Obama up 8 points

[Naked Gents Rut]

Who cares? The election is over. Stop interrupting the economics discussion...

[KrazyHorse]

Indeed.

[KrazyHorse]

I think I just broke my stochastic method professor's brain. He started saying something, then I looked at what he was doing and said "well, that's just equivalent to the path integral formulation of field theory, isn't it?". Then he said something about having heard something like that. Then I proceeded to write down a Hamiltonian and quantize the theory.

He looked at me like I was an alien. No wonder they use physicists for this crap...

[KrazyHorse]

Hah. Looking it up, it appears that I've just recreated quantum finance.

[Naked Gents Rut]

I have no idea what quantum finance is, but it sounds awesome.

[KrazyHorse]

Intellectual masturbation masquerading as a useful technique, I would hazard.

[Naked Gents Rut]

That's no reason not to slip it into a cover letter when applying to financial jobs.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Yet the Georgia Rasmussen has McCain +5 (from fivethirtyeight as well).

Sure, but the point isn't that one poll means he's ahead, it just shows that it's close in GA (and probably getting closer).

Couple that with the huge early voting numbers that have a decided advantage for the Democrats, and it becomes very possible that Obama wins Georgia.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Well, 538 has Georgia 90% going for McCain. I think I'll go with Nate Silver.

[Naked Gents Rut]

538 also has Obama winning the election 96.3% of the time. Let's go with Nate Silver and stop talking about an election that's over.

[Q Classic]

538's showing that NC and Indiana flipped. Jeebus.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Well, 538 has Georgia 90% going for McCain. I think I'll go with Nate Silver.

Great, because he would agree that it has become increasingly possible for Obama to win in Georgia, even if McCain currently has the polling edge:

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/10/in-georgia-small-improvements-in-black.html

Think these numbers sound unreasonable? Early voting is underway in Georgia, and according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, black voters do not represent 30 percent of Georgia's early voter turnout. Instead, they represent almost 40 percent. Although early voting figures can be idiosyncratic , Barack Obama certainly seems to be having little trouble getting his vote out. Indeed, Barack Obama is winning Georgia right now.

A related question is whether the pollsters are underrepresenting the black vote in their turnout estimates in states like Georgia. I think they might be. In their past two surveys of Georgia, SurveyUSA pegged black voter turnout at 25-26 percent. This is a pretty safe assumption, since it exactly matches the Secretary of State's turnout estimate from 2004. But this isn't 2004. I would be surprised if black turnout wasn't at least 27-28 percent, and somewhere in the 29-31 percent range is entirely possible. If those numbers are achieved, Georgia is pretty close to being a toss-up. And if it is a toss-up for Barack Obama, it is probably also a toss-up for Jim Martin, who is attempting to unseat Saxby Chambliss from the Senate.

Georgia is not quite a tipping-point state. In order to win it, Barack Obama will have to have made at least some inroads with Southern whites, and if he's done so, that will mean that he's won states like Virginia and North Carolina and won't need Georgia's electoral votes. But I'd guess that it represents a more plausible pickup opportunity for Obama than states like West Virginia and Montana, which are nominally closer in the polling. And if these black voter registration numbers are replicated throughout the South, Elizabeth Dole, Saxby Chambliss and Roger Wicker could all face tough re-election battles, substantially increasing the Democrats' chances of winning 60 Senate seats.

And that's based on less-favorable polling numbers for Obama earlier in the month.

No one is saying it's going to happen, only that it's becoming increasingly possible.

[Seedle]

Thanks for the explanation, KrazyHorse. It makes sense now.

[KrazyHorse]

You're welcome. The actual mechanics are quite complex, but the fundamentals of the behaviour are simple.

[Naked Gents Rut]

Holy ****...

Putting the $106 million that Obama spent in the first 15 days of October in perspective...

OBAMA'S OCT 1-15 SPENDING = $105,599,963.76

That's more than $293,000 an hour.

It's also 49% of EVERYTHING McCain has spent the entire time he has been running for president ($216,769,840).

By contrast, McCain's Oct. 1-15 spending was $9,246,618.70 (or $26,000/hr).

The RNC is the money bags here. Its Oct. 1-15 spending: $45,189,239, less than a third of Obama's spending during the same period.

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/10/24/1591260.aspx

What a waste of money. It's things like this that really make me envy the Canadian electoral system.