So Obama won. With 50% of the popular vote. Keep that in mind as you read this (from a super moderate Dem):
The issue, as it turns out, is that the polls weren’t skewed at all. They just had a lot of self-identified Democrats in their sample because a lot of people were self-identifying as Democrats. The underlying issue is that party ID is an “attidunal” variable (comparable to wanting to vote for Mitt Romney) rather than a demographic variable (comparable to being a white man). What seems to have happened is that the Republican Party brand has been in the toilet, so a lot of people who you’d demographically expect to vote Republican aren’t identifying as Republican.
I was watching CNN last night and happened to see the moment where the panel o’ pundits realized that Obama was going to win. The republican guy had a real pity party for a minute, stated that his party’s “brand was broken” and went on and on about it. No doubt the red-faced Mic-thumpers will all agree this morning.
Hey, 48% of the country voted for Mitt* and they do control the house of representatives. What conclusions is anyone supposed to draw. How much signal is there in this noise?
Wait, political analysis? WTF am I doing…
*Not that I’ve been paying too close attention, but can we call him a weak candidate, Debate#1 aside? I kinda thought so, but then I also thought that of “W”. And Kerry and Gore and McCain… I wasn’t impressed by Obama v2012 either.
Hm, maybe it’s just a hard job.
Not Unreasonable 