Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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 Posted: Mon May 04, 2009 8:46 am Post subject: Economist + interview w/ Nate Silver = win |
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Seven Qs for Nate Silver
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DIA: Since you were able to predict so many 2008 races months ahead of time based on immutable factors, how much do political campaigns really matter?
Mr Silver: There are two separate questions here: how much campaigns matter and how much candidates matter. Candidates clearly do matter, in the sense that it's not uncommon to get results in individual races that significantly diverge from the national trends. For instance, right now we have two Republican senators in Maine, which voted for Barack Obama by 18 points, and two Democratic senators in North Dakota, which hasn't voted a Democrat for President since 1964. Likewise, we have a Republican governor in Vermont and a Democratic governor in Kansas. When you see gravity-defying results like those, it usually boils down to a very talented candidate.
But how much do campaigns matter? They clearly matter some. Hillary Clinton, who proved to be a much stronger candidate than I expected but ran a very poor campaign, is probably Exhibit A in this regard. On the other hand, John McCain�s campaign basically went bankrupt during the Republican primaries and he managed to win the nomination. |
The other six follow. |
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