XTREME VOTEPOCALYPSE 2012: VOTE OR DIE

[A Black Falcon]

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2012/11/wa...gging.html

Great wall of shame here pointing out many of the numbingly stupid things said this year about Nate Silver's election model. Watching these people (Republicans and some of the less-interested-in-facts reporters) bash him for saying that the polls showed what the polls were showing was just so, so ridiculous. It was great to win the election of course, but it was also great to see all of the people saying that "it's tied" and "statistical models are meaningless, all that matters is my gut opinion!" were proven completely, absolutely wrong.

Not that I expect any of them to admit they were wrong, of course... but still, they were, and the results prove it. That long, long list in the thread is a nice primer on just HOW wrong, for anyone who wasn't following this idiocy earlier.


(Oh, and yes, the two criticisms at the top are valid, the top one particularly. He said there was a 90-something percent chance that the Republican would win the North Dakota senate race, despite some mixed polling, but the Democrat won. He has to have gotten something a bit off there. I did think that the Republican would win it, but I thought it'd be close, and that she [the Democrat, Heidi Heitkamp] had an against-the-odds (but nowhere near 90%!) chance. Well, she pulled it off.)