Posts Made By: James Brown

Originally Posted by James Lacey

This page is a good one for political junkies:

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/presidential-polls-trump-biden#what-do-the-polls-say

I check it pretty regularly. This link, in particular, is germane to what we are discussing:

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/presidential-polls-trump-biden/biden-leads-by-enough-to-withstand-a-polling-misfire

For the first time since we started our poll tracker several weeks ago, Joe Biden leads by enough to withstand a repeat of the polling error in 2016.

If the polls were exactly as wrong as they were four years ago, Mr. Biden would hold the Clinton states and flip Michigan, Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Nebraska’s Second District, giving him more than the 270 electoral votes needed to win.

Hi James:

I like the NYT's presentation, their web interface is the best by far on election night.  But, I remember that the NYT model had Secretary Clinton at 99% right before the 2016 election.  Sam Wang (NYT) attacked Nate Silver's more measured analysis, and Silver (in my opinion) schooled Wang on how the NYT was misapplying the data.  Do you recall that Wang had to eat a bug on live TV after the election?   https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/19/opinion/why-i-had-to-eat-a-bug-on-cnn.html

This is not to say that the NYT has it wrong again, and indeed, the graph incorporating a 2016 sized polling error is very compelling.  My faith is in 538 though.  They have earned it over several election cycles, including 2016, where they were wrong, but by a rational margin, and totally able to explain why they were wrong.   

You are right about one thing.  If I am betting straight up today my money is on Biden.  No hesitation whatsoever making that bet.   

Jim

Originally Posted by Russ Carroll

If Trump wins, it is no different than 2016: Americans are to blame.

No, if Trump wins, it is no different than 2016:  The Democrats nominated a fatally flawed candidate who ran a crappy campaign.

Seriously Russ, I don't think it is logical to blame the voters.  In my lifetime the presidency has bounced around from Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama and now Trump.  Some of these are apples and some are oranges (Trump!).  About 1/2 of the electorate has hated each of these men.  The electorate changes and evolves of course, but it is not "blameworthy."  People who voted or will vote for Trump have their reasons, same as those who will vote against him.  Same as those who voted for or against Carter etc.

Jim

p.s.  I don't think Biden is nearly as flawed as his predecessor of course.  He is turning out to be a better candidate than I would have guessed.  Also, Darian asked what we would "think" if Trump wins, not who we would blame.  I absolutely do not mind the change in the direction of the question, but I want to be clear that I am not blaming the pollsters if Trump wins.  I will think that the polling industry is broken, at least temporarily.  I won't actually blame anyone if Trump wins, although last time I am inclined to blame the D's who malpracticed the election by anointing Secretary Clinton taking the Midwest for granted.

Originally Posted by Richard Davis

I read reports long ago that Trump had been taking HCQ as a prophylactic. 

Ouch.

Originally Posted by James Brown

Hi James:

I like the NYT's presentation, their web interface is the best by far on election night.  But, I remember that the NYT model had Secretary Clinton at 99% right before the 2016 election.  Sam Wang (NYT) attacked Nate Silver's more measured analysis, and Silver (in my opinion) schooled Wang on how the NYT was misapplying the data.  Do you recall that Wang had to eat a bug on live TV after the election?   https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/19/opinion/why-i-had-to-eat-a-bug-on-cnn.html

This is not to say that the NYT has it wrong again, and indeed, the graph incorporating a 2016 sized polling error is very compelling.  My faith is in 538 though.  They have earned it over several election cycles, including 2016, where they were wrong, but by a rational margin, and totally able to explain why they were wrong.   

You are right about one thing.  If I am betting straight up today my money is on Biden.  No hesitation whatsoever making that bet.   

Jim

P.S.  I've been reviewing some data from 2016, and it is apparent I've conflated a few things.  Wang of 99%+ 'Clinton wins' fame is with the Princeton Election Consortium (PEC), not the NYT.  The NYT did publish the PEC data alongside it's own however.  The NYT's in-house data was somewhat more measured.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/upshot/presidential-polls-forecast.html

Jim

Originally Posted by James Lacey

Who is going to tell him?

I would nominate Inigo Montoya, the world’s greatest swordsman.  (Hopefully you have seen the Princess Bride?)

Montoya:

"Rich, I don't think that word means what you think it means"

Originally Posted by Russ Carroll

It's math. That's how elections work. So yes, it is all on the voters as to who wins between 2 candidates.
If Americans can't distinguish between Joe Biden and the greatest mass-murderer in US history, then I got nothin'

Don't be despondent Russ, Biden is going to win.  And if not, you'll always have your knack for exaggeration!  

Originally Posted by James Lacey

Not only that, it didn't work either.

Originally Posted by Richard Davis

What didn't work, proving that you haven't a clue, and that you make remarks  quite often, which simply indicate your lack of knowledge?  

I'd say it worked just fine.

You would, and that is darned amazing.  By the way, James and I know what a prophylactic is.  The definition you posted is quite good:  

"Prophylactic: A preventive measure. The word comes from the Greek for "an advance guard," an apt term for a measure taken to fend off a disease or another unwanted consequence.

A prophylactic is a medication or a treatment designed and used to prevent a disease from occurring."  (See Rich's link)

James is right of course, he assumes you know what the word prophylactic means in a medical context.  So he points out, indisputably, that it did not work.  I am less generous.  I am assuming that you don't know what a prophylactic is.  

Jim

Originally Posted by Russ Carroll

If someone clearly sees two swimmers in distress and, instead of telling a lifeguard, they just leave the scene so they don't have to deal with the situation, and one of the swimmer drowns because of it, what would you call that?

Russ,

I understand that Trump's approach to the pandemic caused/is causing many people to exercise less vigilance than I believe is good for them.  Nonetheless, it is not like the knuckleheads who refuse masks, go clubbing, and eschew distancing don't know, but for something Trump said, that they are taking unnecessary risks.  Consider our own Darian who is pretty darned laissez faire about masks and distancing.  He has his own reasons.  I seriously doubt Darian would be exercising the level of caution expressed by Dave Cotterell for example, no matter what Trump might say or do.  

Tying  this to your analogy, if someone fully aware that they don't know how to swim jumps in anyway, that person has a great deal of personal culpability, even if a bystander lets them drown.

Covid 19 is a new and deadly disease.  In an imaginary hypothetical, if we did everything "right" many people still would have died.  You can demonstrate that we, as a society, did not do everything right, from the top down.  Therefore we have extra deaths over some hypothetical baseline.  But it is impossible to apportion culpability for those excess deaths among all of those who didn't do everything exactly right i.e. Trump, Faucci, Cuomo, and each and every one of us who has let our guard down from time to time.  Blaming Trump for the entirety of the excess deaths is irrational.

From my perspective, without the dramatic social measures we did implement, many more would have died.  Maybe twice as many?  Maybe ten times as many?  Who knows?  Who gets credit for those lives saved?  Not Trump.  In my book it is the everyman who took reasonable precautions who gets credit for preventing those deaths.  

Jim

p.s.  Even by the terms of your own analogy, the person who fails to tell the lifeguard is not a murderer.  He didn't kill anyone.  The water killed the drowned man.  The person who passed up the opportunity to save the swimmer is a coward and a scoundrel I suppose, but not a murderer.

Originally Posted by Russ Carroll

Sadly, neither did Richards father.

  That is cruel, but LOL funny.