proximoception: (Default)
proximoception ([personal profile] proximoception) wrote2013-01-02 02:48 am

(no subject)

So you're telling me Obama didn't need Florida, Ohio, or Virginia (where he finished up +1, +3, +4), since he was up more than five percentage points in each of the plethora of blue states that got him to 270 without any of those three. So short of a revelation he'd tried same-sex cannibalism in college he was always a shoe-in and I lost a lot of precious sleep over nothing. Fucking pollsters.

[identity profile] proximoception.livejournal.com 2013-01-02 09:56 pm (UTC)(link)
That's the thing - I assumed those guys were right, so felt fine in the last couple weeks of it. My worry period was back when they were saying he had a 60, 70, 80 percent chance of winning. But they were basing everything on polls that were understating Obama support by over 3 percent on average. I have nothing against Silver and Wang; you can only cook from available ingredients.

If they'd had less race-blind, cellphone-addled, 2010-spooked polls to work with Obama would have been listed at 95 all the way through, and not 99.9 only out of polite deference to the vagaries of senile fate. Maybe Democratic paranoia helped us turn out (not that that gave us the House back, again due to Clusterfuck 2010), but who knows. I just know I didn't like that perennial near-tie in the popular vote and half the swing states.