Colin Powell endorses Barack Obama

[Riesstiu IV]

My prediction is that the October surprise will be the second coming of Jesus and his subsequent endorsement of a McCain presidency.

[Alinestra Covelia]

But McCain and Palin don't believe in dinosaurs, so RaptorJesus will smite them with its jaws.

[Riesstiu IV]

RaptorJesus is a false messiah. Anyone who believes in this semi-mythical heretic will burn in the eternal fires. Jesus clearly respected velociraptors and even gave them blessing but Jesus took the form of a man.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Ramo
Yeah, 25% is way too high. Nate Silver's site, which factors in expected tightening of the race, puts the odds of McCain's victory at 7.5%. McCain's problem is that, if anything, the pollsters are probably too conservative in factoring in Obama's turnout operation.

fivethirtyeight sounds like they're doing a decent job, but I've written them several emails about what appear to be mistakes in their methodology (and have not heard back from them yet).

[KrazyHorse]

I have some standing on this subject, since much of my research involves the use and statistical interpretation of Monte Carlo generators.

[Kuciwalker]

Out of curiosity, what are these mistakes?

[Ramo]

What do you have issues with?

[KrazyHorse]

First, they appear to have made a typo type of mistake in weighting multi-day and tracking polls (their putative methodology gives different answers than the numbers they end up with)

Secondly, they used the 90% confidence interval several times when they should have been using the standard deviation.

Thirdly, they used the margin of error on an individual's vote share as the same as the margin of error on the difference between two people's vote shares (specifically the top two finishers). 2 and 3 would cancel out if vote shares were independent variables, but since the votes for one candidate are strongly negatively correlated with votes for the other candidate, they do not (they still work in opposite directions, but 3 actually overcomes 2, and should therefore increase the uncertainty in final results)

They have not detailed their interstate-correlation scheme sufficiently for me to criticize it in this level of detail.

[Arrian]

Send the email again.

-Arrian

[Alinestra Covelia]

Originally posted by Riesstiu IV
Jesus clearly respected velociraptors and even gave them blessing but Jesus took the form of a man.

This sounds like a good sig.

Either that, or the cornerstone of a new church.

I leave it up to you.

[-Jrabbit]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
So why exactly is Powell's endorsement of anyone going to matter? Its like treating this like some magical endorsement that actually may do something when others have not.

Imran, the value of the Powell endorsement was in maintaining control of the news cycle, nothing more. Thus the timing. An appearance on Meet The Press two weeks before election day doesn't just happen.

So yes, it was meaningful, but primarily due to the timing. At this point, its primary utility has come and gone. Except for the part where people continue talking about it. But it was mostly about directing the news cycle. And the mainstream media proved eminently cooperative.

Yeah, there's some residual value in reassuring people on his ability to command the military, blah blah. But as others have stated, it was really about steering the conversation away from negative topics at the optimal time.

[KrazyHorse]

Today's national polls have Obama up by~9 (weighted average)

[Naked Gents Rut]

McCain's numbers were sliding even before the meltdown.

Incorrect.

And I think he and his team have already demonstrated that they are the best political strategists we've seen in Presidential politics in 20 years.

You're greatly overrating Obama's political team; Clinton and Bush's teams were both better. Obama did well to beat Hillary, but the incompetence of her team with regards to the post-Super Tuesday and caucus states probably did more to do Hillary in than anything Obama accomplished. In the general election, Obama's political strategy has been mediocre. He was losing to McCain before the financial crisis hit, which is quite a poor showing in an election year where the fundamentals so strongly favor the Democrats. Unfortunately he's the luckiest politician in recent memory. He always seems to get the break he needs to get elected, whether it's a financial crisis, a lack of valid signatures on opponents' petitions or a Star Trek sex scandal.

[Naked Gents Rut]

Now there's two weeks left, Powell's knocked the pass down out of the air, and McCain's out of plays.

Instead of kneeling the ball, however, Biden just threw an interception. Good strategy by Obama there, picking the biggest blowhard in the U.S. Senate as a running mate.

Not that any of this matters, though. Powell and Biden are both irrelevant. The election ended in early September.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Naked Gents Rut
You're greatly overrating Obama's political team; Clinton and Bush's teams were both better.

No. They were both good. Neither approaches the scale that Obama's campaign has demonstrated. The dude just raised 150 million dollars in 30 days. Five million a day. They have dozens of field offices in every state. Twice the ground game of Bush 2000/04. Four times that of McCain. Clinton political machine was good, but not this good. And was certainly not this good in 92. Give Obama 4 more years to build his machine and he will absolutely wreck whoever has to run against him, assuming that he does not prove to be an unpopular president.

And yes, he is running against an incompetent, and beat an incompetent in the primary. Which is why he is so far ahead despite the fact that he's just some guy from Illinois with 2 years in the Senate.