Interview with the RealClearPolitics guy about polling

[jon-nyc]

Interesting throughout.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/how-to-make-sense-of-the-polls

Here’s how it ends:

Do you have advice for people about how they should read the polls the next few weeks?

I would pay attention to his job approval. See if it starts to get back up into that forty-five-, forty-six-per-cent range. And just remember, even at an aggregated level, polls are off, and when FiveThirtyEight tells you there’s a twenty-per-cent chance of something happening, you don’t get to round that down to zero.

Read it all.

[Doctor Phibes]

Why are polls important?

Do people take the popularity of a candidate into account when deciding how to vote?

If so, why the fuck would you do that? It's like buying some shit single simply because it's number 1 in the pop charts.

[jon-nyc]

Insofar as polls are accurate they’re important for telling you the state of the race, not to inform you how to vote.

[Aqua Letifer]

@Doctor-Phibes said in Interview with the RealClearPolitics guy about polling:

It's like buying some shit single simply because it's number 1 in the pop charts.

You do know people do that, right? Like, most people do that.

[Kincaid]

Interviewer: You’re implying DeSantis won, in part, because people didn’t want to vote for Andrew Gillum, who’s Black?

Sean: Yeah. I would be shocked if that wasn’t at least part of it. But I don’t know. Someone made the point that you can go back to 1992 and add up all the votes for Republican and Democratic Presidential candidates in the state, it’s almost an exact tie. It is a very rigid state, which makes no sense to me, given its shifting demographics and the complexity of the demographics there. I don’t know if it’s just a bunch of things that cancel each other out in the big picture, but it’s weird. That’s an unsatisfying answer.

Interviewer: nodding enthusiastically

Sean: I mean, it couldn't be because of Gillum's policies, which I agree with, could it?

I think this Sean fellow can't understand the right question, let alone the correct answer.

[jon-nyc]

Sean would definitely not agree with Gillum’s policies

[Kincaid]

You mean he wouldn't be caught dead with a gay male escort, an OD'd druggie, and a baggie of crystal meth?

[jon-nyc]

Beyond that, he’s definitely center right.

[Loki]

@jon-nyc said in Interview with the RealClearPolitics guy about polling:

Beyond that, he’s definitely center right.

Thanks for that. I will read it now, but I wondered as RCP skews that way anyway.

I just didn’t think the New Yorker had the capacity and courage to not pander to its audience at all times. Canceling is a terrifying thing especially in an AI world.