The no-post post

[sleigh]

I haven't posted in a long time -- school's been keeping me busy and there just hasn't been a subject that made me want to carve out the time to write it up. I've been following the election news, but even that hasn't made me want to do more than retch.

My son did point me to a site that he said he found interesting: Nate Silver's Five Thirty Eight blog in the NY Times (http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/author/nate-silver/). He looks at the various polls and other factors, and weights them according to his own formula. That formula was good enough in the last presidential election that he correctly forecast the outcome in every state but one (he missed Indiana), and was 100% with the senatorial races…

While all the "news" outlets are forecasting an incredibly tight race (after all, that's what they'd prefer…), and even my other site-of-choice, electoral-vote.com, currently has the race at 281 EVs for Obama, 215 for Romney, with 42 EVs too close to call, Silver has it as a much less close race. As of today, he has Obama at 303 EVs, and Romney with 235, and gives Obama an 80.9% probability of winning. Mind you, since this is all based on polling, that might change over the next few days.

Still…

So what's your preferred site for political views?

Comments

[controuble.livejournal.com]

I also follow Nate Silver's 538 blog, but it isn't based entirely on polling data. He described some of the other factors he was going to use this time - some economic factors like the unemployment rate, but I can't remember them and I'm not sure just how far back I'd have to look to find it.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Heh - I love how electoral-vote.com has a Rasmussen-free page, for those who like their polls unbiased...

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

Nate did great work in baseball before turning to politics. What I like is that he focuses on what the polls mean on the day they were taken, rather than necessarily trying to use them what happens next Tuesday.

[davidschroth.livejournal.com]

So what's your preferred site for political views?

Avedon's Sideshow (for the view from the Left)
Eschaton
Talking Points Memo
Grasping Reality (Economics professor Brad DeLong's blog)
The Washington Monthly
Think Progress
Kevin Drum at Mother Jones
Paul Krugman's Blog

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

My, that's quite an array, Mr. David Jean!

[davidschroth.livejournal.com]

That's because they're not only informative, they're entertaining.