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Not only does he use polling data to do a good job of predicting the races and the control of the US Senate/House (his track record here and a comparison of his model to Nate Silver), but he has, IMHO, excellent explanations of how the campaign managers are thinking and the likely impact of political news.

It is surprising to me that being located in Europe that he 1) cares and 2) is so wired into the US political scene. I hope he continues.

Not only does he use polling data to do a good job of predicting the races and the control of the US Senate/House (his track record here and a comparison of his model to Nate Silver), but he has, IMHO, excellent explanations of how the campaign managers are thinking and the likely impact of political news.

It is surprising to me that being located in Europe that he 1) cares and 2) is so wired into the US political scene. I hope he continues.

So...Dr. Tannenbaum's other project is Electoral-vote.com [electoral-vote.com] (2 [wikipedia.org] ), an election prediction site (and one of the first). Any clue what's going to happen to that?

Andy Tanenbaum may be retiring. But there are two things he will never abandon as long as he is physically able: computer systems and politics.

So...Dr. Tannenbaum's other project is Electoral-vote.com (2), an election prediction site (and one of the first). Any clue what's going to happen to that?

Seems like an insightful analysis. No real surprise, given the ever present desire corporations have to increase profits. And increasing *profit* from slashdot while maintaining or increasing quality for the current user base would be hard. I would like to see it - the quality around here could really use a boost. But I think a Dilbertesque attempt at sacking the name for short term gains is more likely, possibly followed by a sale of the mangled corpse. Maybe we will read about it on The Daily WTF, assuming they don't suffer the same fate.

... Their current base will migrate away to more geek-friendly websites ...

So, any recommendations? I am yet to find anything that does a good job filling the gap of what slashdot should be.

Some non-replacements, but still worthwhile sites I have found:

* Electoral Vote is a great source for what is happening in US national campaigns. At least, it is when he has something to say (And I don't blame him for not always having something to say - his page must be a tough hobby as is)

* Tikalon is a cool science blog. I recently found it linked from a slashdot comment, and need to read more of it.

* Politico looks like it is worth a look if you want more US politics, but lacks the tech focus of slashdot.

So, where should the lifeboats head as they flee like rats from a sinking slashdot?

The outstanding absentee ballots are from areas that lean Obama, which is why most places have at least unofficially called the state for Obama.

Most folks may have forgotten the great Minix/Linux debate of the 1990s. Perhaps Linus just wants to reconnect with Andrew?

It's worth noting that this analysis includes data from Rasmussen, a pollster whose track record at predicting election outcomes is marred by a persistent, consistent bias. Not that they're faking the results (as some overtly partisan pollsters do), but their methodology appears to over-represent demographics that are more likely to vote Republican. According to one analysis, they overestimated votes for Republicans by 3.9%. Andrew Tanenbam's web site has a concise explanation of what's wrong with Rasmussen's numbers, and why he maintains a separate map that omits them from his own Electoral College projections. So if a system that includes Rasmussen data projects that a Democrat is going to win the presidency... that's a pretty strong indicator of which way the wind is blowing.

"persistent, consistent bias"? ;For what? Accuracy?
2000, 2004, 2008 elections all called better than the rest. Also very accurate Congress numbers.

Here, help yourself to some education.......http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rasmussen_Reports#2000

My understanding is that, propagandist or no, Rasmussen leans heavily republican simply by their methodology.. ie, the way they do their polling means they skew their samples.

Electoral-Vote.com has a model that shows projection data with or without Rasmussen data included. According to their model, Obama will win in November either way, but a few more senate races will go Democrat rather than Republican if you exclude Rasmussen polling data.

http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2012/Pres/Maps/Sep08-noras.html

Ironic captcha: Freeing. *sigh*. If only there was a candidate I could vote for who would really do that.

Using intrade properly looks like it would take bookie skills. I never have bothered to learn those.

I like the electoral vote predictor. Its comments show a definite blue bias, but there is no bias in its handling of poll data. It uses the last polls taken in each state for data.

At the moment what it shows is not necessarily representative of the country, since there have been very few polls done in the last week. But now that the conventions are over, I expect that there will be a lot of polling done, and electoral-vote.com will be as accurate as anyone can get.

It's worth noting that this analysis includes data from Rasmussen, a pollster whose track record at predicting election outcomes is marred by a persistent, consistent bias. Not that they're faking the results (as some overtly partisan pollsters do), but their methodology appears to over-represent demographics that are more likely to vote Republican. According to one analysis, they overestimated votes for Republicans by 3.9%. Andrew Tanenbam's web site has a concise explanation of what's wrong with Rasmussen's numbers, and why he maintains a separate map that omits them from his own Electoral College projections. So if a system that includes Rasmussen data projects that a Democrat is going to win the presidency... that's a pretty strong indicator of which way the wind is blowing.

A whole lot can happen between now and November, where the real fight hasn't started yet in terms of Obama vs. Romney yet. I certainly wouldn't count out Romney from winning, but I will admit that at the moment the contest is up to Obama to lose by doing something really stupid.

I really like these charts, particularly the ones covering previous elections. What seemed to galvanize voters in 2004 was the decided lack of leadership on the part of John McCain, or at least a feeling that Obama could do a better job than McCain in terms of responding to the financial panic of 2004 that happened right before the election. Something similar could certainly happen in the next few months. Obama's response in such a situation will be critical.

It is also possible that this could be sort of like the 1972 elections, but in reverse. Obama might be able to get a decisive win, but ends up losing Congress or at least not really helping his party much in terms of control of Congress. It certainly seems unlike for the Democratic Party to regain the House of Representatives, and the Senate is likely going to either stay on a razor thin margin of control by the Democrats or perhaps gain a thin majority for Republicans.

The numbers are even worse for the Republicans (347-191) accoring to Tannenbaum's "Rasmussen fee" page. Here he filters out Fox's polling company which has questionable polling practices. This polling group has consistently polled in favor of Republicans. From electoral-vote.com: "Silver analyzed 105 polls released by Rasmussen Reports and its subsidiary, Pulse Opinion Research, for Senate and gubernatorial races in numerous states across the country. The bottom line is that on average, Rasmussen's polls were off by 5.8% with a bias of 3.9% in favor of the Republican candidates."

It is a long way to November, but barring a revelation that Obama was involved in Michael Vick's dogfighting ring, this is going to be an easy win for Obama.

http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2012/Pres/Maps/Aug08-noras.html

Tannenbaum maintains an election model that currently predicts an Obama win (334 to 206 electoral votes) http://www.electoral-vote.com/

Andrew Tanenbaum (of Minix fame) does a good job of tracking state-by-state polling results and what they predict about the Electorial College outcome at http://electoral-vote.com/

He runs electoral-vote.com and also wrote a textbook on operating systems that many of us read as undergrads.

Not only does Andrew Tanenbaum have a good handle on polls and vote-projection, but his nerd credentials are excellent.

I found a nice summary of the effects that will apply now on http://www.electoral-vote.com/ * Insurance companies will be forbidden from denying coverage to sick children * Adult children can stay on their parents' policies until they are 26 * Small businesses will receive tax credits to help them buy insurance for their employees * All new policies will be required to cover preventive care, including annual physical exams * The practice of dropping insured people when they get sick will be banned * A high-risk pool will be created to subsidize adults with pre-existing conditions * For seniors, some medicines will become cheaper and the donut hole will be reduced somewhat

In any event, the popular vote was 52% to 47% - relatively close, and rather comparable to the 2004 election.

Currently the Washington Post has it at about 53% to 47% (looking at the actual vote totals, they've rounded each down by one percent for some reason). That makes it a 6% margin, which is double the margin of Bush's victory in 2004. That would probably put it in the category of considerably more decisive, but not a blowout. It could be argued, for example, that it's closer to the margin of, say, George H. W. Bush over Dukakis than that of George W. Bush over Kerry. But it's also nothing like a Reagan over Mondale victory.

Obama's much stronger electoral vote showing in 2008 than Bush's in 2004 is a testament to Obama's skills as a campaigner (and perhaps a little luck)

I think it probably says more about the distorting effects of the electoral college and the "first past the pole" system, actually. It'd be interesting to see what statistical distribution of the possible electoral margins would look like for other probable scenarios consistent with the observed popular vote, but I would guess that in most cases a 6% lead would translate into a relatively large electoral lead because of the aforementioned distorting effects. I guess something to look at is the electoral vote prediction histogram on Fivethirtyeight.com, which suggests that the vast majority of scenarios had Obama winning a considerably larger EV total than GWB.

he managed to carry virtually every battleground state by a slim margin, without losing any of his expected-to-win states.

It looks to me (from glancing at Fivethirtyeight.com and Electoral-vote.com that his performance was fairly consistent with the polls in a manner that's not all that shocking.

So you honestly believe that the only reason so many people voted fro him was race? How sad.

It may also surprise you that, in retrospect, experience is not correlated to being a good president, and in fact some of the the most inexperienced presidents have been some of the most successful.

Compare it to the alternative McCain, who's political convictions apparently run so shallow that nearly all of them did a complete 180 in the four years since his last attempt at the oval office. His campaign was run by anyone but him and the choosing of Palin should shake even the most stalwart GOP supporter's confidence in that man's executive capabilities.

I'll take "confident and inspirational" over "schizophrenic and incompetent" any day, even if "experience" is lacking.
=Smidge=

Well at this time four years ago, Kerry was ahead in the polls, so why would Republican'ts be smug about that? http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2004/Pres/Maps/Nov01.html

>The polls are so variable it's hard to know which are accurate.

Which is why looking at a weekly average that discounts subjective outliers is better: http://www.electoral-vote.com/. This model (created by Mr. Tanenbaum for you Comp. Sci. people) shows Obama up by ~7% in the popular vote. If you don't like his model, try intrade.com where money talks. The media and political machines can spin it however they want but the smart models say that this election is over. Even Karl Rove's Consulting Services (tm) predict an Obama victory.

No, on this day in October of 2004, the polling data was strongly favoring bush:
http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2004/Pres/Maps/Oct29.html

The fall of 2004 showed a much closer race; compare this:

http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2004/info/graph.html

and this:

http://electoral-vote.com/evp2008/Pres/ec_graph-2008.html

Sure, those links are all to the same site, but Tannenbaum seems to be pretty honest with his data and even if you didn't trust it you could if so motivated dig elsewhere. I don't think your perception squares with historical reality of the polling data (I had stopped watching the mainstream media by then, so I don't clearly recall what they might've been saying). I am a politically left-wing voter on many issues, and I knew then it was going to be very very close. This year I don't really get that impression, but I remain only cautiously optimistic until the votes are counted.

No, on this day in October of 2004, the polling data was strongly favoring bush:
http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2004/Pres/Maps/Oct29.html

The fall of 2004 showed a much closer race; compare this:

http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2004/info/graph.html

and this:

http://electoral-vote.com/evp2008/Pres/ec_graph-2008.html

Sure, those links are all to the same site, but Tannenbaum seems to be pretty honest with his data and even if you didn't trust it you could if so motivated dig elsewhere. I don't think your perception squares with historical reality of the polling data (I had stopped watching the mainstream media by then, so I don't clearly recall what they might've been saying). I am a politically left-wing voter on many issues, and I knew then it was going to be very very close. This year I don't really get that impression, but I remain only cautiously optimistic until the votes are counted.

No, on this day in October of 2004, the polling data was strongly favoring bush:
http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2004/Pres/Maps/Oct29.html

The fall of 2004 showed a much closer race; compare this:

http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2004/info/graph.html

and this:

http://electoral-vote.com/evp2008/Pres/ec_graph-2008.html

Sure, those links are all to the same site, but Tannenbaum seems to be pretty honest with his data and even if you didn't trust it you could if so motivated dig elsewhere. I don't think your perception squares with historical reality of the polling data (I had stopped watching the mainstream media by then, so I don't clearly recall what they might've been saying). I am a politically left-wing voter on many issues, and I knew then it was going to be very very close. This year I don't really get that impression, but I remain only cautiously optimistic until the votes are counted.

http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2008/Pres/ec_graph-2008.html

The polls look very different this time compared to 2004. Nationally, the total percentages may be close, but that's misleading unless you look at it state by state. Just leading in Ohio and Virginia really change the map. It makes a 270-270 tie into 303-237 rout. Even if McCain wins all the "barely Democratic states," he still can't win. Adding up the strong-D and weak-D states, that still gives 274. Close, but still no win, and highly unlikely.

I think if McCain wins this time, "the left" will be more than shocked.

You aren't by any chance the author of this documentary piece, are you?

Question: seeing as Americans are overwhelmingly supporting the guy promising universal healthcare, do you see this as (a) people wanting universal healthcare or (b) the tireless work of secret trotskyite sleeper cells?

Just kidding. It's obviously (c) people hate Bush and they want revenge even if it means making the same damn mistake (letting one party have a majority in Congress *and* the presidency).

Dumbfuckistan is shrinking though

> I mean, really, do you think for a second that Dick Cheney and Karl Rove are going to appoint someone like Lessig?

Bush, Cheney & Rove vanish next January. Even if they have time to appoint someone, that person would get replaced by the next administration. There's a virtual guarantee that the next President will be Obama and he's thinking about how to put together his cabinet right now.

So this would be a good time to suggest reasonable people to head this thing. It's going to pump out all sorts of piracy studies. The industry wants it to create more BS economic damage numbers that it can spin. That's why it's VERY important that it have an honest and competent leader, whoever it might be.

Such a law exists for the executive branch of the federal government, but so far nobody's shown whether there is such a law for the executive of Alaska...

Such a law does exist for the Alaska state government. What do you think the DEC/FOIA lawsuit, followed by legal foot-dragging and exorbitant copying fees are all about? The plaintiffs want access to emails about polar bears, and the Palins want to make that very difficult.

They desperately need to avoid having their "private" emails from Yahoo and other non-governmental mail servers subpoenaed and made public, because then the jig is up. Secretly using private email accounts to conduct public business, in order to keep it beyond public scrutiny (they even sent an assistant to AK's Law Dept find out if it was illegal), is not the way to run an "open and transparent" state government. While this sort of behavior in a public official might warm the cockles of Cheney's heart, it's the kind most of us want kicked to the curb on November 4th.

And fortunately, for those of us who care about the rule of law, it looks like that's just what's going to happen.

I also like http://www.270towin.com/
Click on states and turn them red and blue. You can have your own prediction.

http://www.electoral-vote.com/
Is an easy place to get lots of poll data, so you can decide which states are clicked red and blue easy.

btw:
If you follow the poll data for the other 49, ignore the VA&NH poll data and call VA red (reasonable considerring history), and NH red (weak, but not silly)

You can get a tie. 269-269. It's very close right now.

I'm not saying it was brilliant. I'm saying it was a trap, and the Democrats walked into it. If they hadn't, McCain wouldn't have gained such a substantial bump from the pick. Nevertheless, if you look at the distribution of the massive number of polls released, it still shows McCain ahead in electoral votes. Now, the big polls usually have about a week lag behind events, give or take. Some folks are suggesting that the more recent polls show Obama with a lead because of the financial meltdown from the last few days. But in that case, it wouldn't be Palin but the economy that's the problem for McCain's numbers.

FiveThirtyEight: look at the "Supertracker" by scrolling down, it's on the right side.

Electoral-vote.com: interpret the polling lines with a one week lag after major events. You can see the Obama bump post-DNC, and then the collapse post-RNC.

If you're concerned about the relationship between the experience of a president and how history sees him, plug what Obama's numbers will be at the time he's sworn in into this convenient chart: http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2008/Info/experience.html

Those numbers would be about 3 years in the US Senate and 6 years in the state Senate. In particular, pay attention to Abraham Lincoln's numbers on that chart.

By the way, look at the details of your straight shooter's plan to fix the market crash. Oh, wait, there isn't one, unless you count his longstanding position of not regulating the market.

Well, then, let's look at the details of his plan to provide tax relief. Oh, wait, it provides about half as much relief to the middle class worker as Obama's plan. And, by the way, trickle-down economics clearly don't work.

OK, let's look at his plan to solve America's energy problems. Every expert I've heard on the topic says offshore drilling will have insignificant effects on the price of oil. Of course, I'm sure it will be great for American oil companies...

All the more reason to get out and vote for Obama. Let's see how far the GOP is willing to go to retain power.
Voter caging and outright fraud might win them a state or two, but I really don't think they'll be able to turn back a landslide.

What "landslide" is this you speak of? The one that's currently in negative territory, making it an antilandslide?

http://www.electoral-vote.com/

I'm not really seeing where fraud is needed when the opinion polls have the results 270-268 in McCain's favour...

You should both checkout www.electoral-vote.com. He keeps track of this stuff, so you don't have to. According to that site, Obama's currently got a comfortable lead. Of course the site also says that exactly 4 years ago, Kerry had an equally comfortable lead. I don't think any candidate has a lock on this thing. It's way too early to tell. So both a y'all quit with your gums a flappin'.

You should both checkout www.electoral-vote.com. He keeps track of this stuff, so you don't have to. According to that site, Obama's currently got a comfortable lead. Of course the site also says that exactly 4 years ago, Kerry had an equally comfortable lead. I don't think any candidate has a lock on this thing. It's way too early to tell. So both a y'all quit with your gums a flappin'.

Lefties are not a minority.

Stevens is one of the half dozen or so Republican senators in danger of losing his seat in the 2008 election. Nothing would be more satisfying than to see him get thrown out of the senate and straight into prison. There's also an added bonus: If he loses his seat, then there's no political reason for the Republicans to try and help with his defence.

McCain likely has 10-15 states because he is conservative, older, and his opponent is not white. Obama might have 5-10. Therefore Oboma has to reassure the people by making them aware that he was born inside the contiguous united states, in fact the heartland, unlike his opponent, and he will not shake things up too much.

Obama is not behind though, he's actually way ahead. Current electoral college votes according to the most recent polls: Obama 320 McCain 218. Check out http://electoral-vote.com/ for the skinny on current polls. Given that, there is no real reason for him to shift to the center. He seems to be doing fine right where he is.

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There are a couple of questions at hand. What 'experience' is helpful for a president? How important is it? And does Obama have it?

First, let me talk about the experience Obama does have. Obviously a 72 year old has more experience than a 47 year old, but if age was the deciding factor, we'd just always elect the oldest guy running for president and be done with it. Obama, despite his relatively young age, has a lot of experience that is relevant. By the time he takes his oath of office, he'd have 12yrs of legislative experience serving in elected office. During that time he worked across the aisle with Republicans to find issues that they could agree on, and get legislature passed.

But let me start a bit earlier. After earning a degree in political science from Columbia University, Obama took a job earning only $13,000 a year as the Director of the Developing Communities Project, a faith-based community-organizing agency. After 5 years, he concluded that he could help people more through politics, so he went to Harvard were he was elected president of the Harvard Law Review (an extremely prestigious position) and graduated magna cum laude.

Obama could have gotten a great-paying job at this point, but again he returned to grass-roots democracy and ran a voter-registration drive that added more than 150,000 voters. After that successful voter registration drive, Obama returned to teach constitutional law for another 11 years before being elected to the Illinois state senate.

So what does Obama's early history tell us? He's interested in American democracy and grass-roots democracy in particular. He's extremely intelligent. And he's sacrificed to help people less fortunate then himself.

Having studied or participated in it his entire adult life, Obama probably knows more about the way American government runs than most presidents did when elected.

Some people when they say 'experience' are talking about foreign relations. But all three candidates are senators, not Vice Presidents, and none have served as cabinet members. The only committee in the senate that deals with Foreign Relations (as far as I know) is the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. The only candidate for the presidency serving on this committee is Barack Obama. (Admittedly, he hasn't been there long).

I could also give you some quotes from some military guys that support Obama:

Clifford Alexander, former Secretary of the Army
"I've known Barack since the mid-90s. I've seen him in lots of positions, and I compare his leadership skills, most favorably, with the civilian and military leaders that I've seen throughout my professional life."

Richard Danzig, former Secretary of the Navy
"I think people recognize, anybody who deals with Sen. Barack Obama, what an extraordinary Commander-In-Chief he would be. And I think it's difficult for others to effectively deny that. ⦠The reality is, as Secretary Alexander said right at the outset, and Secretary Peters seconded it, it's character, and it's judgment."

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/03/10/751685.aspx

In fact when we look back at previous presidents, experience has had no correlation with how good a president they were. Dr. Andrew Tanenbaum (famous computer science guy you've probably never heard of), has done a statistical analysis that shows this:
http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2008/Info/experience.html

I'll let you examine the details in the link above, or you can take my word that experience does not correlate with being a good president.

I think Toni Morrison said it best: "[Obama has a] creative imagination which coupled with brilliance equals wisdom" Obama has shown that creative imagination in his ability to find consensus and progress where others only see division and roadblocks. His raw intelligence is

woops, here is that last page of links

Of course, he is free to do whatever he wants and I'm not going to bitch about it until he starts referring to himself as a "journalist" or others start calling him un-biased.

There is nothing wrong with being biased... it is only wrong to be biased and to try to present yourself as unbiased.

Of course, he is free to do whatever he wants and I'm not going to bitch about it until he starts referring to himself as a "journalist" or others start calling him un-biased.

There is nothing wrong with being biased... it is only wrong to be biased and to try to present yourself as unbiased.

Right before the 2004 election, electoral-vote.com called the election for Kerry. Oops!

nope. Here's the page from the day of the election:
http://electoral-vote.com/evp2004/nov/nov02.html

He gives Kerry 262 electoral votes. Since you need 270 to win, you can't really say he called it for Kerry.

My favorite political predictor site is electoral-vote.com
They use an amalgamation of national and statewide polls to show the current feeling of Americans on a wide variety of races. Including a national map with a current tally of the electoral votes right at the top.

I visit http://www.electoral-vote.com/ every day.