Prognostication #4:The Florida primary

Once again, all the debates and ads and opinion polls are over and it's time for some Republican voters to actually make their voice heard. There has been no shortage of polling and there is strong consensus on the order (Romney, Gingrich, Santorum and Paul). That said, the distance between the numbers is all over the place.  Of the websites I use to gather polling information, RealClearPolitics puts the data in the nicest format. If you follow the link, you'll see two of the most recent polls say Romney will either will by 7 or by 20. Who should we trust?

My method is to take the recent polls and look at the ones that have the least None Of The Above.  Then I look at the median and average values for all the candidates with the None Of The Above removed and give a weighted average. With the huge number of polls taken, I have seven that I'm using, none older than this weekend.  I round my data to the nearest half a percent.  Here are my predictions, as well as the latest from Nate Silver, founder of the website fivethirtyeight.com and now the poll expert for The New York Times.  Silver's numbers are in parentheses.

Romney 44.5%(44.0%)

Gingrich 31.0%(29.3%)

Santorum 13.0%(13.9%)

Paul 11.5%(11.2%)

Other 0% (1.6%)

As the numbers happen to shake out, I'm bullish on Romney, Gingrich and Paul, while Silver is expecting big performances from Santorum and Other. Our big disagreement is on Newt and for me to do well, he has to pull in at least 30%.

I follow the news but I don't let that influence my reading of the data.  I can't be sure how much effect Santorum's decision to leave Florida because of his daughter's hospitalization this weekend will move his final numbers. I'm a little surprised Paul's numbers stayed as high as they are given that he did not campaign in Florida. Rick Perry ignored New Hampshire and New Hampshire returned the favor.  But if my experience online has any meaning, I can say that Rick Perry's followers are not at loyal as Ron Paul's.

More to the point, I can say that most breeds of dogs are not as loyal as Ron Paul's followers.

By tomorrow morning the numbers will be in and I'll post again, reporting how close we got to right.

By the way, I'm now on Twitter under the name ConfidenceOfVic, short for Confidence Of Victory, my name for the method I use to assign odds to candidates in races with two or three people running.  I could use my method in a race like this one with four people, but I'm not as confident the numbers have meaning when more variables are added. 

I kind of like the shortened name on Twitter.  I've known some men named Victor who were shy, but any guy who shortens his name to Vic, that's a confident guy.

So, what's Maru been up to lately?

Oh, You know, the usual. 

Getting into small enclosures, playing with cat toys, creating silent comedy worthy of Buster Keaton or Harold Lloyd. 

You know... stuff. Stuff I like.

I would write "As do all right thinking Americans", but anyone who has followed Maru's exploits know his fame is worldwide and not limited to any one country.

All hail Maru!  All your boxes belong to him!

What a difference millions of dollars can make.

Quinnipiac polls - this week and last week

Just after Newt Gingrich's huge win in South Carolina, the conventional wisdom was that Mitt Romney's many flaws were become more and more evident and there was nowhere to go but down.  It was agreed that Newt Gingrich's many flaws were also evident, but Republican voters had decided to ignore them and give him the nod.  The next state was Florida, also in the south, also adjacent to Georgia, Newt's alleged home state - in actuality, he's a Washington insider now and lives in Virginia - and Newt would smack around Romney once again, leaving his once seemingly inevitable nomination in grave doubt.

Then the cash rolled in.

A flip switched early this week, or should I say if flipped for the third time. In early December polling, Gingrich looked great in Florida, then he faded and Romney looked great, then it was Gingrich again, and the last flip was to Romney.  All the polls of the past few days have shown Romney around 40% and Gingrich around 30%. The race for who will finish a distant third between Ron Paul and Rick Santorum is not so clear, but noises are being made that Santorum is ready to pack it in.  Paul's impossible dream is a Quixotic quest, and those kinds of people don't give up so easily.

You know what I mean by "those kinds of people".  The bughouse crazy.

The column charts above show two polls from the folks at Quinnipiac University.  The poll on the right is one of the first to show Romney back in the lead after South Carolina, and the one on the left shows how much that lead has been expanded.  The pro-Romney super PACs have out-spent the pro-Gingrich super PACs about 4:1, and as people delicately put it, this can make a big difference to "low information voters".

You know what I mean by "low information voters". The rock fucking stupid.

To be fair, I don't consider it stupid to switch from Gingrich to Romney.  That said, I expect another big Newt surge when Santorum goes away. Most observers think Mitt is doing better at the debates, and as long as he doesn't do his punching bag impression at these bizarre circuses, he and his supporters - who cannot coordinate with him in any way, as Stephen Colbert explained to us in South Carolina - will spend enough money to force Gingrich to go back to writing books and getting money from companies who need lobbyists who don't call themselves lobbyists.

You know what that means. He's an escort, not a ho.

¡Ay, dios mio!¡La orgia de locura y horror en Florida!

The polls in Florida are going nuts. Gingrich had a comfortable lead just a couple of days ago, but several recent polls have Romney way ahead.  Let us recall that Florida is not South Carolina.  The northern half of the state, sometimes called the Redneck Riviera, will love the red meat thrown out by Gingrich, but the southern half is more metropolitan than Dixie-ish, and Mitt is favored down there.

And now throw this into the mix. Univision interviewed Newt, Mitt and Santorum, but not Ron Paul? (I smell a conspiracy.) One of the Univision interviewers "went there" and asked if Mitt could be counted - if elected - as the first Mexican-American president.

Lemme 'splain.

Mitt's granddaddy was in a little trouble concerning the polygamy laws in the good of U.S. of A., so he skedaddled down Mexico way.  Daddy George was born on Mexican soil. The heat warmed up south of the border for other reasons, so the Romneys cross the border back to the Land of the Free Gift With Purchase.  Mitt was born here, so he is officially an anchor baby.

His name is actually Willardo Miteo Romney Garcia-Lopez.  For gringos unfamiliar with the lingo, that is pronounced "WeeJARdo MeeTAYo R-R-R-R-R-R-ROMney GarCEEah LoPETH.  The z is pronounced with the Castilian lisp because... well, it's more fun.

P.S. Okay, I'll admit it.  I made up the last paragraph.  The one just before it is the gospel truth.

P.P.S.  The name La Orgia de Locura y Horror is the Spanish for The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Its literal translation is "The Orgy of Craziness and Horror".  I saw it with subtitles in El Salvador.  I was asked to leave for talking back to the screen like a borracho gringo.  I wasn't actually drunk.

And then the Republicans lost their damn minds.

Gallup tracking poll for January 2012

 

Last month, the opinion polls showed a surge for Newt Gingrich after Herman Cain suspended his campaign.  Gingrich celebrated by doing what he does best, spouting half-baked ideas whose flaws are apparent to any sensible person inside of ten seconds or so.  The most egregious was his idea about arresting "radical" judges, completely oblivious to the obvious fact that Democrats might consider some conservative decisions like Citizens United "radical" and decide to arrest a few Supreme Court members.  Moreover, arresting the people at the top of the judicial system means their fate will be decided by people... in the judicial system.

Seriously, it takes about ten seconds to think of these things.

So, running his mouth, Gingrich fell back.  The people of Iowa fell in love with Rick Santorum and anointed him the Not Romney, but New Hampshire put the two Not Romneys at the back of the pack, well behind Ron Paul and Jon Huntsman, who both trailed Romney by over 20 percentage points.

Then came South Carolina.  Much bigger than Iowa or New Hampshire, but a whole lot redder.  A super PAC favoring Gingrich nailed Romney's Bain Capital as a job killer and the Republican echo chamber went mad with cries of class warfare.  Gingrich had to walk back the attack, though technically it didn't come from him.  Still, it was enough to wound Romney big time and the bleeding hasn't stopped.

As of today, January 24, the polls now put Gingrich back as the front runner.  Republican voters are not interested in hearing about his many flaws, though the number of people on the right who hate Gingrich are legion.

 

Rasmussen asked voters across the spectrum about Obama vs. Romney and Obama vs. Gingrich.  Obama leads Romney 46% to 43%, while Obama creams Gingrich 49% to 40%. During January, there have been a couple polls where Romney was ahead of Obama and another where they tied.  Gingrich's best showing is losing by 7%.

Republican voters have lost their damn minds.  It's not all their fault.  Given such a weak field, the questions about electability become academic.  They want someone as angry as they are and in this field, Newt Gingrich is the closest they are going to get. They think Gingrich will win the debates against Obama the way he's been beating the Republicans at the debates.  Little do they know that when the audience isn't all "mouth breathing paste eaters" as my blog buddy Tengrain puts it, many of the big applause lines Newt has are going to be booed.

I honestly think that if the people of the United States get a steady diet of Newton Leroy Gingrich for a year, there is a significant chance he will lose in Georgia.

I'm sure if any right-winger stumbles upon this, he or she will think I'm just some Communist who's been drinking the Kool-Aid and dismiss my argument.

I can't stop them.  There's not much you can do to dissuade crazy people.

Dick Tufeld 1926-2012

Dick Tufeld, best known as the voice of the Robot on Lost In Space has died at the age of 85.  Bill Mumy, the actor who played Will Robinson, posted the sad news on his Facebook page today.  Good on Bill Mumy for staying in touch all these years.

Tufeld did many other things to keep a roof over his head, but to have a place in the hearts of people my age, he never had to do anything else besides say "Danger, Will Robinson!" and give serious portions of crap to that creepy Dr. Smith.

Best wishes to the family and friends of Dick Tufeld, from a fan.

Results for Prognostication #3:The South Carolina primary

A bad week for my way of predicting the future. The loss of Huntsman as a candidate didn't hurt much, but losing Perry so close to the election date made a lot of polls fairly useless. Nate Silver's numbers were closer to the truth of Gingrich's big win over Romney, but both of us had Ron Paul in third place when Rick Santorum was actually five percentage points better.  Here are the final numbers.

Gingrich 40.4%(Silver beats me by 1.7%)

Romney 27.8%(Silver beats by by 2.2%)

Santorum 17%(I gain 0.1%)

Paul 13%(I lose 0.4%)

Other 1.8%(I gain 0.4%)

 

Final score: Silver 90.4%, Matty Boy 86.6%.  This is the first time either of us has climbed over the 90% mark.

The next test is Florida, a week from Tuesday.  Current polls have Romney ahead by double digits, but that means nothing.  Romney had a comfortable lead in South Carolina a week ago before the debates and the Bain Capital attacks.

 

Former British Prime Minister Harold Wilson gets credit for the line "A week is a very long time in politics", and these ten days will certainly be tumultuous.  The hatred the Republican establishment has for Newt Gingrich will once again rain down, but I can't tell if it will counterbalance Romney's negatives with the rank and file, who don't like his regal manner, religion or record in office. Bill Clinton's aphorism "Democratic voters fall in love, Republican voters fall in line" doesn't sound quite as clever as it did after New Hampshire.