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You may never find a better explanation than this

Posted By: Taper_Mike
Date: Saturday, 3 November 2012, at 10:17 p.m.

In Response To: You may never find a better explanation than this (Chuck Bower)

–

What I said:

Corporate newscasters have a vested interest in making the “horse race” seem close. Otherwise, why would viewers stay glued to a channel, watching news and ads all day long?

A nice corroboration from FiveThirtyEight:

If the state polls are right, then Mr. Obama will win the Electoral College. If you can’t acknowledge that after a day when Mr. Obama leads 19 out of 20 swing-state polls, then you should abandon the pretense that your goal is to inform rather than entertain the public.

Surveys of the national popular vote are the most entertaining of all. They are not very useful, as we were reminded in 2000, but hey, they are too close to call. Like a good Kentucky Derby, they’ve got it neck and neck going down the stretch!

Thanks for reminding me about the excellent FiveThirtyEight blog. I was not as impressed with the one Bill Finneran recommends as “not bad either.” It leads with those entertaining national polls of the popular vote, and it’s “Most Read, Last 24 Hours” story is “Bottom Line: Romney 315, Obama 223 - Michael Barone, DC Examiner.” As Bill said in his post, 538 is the best.

And don’t forget the bookies. They’re putting their money where their proverbial mouths are.

Mike

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