There is more to life, and certainly to political analysis, than predictions. Predictions are worthless. Everyone makes them. Who cares? Tell us what you think about the dynamics of the race and who has to do what to win amongst the key geographic and demographic brackets… and how they seem to be doing. I don’t need some kind of final, firm bet on what is gonna happen with a day to go. I’ll find out the result soon enough. I just think the prediction thing is silly.
Many are, yes. And that's fine. Polls tell us the state of things, and who is doing well amongst what sub-populations and sometimes why. That's good analysis that I like to read and know. it informs my understanding of politics and campaigns. But, the election prediction side of it just seems like ego games by pollsters and those who make predictions based on the pollsters' polls. it's also a fool's game. no one really gives credit to people who get it right, but everyone loves to stomp all over those who get it even slightly wrong. Which is unfair given how many voters make last minute decisions on election day and given that predicting election results depends on predicting who will turnout. Which can't be easy or even possible. a lot of it is luck, I bet.
I'd like a column from you on why we can't trust polls in America but need to trust them to a fault in Canada.
Every pollster and newspaper said O'Toole would win, and before that the same outlets crowed Scheer was feasible, ahead. Now we're seeing this far right scumbag Poilievre - who didn't once congratulate an Olympic athlete but took time out to tell a reporter the PM is an extremist, call criticism of Diagalon "gaslighting", and defend Jordan Peterson's racism and misogyny - as the clear winner, all while demanding Trudeau resign. On a daily basis, the Poilievre cheerleaders demand Trudeau resign. My question for the lot of them...if Trudeau is a loser and you can beat him hands down, why do you want him to resign ahead of the election? If I were you, I'd want to run against him since everyone and every poll is already calling you and your cheesy campaign the winner.
Jordan Peterson said racism doesn't exist and there's no systemic racism. Jordan Peterson said white privilege doesn't exist and in an insult tweet said, "It's good you consumed the liquor this time instead of letting some Indian steal it."
But since you're a fanboy of an asshole, I'm confident you will claim this isn't racism.
He never said racism doesn't exist. He flat out acknowledged Neo Nazis were a problem. He stated "I've studied Nazism for a very long time, for four decades, and I understand it very well. And I can tell you that there's some awful people lurking in the corners and they're ready to come out."
System Racism can mean a number of things depending on how the arguer uses it. It can mean "Minorities still suffer from poverty in present day due to Systemic Racism of the past" which is true, versus the term casually used to say "There isn't enough minority representation here!" or "The setting of air conditioning in the workplace is white-cis-hetero-normative and sexist!" which is debatable. His denial of it may have been used for the later weaker arguments, rather than the actual historically accurate statement.
He said white people DO have privilege, just that the way the argument is socially weaponized is reprehensible which it is. "I think the idea of White Privilege is absolutely reprehensible, and it's not because white people aren't privileged. We have all sorts of privileges, and most people have privileges of all sorts, and you should be grateful of privileges and work to deserve them, I would say. But the idea that you can target an ethnic group with a collective crime, regardless of the specific innocence or guilt of the constituent elements of that group, there is absolutely nothing that is more racist than that."
Yes he very much did say systemic racism doesn't exist. And you're trying to use some long meandering way of defending him doing it. And it's "systemic", not "system". And thanks for sharing that you think white people are unfairly targeted by brown people. Btw, if you support Jordan Peterson, you couldn't be lower on the intellectual scale.
I said Systemic. Yes, "minorities still suffer from poverty in present day due to Systemic Racism of the past" is true. But "the setting of air conditioning in the workplace is white-cis-hetero-normative and sexist!" is silly nonsense activists obsessed with identity politics say, and are rightly criticized for it.
I never said that white people are unfairly targeted by brown people, he didn't say that either. White people were unfairly targeted by white college/university activists obsessed with identity politics, especially 2015-2020.
Cool opinion, about intellect, I don't think you rehashing talking points shows high intellect either.
I think that these polls are becoming less and less accurate. Response rates are dropping, where response rates can even be ascertained. On=line self-selecting polls are, by their nature, not random and hence not representative of the population as a whole.
Telephone polls were much better, especially in land-line days when pollsters had a near-complete list of active telephone numbers and could choose a much more closely random sample. In turn, the telephone polls were less accurate than face-to-face, but of course the latter are considered much too costly nowadays.
So yes, polls are interesting, but I would warn against taking them too seriously.
Biden won by a large margin in 2020. He also won the largest number of votes of any presidential candidate in history. He was robbed of the enjoyment of that by the Trump yabberjabbers and criminal lawyers who sought to overturn legitimate results.
Trump will not be winning this election. Women won't be voting for him. Blacks won't be voting for him. Many conservatives won't be voting for him. He's shit, he's done, his stink only lives on because he won't go away.
Have you ever ever once mentioned Harris until now?
With the US there are two other significant factors to take into account when making predictions on election outcomes.
Enthusiasm is difficult to measure and can change quickly. If you want your voters to be motivated, enthusiasm helps if you have an optimistic view of the world. Fear and concern works when you have a darker view of the world. A major world event in the next two months could benefit the latter.
Practical obstacles when trying to vote are an influencing the vote in the US more than any other developed country. Depending on where you live, the amount of effort you have to go through to vote can be substantial. This is also hard to capture in polls.
There is more to life, and certainly to political analysis, than predictions. Predictions are worthless. Everyone makes them. Who cares? Tell us what you think about the dynamics of the race and who has to do what to win amongst the key geographic and demographic brackets… and how they seem to be doing. I don’t need some kind of final, firm bet on what is gonna happen with a day to go. I’ll find out the result soon enough. I just think the prediction thing is silly.
Every Scrimshaw column is about polling.
Many are, yes. And that's fine. Polls tell us the state of things, and who is doing well amongst what sub-populations and sometimes why. That's good analysis that I like to read and know. it informs my understanding of politics and campaigns. But, the election prediction side of it just seems like ego games by pollsters and those who make predictions based on the pollsters' polls. it's also a fool's game. no one really gives credit to people who get it right, but everyone loves to stomp all over those who get it even slightly wrong. Which is unfair given how many voters make last minute decisions on election day and given that predicting election results depends on predicting who will turnout. Which can't be easy or even possible. a lot of it is luck, I bet.
I'd like a column from you on why we can't trust polls in America but need to trust them to a fault in Canada.
Every pollster and newspaper said O'Toole would win, and before that the same outlets crowed Scheer was feasible, ahead. Now we're seeing this far right scumbag Poilievre - who didn't once congratulate an Olympic athlete but took time out to tell a reporter the PM is an extremist, call criticism of Diagalon "gaslighting", and defend Jordan Peterson's racism and misogyny - as the clear winner, all while demanding Trudeau resign. On a daily basis, the Poilievre cheerleaders demand Trudeau resign. My question for the lot of them...if Trudeau is a loser and you can beat him hands down, why do you want him to resign ahead of the election? If I were you, I'd want to run against him since everyone and every poll is already calling you and your cheesy campaign the winner.
What did Peterson say that was racist?
Jordan Peterson said racism doesn't exist and there's no systemic racism. Jordan Peterson said white privilege doesn't exist and in an insult tweet said, "It's good you consumed the liquor this time instead of letting some Indian steal it."
But since you're a fanboy of an asshole, I'm confident you will claim this isn't racism.
He never said racism doesn't exist. He flat out acknowledged Neo Nazis were a problem. He stated "I've studied Nazism for a very long time, for four decades, and I understand it very well. And I can tell you that there's some awful people lurking in the corners and they're ready to come out."
System Racism can mean a number of things depending on how the arguer uses it. It can mean "Minorities still suffer from poverty in present day due to Systemic Racism of the past" which is true, versus the term casually used to say "There isn't enough minority representation here!" or "The setting of air conditioning in the workplace is white-cis-hetero-normative and sexist!" which is debatable. His denial of it may have been used for the later weaker arguments, rather than the actual historically accurate statement.
He said white people DO have privilege, just that the way the argument is socially weaponized is reprehensible which it is. "I think the idea of White Privilege is absolutely reprehensible, and it's not because white people aren't privileged. We have all sorts of privileges, and most people have privileges of all sorts, and you should be grateful of privileges and work to deserve them, I would say. But the idea that you can target an ethnic group with a collective crime, regardless of the specific innocence or guilt of the constituent elements of that group, there is absolutely nothing that is more racist than that."
Yes he very much did say systemic racism doesn't exist. And you're trying to use some long meandering way of defending him doing it. And it's "systemic", not "system". And thanks for sharing that you think white people are unfairly targeted by brown people. Btw, if you support Jordan Peterson, you couldn't be lower on the intellectual scale.
I said Systemic. Yes, "minorities still suffer from poverty in present day due to Systemic Racism of the past" is true. But "the setting of air conditioning in the workplace is white-cis-hetero-normative and sexist!" is silly nonsense activists obsessed with identity politics say, and are rightly criticized for it.
I never said that white people are unfairly targeted by brown people, he didn't say that either. White people were unfairly targeted by white college/university activists obsessed with identity politics, especially 2015-2020.
Cool opinion, about intellect, I don't think you rehashing talking points shows high intellect either.
I think that these polls are becoming less and less accurate. Response rates are dropping, where response rates can even be ascertained. On=line self-selecting polls are, by their nature, not random and hence not representative of the population as a whole.
Telephone polls were much better, especially in land-line days when pollsters had a near-complete list of active telephone numbers and could choose a much more closely random sample. In turn, the telephone polls were less accurate than face-to-face, but of course the latter are considered much too costly nowadays.
So yes, polls are interesting, but I would warn against taking them too seriously.
Biden won by a large margin in 2020. He also won the largest number of votes of any presidential candidate in history. He was robbed of the enjoyment of that by the Trump yabberjabbers and criminal lawyers who sought to overturn legitimate results.
Trump will not be winning this election. Women won't be voting for him. Blacks won't be voting for him. Many conservatives won't be voting for him. He's shit, he's done, his stink only lives on because he won't go away.
Have you ever ever once mentioned Harris until now?
With the US there are two other significant factors to take into account when making predictions on election outcomes.
Enthusiasm is difficult to measure and can change quickly. If you want your voters to be motivated, enthusiasm helps if you have an optimistic view of the world. Fear and concern works when you have a darker view of the world. A major world event in the next two months could benefit the latter.
Practical obstacles when trying to vote are an influencing the vote in the US more than any other developed country. Depending on where you live, the amount of effort you have to go through to vote can be substantial. This is also hard to capture in polls.