I love how I'm getting this lecture and not the guys posting things like:

Where "major political deal" was conceded to mean "great stamp of disapproval for Obama and his agenda".

You know I'm arguing exactly what you're arguing, right? When I wrote out stuff like this:

THIS IS NOT THE LOGICAL CONCLUSION OF WHAT I BELIEVE.

Because it's not what I believe.

It's pretty much exactly what the people I'm arguing with are claiming.

Yet, ldo, the peanut gallery is giving me the "this isn't binary!" and "there's lots of grey area here". No ****ing kidding. You don't say.

Sounds good. I'd add "look at special elections, look at special elections in this economic climate, look at elections in this climate, etc. etc" but fair enough.

So okay, you've got some criteria about what constitutes Coakley SHOULD WIN BY. I don't doubt we "could" figure it out and come up with some number and was never arguing otherwise. What's the number again? This is an open book exam, feel free to go ahead and use whatever resources are at your disposal, but show your work ldo.

Just saw Coakley and Brown ads b2b on ABC here. Coakley's ad seems very effective in pounding the Brown = Bush drum. Brown is much more about enthusiasm and momentum "we can DO it!" energy. Cannot tell which will be more effective.

BTW, I think we all get the point DVaut - we should not play the momentum/expectations game + 2000 ppl in MA don't make or break national politics especially because we can measure national moods directly. Your work here is done sir!

No kidding. It's what you're arguing against.

I'm saying that such an argument, based upon your setting their position = to your analogy, is wrong, in that they're not actually making that argument. You're falsely ascribing it to them.

Going by some of the numbers I've seen from their other elections, her winning by less than 7 points would be pretty remarkable.

Pretty persuasive case. Color me convinced. 7 it is.

Dvaut - the idea that I'd ever care enough about some hilarious political BS that won't change a thing and never can, to convince you is pure insanity. These type of irrelevant political discussions where each side tries to wave its dick about how much useless electoral history knowledge they have that no one ever cares about and no one ever needs to know is much better left to you and 13th.

So, we've gone from "If a Republican wins by any margin, it is pretty clearly a sign of discontent with the current democratic methodology or platform" to Coakley "winning by less than 7 points would be pretty remarkable" to "oh, you want me to quantify the things I believe? Well, this is useless dickwaving and I don't care and I'm above it."

Amazing, all in the span of like 4 posts too.

If only I had asked people to make sure I correctly understood their positions, maybe I could have gotten a bunch of people to reply "yeah, what's so hard to understand?" and "ldo", so that I wouldn't then have someone else come along and claim I'm strawmanning.

If only.

But it is not just a couple thousand people..... it is way more than that shifting from a "usually vote dem" to "I'm voting against them dems". That is the big shift, It is not the margin of victory, it is the "normal" margin of victory versus the actual outcome here in Mass 2010.

Notice I said voting against the dems..... it's not that brown is any great candidate or coackly is horrible..... people just are realizing the obama steamroller must be stopped (in reality slowed) cause all the hope and change he referred to on the campaign trail is not the hope and change they were actually looking for.

Gotta go against DlVaultl here. It's not news when you defend home field from the Lions. When they come into your house and beat you, that's news.

You have no idea if any of that is happening. Well, maybe you do, but if so prove it ldo. I'm not being cute here or anything. As I've belabored, we have dozens of ways to measure why people are voting or not voting, who they voted for in the last election, who they'll vote for on Thursday, and who they'll vote for in 2010 and 2012, how much people are voting against "Dems in general", how many are voting for Brown, voting against Coakley, how many approve of Obama but are voting for Brown, how many approve of the rest of Democrats in Congress but are voting for Brown, how many don't like the proposed health care reform, how many do but are voting for Brown ,etc. etc. I've even heard rumors you can ask people all these questions, directly, whether or not they live in MA at all! Amazing. Technology these days, what will they think of next?

Of course, actually just looking at that data would directly answer these kinds of questions, which is why we won't do that and we'll just look at the vote totals on Thursday, and if Brown gets one more vote than Coakley, BITCH SLAP CITY

.

Take a look at the dem margin of victory in Mass for the last half decade..... come on Dvaut, you are better than this.

I know you have to realize the huge shift in the polls here. Don't hide behind the "few thousand voters" line when a few thousand voters would not even make it close in the past 5 decades.

The sad thing is that you are not better than this.

Margin of victory in what? Presidential elections? Not analogous, at all. This race wouldn't be a race if it was November and Obama was on the ballot.

Senate elections? There hasn't been an open Senate seat in Massachusetts in 25 years. Comparing Kennedy and Kerry's results to this is something that only ******s do--but it appears to pass for "statistical analysis" from the crack pollster team in the 2+2 politics forum.

Hey man, you're better than trying to analyze data usefully.

Errr I don't watch "the media" so I apologize if I repeat what they say?

Regardless, I'm not even sure what you're arguing here. Don't you think it's significant if a place that goes in contrast to a half century of history? I agree that it probably doesn't have anything specifically to do with health care or Obama, it's simply the fact that people aren't happy with the present situation. But approaching this election as if it were a 50/50 coinflip going into it doesn't make any sense at all?

The sickest part of this thing is that the polling industry has pretty much exploded over the past 10 years or so. Not to mention the internet. If you want answers to these questions like "do voters like Obama?", "do they approve of his agenda?", "do they like health care reform?", there's no less than like dozens of polls a week THAT ASK PEOPLE THIS VERY QUESTION. And all the results are on the Google.

Instead, we'll look at a special election in January, compare the results to the last time Ted Kennedy ran unopposed, say the results are alot closer this time and conclude America hates Obama, the end. TWOPLUSTWO FTW

facepalm.jpg

If we had half a century worth of history of special Senate elections between non-incumbents, sure, we'd have some useful data. Go read the exchange between taso and I. There's no "standard" here. It went from "Republicans have to win to prove America's discontent with Obama" to "Coakley has to win by 7 or more" to "well I have no ****ing idea, STFU this stuff is for nerds". I could point out Massachusetts went 16 years with a GOP governor between 1991 and 2007, but why? It's stupid. In the same way running Thursday's results against the last time Ted Kennedy beat a homeless bum who bothered to file the paperwork to get on the ballot is not useful.

Just saw the negative Brown ad - not really that effective because it only mentioned the health/insurance care contributions to Coakley without articulating why her positions are payback for those contributions.

Come on now, obama won this state handily, and one year after with unemployment still rising, spending hitting the gazillions, wars still being fought etcetcetc, obama ran on hope and change, and really has zero accomplishments to point to. What has gotten better????? the DJIA???? that's easy when you print money and Dow 10000 is what Dow 7500 was 10 years ago.

This election is 90% obamanomics/obamacare related..... ldo there is no cite for this, we will have to wait for the exit polls/\.

I don't see how it can not?

My district votes D every time. If we vote R in the next election, that's not more significant than it staying D?

I don't think anyone would argue that it is not significant if Coakley loses--although the significance will be no doubt over-hyped.

The statement in question is UAT and co's assertion that:

--If Coakley loses, Obama is doomed, Massachusetts voters have turned on him and hate his health care plan and they think his approach to the Christmas terrorist attack was horrible.
--If Coakley wins, then Obama team's spin will be that the voters still approve of him, which is obviously nonsense, since Massachusetts voters aren't real and don't count.

And it's not really "in question" since it's patently ******ed and par for the course for UATrewqaz.

ok

I don't think the bolded isn't what they are saying at all. And the first part is clearly true, because I have political capital and I intend to spend it.

What chance would you have given a random repub winning kennedy's seat against a random dem right after his death?