I have frequently here decried the quality of our national political media outlets, writing that they focus on the horserace, not the impacts electing one or another candidate might bring to all of us. Many people have jumped (surely unknowingly) on my bandwagon, saying they want “less about the horserace,…
Category: Politics
Robert Rubin’s Russian Roulette: “The Yellow Pad: Making Better Decisions in an Uncertain World”
February 5, 2024 The ignorance of even the best-informed investor about the more remote future is much greater than his knowledge, and he cannot but be influenced to a degree which would seem wildly disproportionate to anyone who really knew the future, and be forced to seek a clue mainly…
Horserace Episode 3.5: Pundit Whiplash/Pigheadedness Edition
November 9, 2023Yesterday, Democrats nearly swept the table in an off-year election, easily passing a referendum in red-state Ohio enshrining the right to abortion, easily re-electing a Democratic governor in Kentucky, and sweeping into the majority in both houses of the Virginia legislature. None of these things were predictable; all…
Horserace Episode 3: Forecasting Follies
November 7, 2023 Nate Silver, the other day, tweeted (or “Xed?”) that the Democratic Party should be very very worried. “You have the whole electorate basically screaming ‘BIDEN’S TOO OLD.’ There’s a year’s worth of campaign to go, very likely some reversion to the fundamentals, Trump’s legal issues probably a larger liability…
Artisanal Dark Ages
November 2, 2023 In 1908, John Laing Leal, a physician, was working for the Jersey City, NJ water supply. His father had suffered from amoebic dysentery as a result of service in the Civil War and consumption of infected water. Leal had previously held various posts in public health, and…
The (Self-Inflicted) Twilight of the Experts
October 5, 2023 To me, a great general idea is one that can be approached from many different directions, and it will still explain important phenomena. One where, after hearing about it, for some period of time afterwards, everywhere you look, you seem to see an example of it in…
Polling and Prediction in 2023
September 25, 2023 Political polls are often presented to the public as omens about what will happen in future elections. But polls do not work the way they used to. In the past, a high approval rating – say, Bill Clinton’s, which exceeded 60% after the end of his impeachment…