Comments on: McCain’s Road To 270 http://donklephant.com/2008/10/30/mccains-road-to-270/ Big Teeth. Huge Ass. Surprisingly Reasonable. Sun, 22 Nov 2009 10:53:41 -0800 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: alogicbit http://donklephant.com/2008/10/30/mccains-road-to-270/comment-page-1/#comment-422185 alogicbit Fri, 31 Oct 2008 05:11:35 +0000 http://donklephant.com/?p=10016#comment-422185 "Polls are helpful, but should be taken with a grain of salt. I worry that if Obama loses, his supporters have gotten so used to the idea that his victory was inevitable that they’ll revisit 2004 on a grand scale: it can’t be that the polls were wrong, they’ll say, the election must have been rigged." As to that portion of your comments; You can bet your ass! My advice to you Simon, is that unless McCain wins with over 300 electoral votes, head for the hills. “Polls are helpful, but should be taken with a grain of salt. I worry that if Obama loses, his supporters have gotten so used to the idea that his victory was inevitable that they’ll revisit 2004 on a grand scale: it can’t be that the polls were wrong, they’ll say, the election must have been rigged.”

As to that portion of your comments; You can bet your ass!

My advice to you Simon, is that unless McCain wins with over 300 electoral votes, head for the hills.

]]> By: Simon http://donklephant.com/2008/10/30/mccains-road-to-270/comment-page-1/#comment-422106 Simon Thu, 30 Oct 2008 21:44:44 +0000 http://donklephant.com/?p=10016#comment-422106 Incredibly tough, unless the polls are wrong. Remember that in 2004, the exit polls didn't reflect the reality of the race - and that was when they were asking voters what they <i>had just done</i>, not what they might do a few days from now. Sometimes polls are wrong. It's easy to illustrate that point: if the polls being taken <i>right now</i> aren't more-or-less uniform within their common margin of error, at least some of them are wrong by some amount. Today, RCP lists nine national polls that give Obama a lead by six different margins ranging from +3 to +8; at least some of those polls must be wrong. (What's interesting about this is that it's no defense to say that some of those polls might have methodology problems, or that the discrepancies are explainable. Of course that's true - that's the point.) Polls are helpful, but should be taken with a grain of salt. I worry that if Obama loses, his supporters have gotten so used to the idea that his victory was inevitable that they'll revisit 2004 on a grand scale: it can't be that the polls were wrong, they'll say, the election must have been rigged. Well, once upon a time, Hillary was the inevitable nominee, and as it happens, Truman beat Dewey after all. Incredibly tough, unless the polls are wrong. Remember that in 2004, the exit polls didn’t reflect the reality of the race – and that was when they were asking voters what they had just done, not what they might do a few days from now. Sometimes polls are wrong. It’s easy to illustrate that point: if the polls being taken right now aren’t more-or-less uniform within their common margin of error, at least some of them are wrong by some amount. Today, RCP lists nine national polls that give Obama a lead by six different margins ranging from +3 to +8; at least some of those polls must be wrong. (What’s interesting about this is that it’s no defense to say that some of those polls might have methodology problems, or that the discrepancies are explainable. Of course that’s true – that’s the point.)

Polls are helpful, but should be taken with a grain of salt. I worry that if Obama loses, his supporters have gotten so used to the idea that his victory was inevitable that they’ll revisit 2004 on a grand scale: it can’t be that the polls were wrong, they’ll say, the election must have been rigged. Well, once upon a time, Hillary was the inevitable nominee, and as it happens, Truman beat Dewey after all.

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