, but the effect of her policies could be to cause more death and suffering in my city and state. I must not be the only person thinking this way since the latest polls have Zeldin surging.
Yeah I thought the Democrats were playing a crazy game with that…Republicans don’t care how bugnuts fucking crazy ne of their candidates are, it’s a bonus.
Maybe not every GOP politician is a trumpist, but they lay doen for the trumpist every time, so there is functionally little difference.
Not all of them lay down for the Trumpist, some voted to impeach Trump. Whereupon, the Democrats praised their courage and then ran ads to make sure they lost their GOP primaries. That kind of thing makes me doubt they really believe our democracy is at stake in this midterm.
Well, Michael, I’m with you that the tactic of trying to let the enemy shoot itself in the foot is dirty pool. I’ve seen this movie before. Evil Roy Slade is funny. Everybody loves Evil Roy Slade.
Eventually even Roy learned he had to mend his ways. By changing his name, for starters. To Bill, or George, *anything* but Roy!
See Herschel Walker…or your Senator Ron Johnson…I rest my case.
This brings is to the difference between a congregation and a cult, which is that members of a cult feel that their leaders are infallible.
The Democratic Party is a congregation. The Republican party, Trumpist iteration, is a cult. All of its leaders are graded ten out of ten. (Note that every time Trump was asked to grade his performance on something, he gave himself an A+. That is the lowest possible grade for a Trumpublican – from themselves, from each other, or from their cultists.)
Given that, there is almost nothing that a Trumpublican can do to lose the base. Herschel Walker is a liar and dumb as a rock? Ron Johnson is one evil, hypocritical mofo? Irrelevant to the base. You think those are disqualifiers? Welcome to reality. Those are their qualifications for office. Those are the very things that make a vote for them a chance to stick it to the libs.
Because Dr. Oz might be a worse choice overall, a liberal might vote for Fetterman in spite of his liabilities. A conservative will vote for Walker because of them.
The GOP needs independents to win…the cult alone isn’t sufficient. 41% of registered voters in Georgia are Republicans, 41% are Democrats.
But the difference is that the Republican 41 will vote Republican no matter what. That means they only need 10 of the remaining 59 to win (17%). It seems impossible that anyone outside the base would vote for that guy, but as of this moment they have about half of the ten they need. Let’s hope it stops there (or goes down). The good news is that Walker (unlike Dr. Oz) has not been gaining. He’s right where he was at the end of July:
I always thought it was Democrats that vote straight party line.
Progressive Democrats tend to go rogue and cast their votes for hopeless pipe-dream losers like Ralph Nader and Jill Stein.
Republican voters are starting to behave the same way. They will not turn out to vote for the ones they call RINOs.
Inability to form coherent sentences you say? He should run for president. It wasn’t a handicap for train boy and the orange jackass.
It was much worse than that. He seemed to be cognitively disabled. He repeated words unnecessarily. He paused for uncomfortably long periods. At any minute I expected him to actually say “Duh,” like that guy in the Archie comics.
(In addition to everything else, he has a hearing problem, which requires him to read the closed-captioning to know what others are saying.)
As I suggested in the post, this is not a matter of reality, but appearance. He may be smarter than Sir Isaac Fucking Newton, but he gives the impression that he could qualify for a really good parking place.
Except that he isn’t. He’s speech disabled. Strokes do that. This one hit his speech center. He’s not a moron, you can look at his past performance. He’s struggling getting his speech back.
Meanwhile, you’ve got a lying carpetbagger who can’t keep the name of a grocery store straight who votes in another country because he won’t give up his joint citizenship. And it’s a country that isn’t exactly friendly with us, despite what diplomacy would show. (Strategy and convenient bedfellows don’t make for actual friends, looking right at the Sauds here.)
If anyone decides their vote based purely on a debate, they’re a bigger idiot than Trump.
Again, to repeat myself, it’s not a matter of reality, but perception. He may be Sir Isaac Newton in the IQ department, but he looks and sounds like a drooling moron. Sure it’s nor reflective of who he really is. Sure, it’s not fair. But in politics, perception is reality. We know from IQ tests, or highly correlated tests, that George W Bush was a quite a bit smarter than JFK, but that will never be the public perception.
He really should have run out the clock without debating.
Or collect a nice fund raising bump after the debate.
Of course. His supporters, as well as those who don’t care about him but fear a GOP Senate, realized he desperately needs help.
You will probably also see the national Democratic party funneling more money into Pa. very soon. Holding on to the Senate is a must-have for them, but Dr. Oz has been on a steady, uninterrupted climb since mid-August, and the debate has just reinforced how desperate the situation is – in a race that was once thought to be safely blue. (As shown below, Fetterman was up by 12 points on August 10)
I don’t think a human in Pennsylvania is unaware of the reality and had their perception twisted around by one night on TV. They know him from his past. He’s not some new guy who cruised in right before the elections and just started engaging them. You know. Like the other guy.
I think you greatly over-estimate the people’s familiarity with Lt. Governors! In fact, you overestimate the electorate in general. I always have to keep reminding people that exactly half of the people in the world possess double-digit IQs. The average person has only the most superficial, broad-brush concept of government. Political races are not won by subtle issues, but by semiotics. Does Fetterman possess the winning communication skills? Doubtful.
But even if the voters did know of his past, he is a new guy, not the same guy they knew in the past, in the sense that they had to be watching to see if he seemed to recover after his stroke.
He did not.
Well, we’ll see what happens in the polls. Oz has seen uninterrupted growth for two months, and I can’t imagine this mangled performance will stem that tide! If anything, it should accelerate Oz’s upward movement.
—
As for the carpetbagger argument, that has never really worked anywhere. People just don’t care. I don’t think Bobby Kennedy had ever lived in NY before he ran for senator. He rented a house on Long Island, then announced. I don’t remember whether he ever actually moved in. Maybe not. If he did ever use that house, Ethel and the kids were not with him. I do remember that he couldn’t even vote for himself in that election because he had never registered in New York.
He won in a landslide.
Hillary Clinton pulled the same trick. She and Bill bought a house in NY so she could run. She had never resided in the state of New York nor directly participated in state politics prior to her senate race. If I remember right, she actually established residency after she had started campaigning (but before election day)!
She won in a landslide.
In RFK’s own words, “If the senator of the state of New York is going be selected on who’s lived here the longest, then I think people are going vote for my opponent. If it’s going be selected on who’s got the best New York accent, then I think I’m probably out too. But I think if it’s going be selected on the basis of who can make the best United States senator, I think I’m still in the contest.”
UncleScoopy said: “Exactly half of the people in the world possess double-digit IQs.”
Basically, I agree. But, strictly… The word you were trying to reach for Ottaw’ve been: “approximately”. Just sayin’.
Now, I’ll claim the sample size of an IQ distribution is a number quantity, not a mass one. If the sample size is odd, the sample can’t be split into equal halves. If even, those with median IQ are “on the bubble”.
The 50 percenters must go to the left or right half, depending on our choice of percentile convention, thus breaking the tie. We can get equal halves if & only if no one has the median IQ.
Needless to say, this situation would be extremely rare, as the curve we expect, roughly, would be the “normal distribution”. Whose peak would be at or adjacent to the median.
Ideally, of course, the mean & median would be within +/- a half, if we’ve normalized the scores to the sample size.
N’est-ce pas, Mon Oncle?
No, I don’t think so, although it could be correct. It depends on which definition of “percentile rank” you use, exclusive or inclusive.
As a general rule, percentile ranks on standardized tests are exclusive. (“Exclusive” means that the score at that exact percentile is not included. In other words, it does not mean “at or below”; it means only “below.”) Therefore, it is a matter of definition that when a number is in the 50th percentile rank (example IQ=100), then half of the population is below that. In that case it would not matter how many scored exactly 100, since 50% scored below it. The percentage above would be harder to calculate, since it is 50% minus those who scored exactly 100 – including the one person being ranked.
The confusion results from the fact that exclusive percentile ranks do not begin at 1. They go from zero to 99, not from 1 to 100. Exclusive percentile ranks are defined as the % of people in the population who score lower. Take a population of exactly 100 people and test them on some measurement so precisely that we can differentiate them into 100 different scores on our measurement. The guy with the lowest score is in the 0th percentile, since 0% scored lower. The guy with the second-lowest score is at the 1st percentile, since 1% scored lower. The guy with the highest score is in the 99th percentile, since 99 out of 100 scored lower. The guy with the 51st highest score is at the 50th percentile, meaning exactly half (50 of 100) of the testees scored lower. The 100th percentile is not possible because one can not be lower than oneself. (If percentile meant “at or below,” which some statisticians argue for, it would be possible to earn a score in the 100th percentile.)
So it’s definitional that any score in the 50th percentile means that exactly half of the people in the population or sample scored lower. If a 100 IQ is in the 50th percentile, then half of the people in the world score lower, irrespective of how many people score exactly 100.
Of course your point is right that an odd number of testees means that there is nobody exactly at the 50th percentile since an odd number is not even divisible by 2, and therefore the calculation must be off by one person either way, but when the population size is billions (1) that’s meaningless and (2) wait one millisecond for someone to die and it’ll be right again.
After all that, I have to concede that your suggestion of “approximately” rather than “exactly” is technically correct, but to be off by one in a population size of many billions is close enough that I’m comfortable with the ever-so-slight exaggeration of “exactly.”
Yes, I agree. I did say that I do. I also took your “exactly” as a writing style choice, ie rhetorical. A choice I also agree with.
That said, I was aware of your definition with its exclusive / inclusive distinction. I alluded to it via “depending on our choice of percentile convention”. I do prefer your 0 to 99 and your strictly less than. But it’s not a universal choice.
A choice that guarantees a minimum sample subset, whereby that subset contains the smallest number of data points adding up to not less than half of the sample, pushes the dividing picket one spot one way or the other.
Using your choice, it shifts to the right. That’s fine. But it’s still a picket-fence error waiting to happen. Note how I’ve been careful *not* to define median or percentile with your wording of “exactly half” of the sample. I did major in pure math, not engineering math, even though I chose an engineering career path.
Your point that the sample is always in flux justifies your freedom to choose conveniently. But it does so by strengthening my point that a line had to be blurred.
Finite sampling is the underlying problem. That blurry line sharpens up nicely if we simply introduce “equal areas”. But then, in effect the median line becomes infinitely thin & its value is not an integer. In the real world of statistical sampling, though, our number is always an integer, but also always uncertain.
It’s kinda a rock meets hard place we have to live with. I find that funny. Life is like that. What can we do but laugh, & roll with it. Cheers, mate! 🙂
BTW, as IQ raw score sets typically contain duplicates, the split shifts many “pickets” at a time as we thumb the “slider” to pick our spot. With areas, no problem. Discrete data points, though, & wherever we stop, we’re still off by some amount. We can cut our miss down to 1 by “unfairly” splitting the scores equal to the median. How would people feel when they find out we’ve been doing that to them? Fun times. 🙂
That’s the way life works. Perception becomes reality.
The pauses were him reading the prompter for what had been said. Takes a few seconds to get that transcribed and on a screen.
I feel bad for him, and I fully understand.
He should have dodged that debate, but now – the die is cast. I think he was going to win, albeit narrowly. Now – not so much. In a race like that, even a small number of people, one or two percent, can make the difference. Most people will just vote in their lane, but if anyone was undecided before the debate, there’s no way they came out of it thinking “That’s my guy!”
I will be rooting for him on election day, but I’m afraid he blew it.
Summarizing much of this thread ~ Trump has set such a low bar anything is possible IOW not so fast.
Summing up politics in a nutshell nowadays it’s voting against someone or a party rather than voting for someone ie sleepy Joe received 81+ million votes in 2020. 😮 So yes Virginia, Trump has totally changed politics. 😛
As always it comes down to GOTV. Yielding back the balance of my time …
My all time favorite author is Robert Heinlein. He was a Science Fiction Grandmaster, but also something of an icon for libertarians and people interested in plural marriage. His 1973 novel, Time Enough for Love, was broken up by two intermissions featuring aphorisms “from the Notebooks of Lazarus Long.” Lazarus Long was a character in many of Heinlein’s stories and was notable for being the oldest human being to ever live, being on the order of several thousand years old. Some were funny, some poignant, and others weird. Some were good rules to live by.
Some examples:
“A poet who reads his verse in public may have other nasty habits.”
“Never appeal to a man’s “better nature.” He may not have one. Invoking his self-interest gives you more leverage.”
“Small change can often be found under seat cushions.”
“Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.”
But most relevant to this conversation was this advice:
“If you are part of a society that votes, then do so. there may be no candidates and no measures you want to vote FOR… but there are certain to be ones you wish to vote AGAINST. In case of doubt, vote AGAINST. By this rule you will rarely go wrong.”
There are no shortages of candidates to vote against these days. The problem is figuring out how to vote against all of them. The lesser evil is still evil.
One of his observations was particularly true and described a phenomena that’s only gotten worse since people started interacting online. It is an analogy that should be taught at every school in this and every other country.
“Moving parts in rubbing contact require lubrication to avoid excessive wear. Honorifics and formal politeness provide lubrication where people rub together. Often the very young, the untraveled, the naive, the unsophisticated, deplore these formalities as “empty,” “meaningless,” or “dishonest,” and scorn to use them. No matter how “pure” their motives, they thereby throw sand into machinery that does not work too well at best.”
I will close with probably his most useful advice. If I had followed it I might not be single today.
“In a family argument, if it turns out you are right — apologize at once!”
Michael, I think you’ve made your point that RAH was good at writing. OTOH, he was disruptive & misguided in his politics & philosophy, respectively.
I said we love an Evil Roy Slade… & RAH was THAT GUY.
This is actually in reply to your later, “Progressive democrats tend to go rogue and cast their votes for hopeless pipe-dream losers like Ralph Nader and Jill Stein. Republican voters are starting to behave the same way. They will not turn out to vote for the ones they call RINOs.”
One of the smartest men I’ve ever met, former headmaster of a good local private school, had taught French and Latin, Harvard ’42, serious baseball fan Red Sox division, was one of the three core members of a group which got together to teach ourselves Classical Greek between ’95 and ’03, before I retired and could take proper Greek courses at Catholic U (having daytime free helps). He never ceased defending his Nader vote.
And Republicans have been doing that since the Tea Party days. If I had a dime for every time I heard RINO directed at me, I’d have a better wine closet.
And the only time I ever was in anything like a threatening mob situation was when I was roped into giving a talk at the GOP club about the debt limit and why not to crash it. I knew a little about the topic, having spent 27 years in Treasury financing, and being the fellow the Dept. usually trotted out to give my little talk to folks, often hungover, from foreign central banks and finance ministries about the history of Treasury debt securities and borrowing technique (which I had helped improve).
The Tea Party folks, who would later morph into MAGA sheep, weren’t having any. Screaming but thankfully no projectiles. The next day I got a robocall from the local Republican Party, requesting my presence at a rally to support the Congresscritters determined to trash the National Credit. I damn near went all Billy Jack.
Btw, the local DC party pretty much purged itself out of existence years ago. The only difference between now and then is that these folks have just gotten more lockstep. Sheep, but not clever ones.