Sunday, October 16, 2016

Salil Mehta — Antagonism isn't perpetual


An über-statistical looks at polling methodology and offers some cautions and advice.

Hint: The election is a wildcard owing to the unusually high number of undecideds at this point. 

Moreover, pollsters' bias toward a desired result skews the approach.

For what it is worth, I am one of the undecideds. I cannot vote for either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton on moral grounds. Especially as a veteran who served during wartime (Vietnam), I cannot in good conscience vote for a candidate that advocates torture or one that promotes interventionism not based on national defense. At this point, I have not made up my mind on what I will do in the voting booth other than not voting for either Trump or Clinton. And I do intend to vote.

Statistical Ideas
Antagonism isn't perpetual
Salil Mehta, statistician and author
ht Zero Hedge

If you don't know who Sali Mehta is, read About.


7 comments:

Peter Pan said...

Results after Tom's vote: Trump 0 Clinton 0

Ryan Harris said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Peter Pan said...

How much money are we talking about?

Tom Hickey said...

Results after Tom's vote: Trump 0 Clinton 0

This is true of most people in the US unless one lives in a swing county in a swing state, because gerrymandering on both sides.

BTW, no matter who wins, the GOP will massively dominate at the state level. This is where the big money is flowing in addition to the swing counties in the swing states for the national election.

Tom Hickey said...

How much money are we talking about?

No one knows the numbers because only certain things have to be reported publicly. If money is used to promote ideas rather than candidates the sky is the limit and there is minimal disclosure required. $ pervades US politics and much of it is "dark money."

Ryan Harris said...

Iowa is a swing state. Don't know the county-by-county though.

Tom Hickey said...

I live in a university town in a liberal county. It's pretty safe for Democrats, although the previous congressmen, Jim Leach, was a Republican "moderate" that represented Iowa in the House from 1977 until he retired in 2007. He was probably to the left of where HRC is now on issues that are right of center.

Chuck Grassley will keep his senate seat.

As I have said, I am staying out of politics here at MNE so I won't get into that. My refusal to vote for either Trump or Clinton is on moral grounds rather than political as I explained in the post. In my world view, morality trumps politics.

Politically, the choice is more complicated than who to vote for for president, since that entails a lot of other things in addition.

One could argue that I am a single issue voter, but I don't see it that way. I have a moral bottom line and both candidates crossed it, so I won't regard them politically. I won't get into how I may vote down ticket.