[Wittrs] Wittgenstein, Judgment & Statistics
- From: Sean Wilson <whoooo26505@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: "wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx" <wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 10:36:21 -0800 (PST)
(This is the underlying set of post which are set to kick off a discussion
about Wittgenstein, connoisseur judgment and statistics next week).
Greetings Tracy.
Replying to this short summary of Holbrook: "presidential approval ratings
don't tell us much of anything about how presidential elections will turn out."
I'm not convinced. That analysis doesn't tell us anything. The appeal to the
regression only creates a false charm. I wonder what would happen if you
modeled it with a binary outcome (win loss) and only entered cases of 40 or
below, or 45. (It's a small n either way). The theory isn't that approval is
one-to-one correlated with votes. The theory is that there is some
basement-level of job approval that makes winning the election less probable.
The theory is that low-approval ratings produce a different kind of
presidential election dynamic. The idea is that undecided voters have more of
an incentive to go with a challenger when the job approval of the incumbent is
too low. That's what happened to Carter.
Besides, although Reagan and Clinton dipped low, they had approval ratings that
(overall) trended upwards during the life of their terms. Reagan's was
particularly rocky (bouncing back twice), ending with a slight overall upward
trend. All other presidents in modern times experience overall erosion, mostly
gradual but some episodic. So, let's assume there is an erosion-trend president
having numbers at 45 in July -- are you going to tell me that has no influence
on the probability of winning the race? I don't think so.
I'm not saying that Obama will lose. I'm not even saying he won't bounce back
in the polls. And I'm surely not saying that what has happened in the past 6
other times has to happen again. But what I am saying is that it can't be good
news. Truth is, I always thought Obama's charm and charisma would work a lot
like Reagan and Clinton. I had always thought he would bounce back. But lately,
I'm beginning to believe that it won't happen. And I fear that in July he'll
have approval ratings southward of 44 and will be asking to become the first
president since (we assume) before Roosevelt to have the incumbent party win
with such job numbers. (Could anyone speculate who might have done this
pre-Roosevelt, if we had the data?).
My colleagues here think otherwise. They're all concerned with head-to-head
numbers. But I'm concerned with late-breaking voters. Much like Carter, I fear
that that the undecided vote 4 days before the election will break in favor of
a challenger who represents an alternative to the perceived social misery. I
hope I am wrong.
Anyway, it's still witchcraft whether you use stats or not. That's the real
thing that may be lost. The fact that someone uses a univariate 14-case linear
regression doesn't make him or her less of a metaphysician on the subject. I
prefer connoisseur judgment. You want to come to understand a cultural context
(happenstance).
In any event, thanks for pointing out the blog. I'm going to pay more attention
to it now.
Regards and thanks.
Dr. Sean Wilson, Esq.
[spoiler]Assistant Professor
Wright State University
Personal Website: http://seanwilson.org ;
SSRN papers: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=596860 ;
Wittgenstein
Discussion: http://seanwilson.org/wittgenstein.discussion.html [/spoiler]
----- Original Message -----
From: Tracy Lightcap <tlightcap@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: Sean Wilson <whoooo26505@xxxxxxxxx>
Cc: LAWCOURT-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Wednesday, January 25, 2012 5:25 PM
Subject: Re: polls and elections
Once again a visit to our friends at the Monkey Cage helps. See:
themonkeycage.org/blog/2011/08/10/potpourri-elections-edition/
Then read the links to the short pieces by Tom Holbrook (very helpful graphs)
and Drew Matthews. Holbrook more directly addresses this question. Short
Tracy
On Jan 25, 2012, at 4:59 PM, Sean Wilson wrote:
> ... has there ever been a sitting president who had a Gallup Poll approval
> rating of 45 or lower in the month of the first party convention, but before
> the convention started, where the party in power won the White House? All I
> can think of are general trends: (a) Truman's polls went very low, Ike came
> in; (b) Johnson's numbers went very low, Nixon came in; (c) Nixon plummeted,
> Carter came in; (d) Carter plummeted, Reagan came in; (e) Bush I fell,
> Clinton came in; (f) Bush II fell, Obama came in. But I believe the numbers
> in these cases go down in the 30s.
>
> Is there any precedent for a president having a 45 rating (or lower) in July,
> before the convention, where the president (or that party) wins the White
> House?
>
> Regards and thanks.
>
> Dr. Sean Wilson, Esq.
> Assistant Professor
> Wright State University
> Personal Website: http://seanwilson.org
> SSRN papers: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=596860
> Wittgenstein Discussion: http://seanwilson.org/wittgenstein.discussion.html
Tracy Lightcap
Professor and Chair
Department of Political Science
LaGrange College
601 Broad St.
LaGrange GA 30240-2999
(O) tlightcap@xxxxxxxxxxxx (H) altlamp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
706.880.8226
www.lagrange.edu/academics/political-science/faculty/tlightcap.aspx
us.macmillan.com/thepoliticsoftorture
_______________________________________________
Wittrs mailing list
Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://undergroundwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/wittrs_undergroundwiki.org
Other related posts:
