Let's put it like this: if Romney wins, there will be a record increase in the unemployment rate due to the collapse of the polling industry.
Let's put it like this: if Romney wins, there will be a record increase in the unemployment rate due to the collapse of the polling industry.
Hope is the denial of reality
Not sure its about ratings, I've not seen many Stateside (non-partisan) pundits calling it early as a clear Obama win either. I think its more about journalists being cautious and not wanting to get it wrong.Originally Posted by Loki
They're doing it for the same reason. No one's going to watch election coverage if they're told it's not a close race.
Hope is the denial of reality
Maybe they don't want to dishearten people who haven't voted yet.
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
Actually possibly the opposite, after the polling industry got the '92 election here so catastrophically wrong then a probably record amount was spent on it investigating what went wrong/developing new techniques etcLet's put it like this: if Romney wins, there will be a record increase in the unemployment rate due to the collapse of the polling industry.
If trust in polls goes down, I'm willing to bet that news agencies will be far less willing to spend big bucks to get frequent polls.
Then they should stop projecting any results until all the polling stations are closed (which wouldn't be the worst idea).
Hope is the denial of reality
Again the opposite ... if all the poll companies can get it right so easily then what's the point in spending big bucks on your specific one? If on the other hand you can try and claim that you've got the only accurate one ...
Have you got any evidence backing your intuition?
Each of the news agencies have statistics/polling experts. Those experts are almost unanimous in saying this will not be a close race. Those analysts get little if any face time. The NY Times seems to be the only one not clamoring to say what a close race this is, and they're only major news source to let a stats/polling person lead their election coverage.
Hope is the denial of reality
Romney's leading by 3 electoral votes right now.
I'm ready to call it. Obama with 300ish electoral votes.
Popular vote is a tough call, though.
Good piece, but I don't buy their counter-argument. They might get a brownie point by "being different", but if people go to sleep at 11 PM, what's going to happen to their ratings after that?
Hope is the denial of reality
Agreed. But I do think they at least provide a decent discussion on the whys of this phenomenon.
That being said, don't you think people still care about more than just the presidential election tonight? I know the only reason I have the TV on in the background is the Warren/Brown race, not the presidential one. They can capitalize on local races even if they argue that the presidential race is all but decided.
I'm not sure how much people care about the local races. They might check the results every once in a while, but they're not going to keep the channel on all night to see who wins.
Looks like Warren might take it by the way. Commies.
Hope is the denial of reality
It must be all of those weed-lovers coming out to vote who assured her victory.
That was Brown's mistake. He should have given out some free weed the day before the election...
Hope is the denial of reality
Looks like its all over bar the counting, the President's been re-elected and I'm off to bed soon ...
All the places I'm watching are still showing Romney as up.
But yeah, go to bed. The result was never really in doubt.
My prediction would be 100% accurate if Romney won the last 3 states. Unfortunately, he's not nice enough to do that.
For all the anti-poll people: it looks like 538 predicted all 50 states.
Last edited by Loki; 11-07-2012 at 05:12 AM.
Hope is the denial of reality
I predict Obama will win in the electoral college, with a very narrow win on the popular vote.
If Florida goes to Romney, I was right!
Keep on keepin' the beat alive!
It won't.
Hope is the denial of reality
2020 is gonna be hella weird I think. Nate Silver may have to be locked up.
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
Republicans have to figure out that they NEED to get away from the social issues, and focus on smaller government/fiscal responsibility to have any hope.
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Unfortunately, if they did that, some other party would arise to take their place (or more likely, the party would splinter).
On an unrelated note, it seems that the irresponsible election coverage that claimed the race was nearly a tie until the last second is fueling conspiracy theorists. Good job, self-serving journalists.
Hope is the denial of reality
Creative destruction is needed.
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Institutions aren't in the business of intentionally destroying themselves.
Hope is the denial of reality
So what's the final consensus about professional polls? There's been a lot of back-and-forth about using polls to make predictions -- voter turn-out, winning undecideds, whether the race was "close" or a "landslide" -- and which polls were objective or partisan.
Some Republicans seemed downright shocked at exit polls showing Obama ahead, and refused to believe them. Donald Trump aside, I heard Fox News even delayed calling it for Obama after other news agencies did, because Karl Rove didn't trust the data coming out of Ohio. If that's true, it's a pretty sad future for (R) strategists and campaign leaders.
Polls aren't "partisan". They're either done well or they're not.
Hope is the denial of reality
Well, and stop making any and every minority feel like the GOP wants to kick them in the shins and stick its tongue out at them.
Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"
In general... what minorities are the GOP against?
From a policy approach I could see gays being a little put out.
Republicans are the party that wants to end racial discrimination while Democrats want to codify it in law.
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