Wharton Professor Weighs In On The Elections

Caesar S. writes "Recent research directed by Wharton School Professor J. Scott Armstrong takes political forecasting to the next level by using innovative techniques to combine forecasts from polls, enonometric models, betting markets and predictions by experts (Delphi surveys). Check out Polly's page to hear Polly the parrot objectively predict this year's presidential election. There's lots more interesting stuff on this site about how electronic markets and Delphi surveys can be used for forecasting. Definitely worth a read."

Comments

It's interesting to note

[antifoidulus]

how much the rules have changed from the 70's. For instance, although the author notes that the "bread and peace" index both hurts and helps Bush.
Start with the bread. The economy has been going, and for certain sectors of the economy, things are picking up. For others, it's been a disaster. Income levels are increasing slightly, with less taxes, but prices for fuel and healthcare have skyrockted. You really can't say Bush did a stellar job on the economy, but you really can't say he totaly bungled it either.
Same with the peace problem. Iraq isn't nearly as bad as Vietnam, but it's not a bed of roses either. I think this is why John Kerry is having a tough time differentiating himself from Bush on the issue of Iraq. It's obviously far from perfect, if Bush were doing a stellar job like he claims, then Iraq would be a non-issue for this election. But it's not an unmitigated disaster either. If so, John Kerry could really pounce on that.
This election is looking to be as hard to predict as 2000 was.

Re:It's interesting to note

[Awptimus Prime]

Same with the peace problem. Iraq isn't nearly as bad as Vietnam, but it's not a bed of roses either.

Right now, I feel Iraq is artificially good. From what I have gathered, we have large camps of our troops outside Iraq's major cities. On a regular basis, they leave camps and do SWAT-like raids on individual homes and then get out quickly.

The casualties in this war will come after the elections. I believe, in November, we will start trying to take ground inside cities, then this war may become quite a bloody mess. No president in his right mind would start a ground invasion prior to an attempt at re-election.

You have to remember, Vietnam was supported for quite a while. It wasn't until a couple of years into the conflict that we started taking huge numbers of casualties and those came as a suprise. The average american thought the technological advantages of helicopters, lightweight rifles, and jet fighters would destroy the communist army.

But just as with Korea, they wanted us out more than we wanted to "fix" their government issues.

Re:Interesting site, but there's a fatal flaw

[coaxial]

Yeah, Election Projection is obviously wrong. They have Oregon going for Bush. There's no way those latted drinking flanel wearing hippies :) are going to vote for Bush.

I used to look at electoral-vote.com too, but I decided that it's predictions were to volatile, so I made my own. [url:http://www.cs.siu.edu/~jkoren/electoral_vote. html]

Mine averages the assorted polls roughly based on "trustworthiness". For instance: Gallup is weighted lower than Zogby, but not because Zogby polls Kerry consistently higher. It's because Zogby was the most accurate poll of 2000, and made a strong argument about what was wrong with Gallup's polling this year.

It's updated daily.

Re:Interesting site, but there's a fatal flaw

[Thunderstruck]

Actually, I'd prefer it if I could just let my electors look at the record, values, vision, and plan of each candidate and decide based on that. I figure its better to elect someone I know from my state to sift through all the 1/2 truths and spin, to actually read the voting records, to really research all the candidates and then make a vote for my state.