Wednesday, November 7, 2012

The U.S. election

It's over.

How's that for sophisticated analysis?

By the way, I turned on my computer this morning to see the final results and the Wash. Post, which comes up as my home page, had a headline "a second term." I read some of the accompanying story, which said Obama had passed the 270 electoral vote threshold even though Fla. remains too close to call. I then clicked on the map that went with the piece, the banner (or headline) of which showed Obama with 249 electoral votes, not 270. WaPo hadn't bothered apparently to update the banner on the map. Typical of WaPo's coverage of the returns, which I thought was deficient, to put it very politely.

Update: WaPo has now fixed the map.

3 comments:

hank_F_M said...

That's as good as any analysis I've seen, better than most.




Hank’s Eclectic Meanderings

LFC said...

Actually there has been, I think, some pretty good analysis; I just didn't think I could add much to it.

Apparently, as far as the pres. race is concerned, the Latino vote -- both turnout and its breaking for Obama about 70-30 -- was v. important in a few key states (according to what I heard today). Also I just read a WaPo article about the impressive Obama field org in Va. I had only one fairly brief contact w/ an Obama office -- and that was one in Md, near where I live, from which on one occasion I made some calls into Va.
I came away not esp impressed w that particular office, but apparently that was committing the fallacy of generalizing on the basis of insufficient evidence.

The Senate races for Dems also turned out well overall, but some of that was due to Repubs shooting themselves in the foot, so to speak, in Indiana and Missouri. I also noticed Ted Cruz won in Texas, i think the only tea party Senate victory (though cd be wrong on that).

Btw I think Dan Nexon's piece today at the Duck on longer-term possibilities and esp prospects (or lack thereof) for Repub 'adaptation' is quite good. I assume you've probably seen it.

Then too there's been a lot of John Sides posts at The Monkey Cage, but most of them are too technical and detailed for me, frankly, v. focused on issues of polls, forecasting, etc. He had one post on the question of a 'mandate' that I thought was a bit off. Left a comment or two there.

LFC said...

Btw, don't know whether you've seen this.

A glance at the comment thread is enough to -- well, render one more or less speechless.