95% Likelihood of Bogus Media Narratives
Listening to Allan Loudell spend ten minutes trying to perform CPR on the cold gray corpse of “the Bradley effect” story on my drive home, I started thinking about going on a modified media black-out and getting all of my news from Mike Matthews afternoon show on delawaretalkradio.com rather than subject myself to the bogus “race tightening” stories that the TV news will be full of for the next seven days.
The national tracking polls will tick up and down, Allan Loudell will continue to pretend that the Bradley effect is real, but what would a real “tightening” race look like? Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight has the answer.
What Would ‘Tightening’ Look Like?
There is a lot of discussion going on about whether the national race is tightening; our model concludes that it is not. But what would meaningful ‘tightening’ look like in terms of the Electoral College?Let me be oddly specific here. In order to conclude the Electoral College has tightened to the point where the outcome on November 4 is at least moderately uncertain, I would want to see the following between now and the election. Call it the 2/2/2 condition:
John McCain polling within 2 points in 2 or more non-partisan polls (sorry, Strategic Vision) in at least 2 out of the 3 following states: Colorado, Virginia, Pennsylvania.
If this condition is met, then I think there could be some drama on Election Night (though by no means would McCain be the favorite). If not, then it’s very hard to imagine McCain winning.
CPR and Loudelly should not be in the same sentence.
Nancy
I wasn’t asking questions about the “Bradley Effect”, which I understand to have been when people flat-out say they’re voting FOR the African-American candidate (because they perceive the pollster wants to hear that), when they intend to vote against.
I was asking questions about “undecided voters”… a much more subtle category.
“Undecideds” COULD have decided AGAINST a particular candidate, but they’re not entirely sure they can vote for the other guy either.
John Nichols from The NATION and The PROGRESSIVE — not exactly corporate-controlled, conservative media sources — wrote, I thought, an interesting column about this very topic.
Allan Loudell
WDEL Radio
Speaking of Bradley effect… I wonder what to make of those people who have those “Delaware’s Joe Biden” signs in their yard – but no “Obama/Biden” signs.
Are some nitwits actually going to vote for Biden for Senate, and McCain for President?
Allan,
Thanks for reading and commenting.
I thought the line of questioning was leading the witness to say that “undecideds” might be decides who can’t admit to pollsters that they are voting for McCain.
Which is a kind of working definition of the Bradley Effect.
Here is a link to the Nichols piece in The Nation
TheNation
anon –
I doubt that. I think it is simply recognition that Biden is also running for senate.
The biggest problem in this country right now which corporate media refuses to comment on is the fact that people are being purged all over the country. Georgia, NY, Ohio, NM, Va, Fla to mention a few. It is so bad on the election protection sites that some are asking this question. “What will citizens do if McCain wins”. Some are calling for civil disobedience. Some call for dressing in Orange and going to the Board of Election office or you town hall. Others say there will be “civil disobedience” which is why the police and security forces will be out in droves. This is what voter suppression is all about. In NY cases are being filed in court…ask why these stories arent comng out. Its simple. The candidates whether national/state/local are spending millions of dollars to these same media outlets and claim they dont want to report these scandals, “because they are afraid people won’t go out to vote, thinking it will be stolen anyway”. This is a a big issue we should all be vigilant.
I didn’t hear Allan’s show, but Nichols’ argument seems to be that Obama does not outperform his polling numbers (does McCain?) and if the polling numbers are fairly consistent for Obama, then lots of undecideds could break for McCain and we get Dewey Defeats Truman.
That is certainly possible — this is why this is no time to be complacent, people! — but without knowing something about McCain’s performance to primary polling AND being able to include projections on turnout, it is tough to make any real calls on this. For all we know, Obama will get all of his voters out and those undecideds decide to take their kids out for pizza.
Besides Nate Silver’s discussion (and one of the the guys over at pollster.com), On The Media did a very informative program on the origin of the Bradley story.
I am in no way going to accuse Allen of this but I find that when talk radio talks about the Bradely effect there is a certian group that sceretly hopes it takes place.
If you want Obama to win, I think you might want some measure of a public perception that the race is tightening enough to motivate marginally involved Obama supporters to not assume he has it in the bag and stay home.
Ed Rendell was on the radio a couple days ago saying that a bigger opponent to Obama than McCain is overconfidence. I tend to agree and want Obama supporters to think it might be close,so they feel a personal vested interest in voting. If people take for granted that Obama is going to win in a blowout, some percentage of voters will just stay home.
This is especially an issue on the West Coast where the polls are still open after the polls close on the East Coast and long after the first exit polls in the East. I don’t want anyone to start celebrating until the electoral votes are certain.
Interesting take. “Tightening” stories help Obama…hmmm. I should have know that the liberal media was up to something.
Its a shame Allan Loudell was God’s gift to nes broadcasting on this blog a few weeks ago the only thing worthwhile on corporate Radio