So in the last election cycle the GOP had a bit of a problem with their polls. Basically there was a group of republicans who believed that the polls were basically rigged against republicans, and therefore the "real" election results if the polls were done right would be a massive Romney landslide. (including Karl Rove and Dick Morris, both of whom have some epic youtube clips Im not going to post (as they are about 10-20 minutes long each) of each of them losing it when they realized the polls had been correct the whole time but feel free to look those up).
They even had an entire website, UnSkewedPolls.com devoted to showing the "real" numbers and the true Romney landslide. By the way unlike Rove and Morris both of whom evenually came to grips with reality, at last check (admittedly in the middle of 2013) the founder of that website STILL wont admit he was technically wrong claiming
"I was only wrong in those projections because I was not aware nor did I calculate in the voter fraud and the voter suppression, both of which exceeded the margin by which Barack Obama was declared the winner of that election last Fall,"
And posted this map as "proof"
(by the way it should be noted that the UnSkewedPolls.com domain name now leads to a German language hair care website)
Now clearly, Republicans couldnt be that stupid (by which I mean predicting a history landslide, not just a republican victory)
After all as a famous man once said
Well with all due respect to President Bush......looks like he was wrong.
Heres a quote from an economist named Arthur Laffer, who worked in the Nixon, Ford and Reagan administrations
"I would be surprised if the Republicans don’t take 45, 46, 47 states out of the 50, I mean, I think we’re going to landslide this election.”
Its not entirely clear AT ALL on what evidence he bases this claim, other than the belief he has the inherent ability to stick his head that far up his own ass.
To put this in perspective how crazy this comment is If Democrats ONLY won the states they have won in every election since 1988, the GOP STILL wouldnt win 45 states. (the Dems have held 8 states every election in that period)
Now people might point out the reason I can only go back to 1988 is because in 1984 Reagan won 49 states.....as did Nixon in 1968 and FDR (46 of 48) in 1932 so clearly Laffer's claim is possible right?
Not really, See Reagan did this during his REELECT, as did FDR and Nixon.
Now yes Regan came close in his first race too (getting 44 states), but again an incumbent president.
But then again FDR got all but 6 states, in his first race.....and thats really the ONLY example of that happening (at least in the 150 years, im not going back father than that just because the country was much smaller and trying to reduce the % of states this guy is saying you can win out of the number we have is just too much damn math to do at the moment given it wont really affect my point) and keep in mind, thats still not as many as this guy is claiming the GOP can win now (actually its even worse percentage wise as in 1932 there were only 48 states)
So what this guy is calling for is a historic landslide, that has NEVER happened before in an open election....based on what appears to be no evidence at all, well except that:
"I don’t think Hillary’s going to win this election no matter whom she runs against, I mean, Hillary’s day is over.
“I think she’s a very impressive person, she’s very articulate, very well educated, got a great resume and all of that, but her policies are not good. And it’s about issues, not about people, and her day has gone."
Problem of course being, none of that is a fact (well except the well educated and articulate parts), so hes basically making this prediction fact free.
Here's the funny part though, thanks to the electoral college, the number of states you won dont really matter.
For example in the 3 landslides I mentioned, by state count FDR in 1936 did the worst. But by electoral count he actually did the best.
Cause see he lost two states, but he only lost 6 electoral votes due to the two states he lost being tiny.
Compare this to Reagan and Nixon who lost 1 state each plus DC....but lost 13 and 17 electoral votes, cause they lost larger states.
Futhermore as far as numbers of states won, its entirely possible (and maybe even likely) for the GOP to win 30 states.....and still lose. (in fact its almost a sure thing the GOP will win the majority of states, win or lose)
See the 18 states that are firm democrat are more populated than the 23 that are firm Republican.(as comparison the largest (population wise) 3 democratic states are worth 104 electoral votes, the republicans are 65, In fact the 5 largest GOP states are worth 87 all combined. (this by the way leaves 9 swing states, FL, NV, CO, VA, OH, NC, NH, WI and IA)
In fact the Democratic 18 are so large that taken as a combined unit the Dems start with 237 electoral votes out of 270 needed to win.
Compared to the GOP 23 which bring 191 to the table.
So if the Democrats win the state of Florida (29 votes), that would kick their electoral vote count up to 266, leaving them only 4 votes away from winning and all the 8 remaining swing states are worth at least 4 votes.
As a sidenote by the way, to emphasis the general importance of Florida in the election, with all 9 swing states in play there are 39 different combinations of swing states that allow the Democrats to win, and 27 for the GOP.
With Florida in the Democratic column, those numbers drop to 8 for the Dems, and 1 (and only 1) for the GOP. No other state has that much of an impact. Sadly for the GOP it doesnt work in reverse, a republican Florida only changes the numbers to 31 for the Dems and 26 for the Republicans.
Anyways how you get the GOP wins 30 but still loses situation.
Which brings us to the insane part, even if this guy happened to be right, the vote might NOT be that much of a comparative landslide.
Consider the 5 largest states (CA, TX, FL, NY and either IL or PA) are worth a total of 171 votes together....or just 20 worse than what the GOP starts with.
To put that in comparison thats a better showing than Michael Dukakis made in 1988 OR that George HW Bush made in 1992 OR that Bob Dole made in 1996, and its only a couple votes worse than what John McCain did in 2008, and none of those races are considered landslides for their respective winners.
Now I admit its extremely unlikely (to the point of being near impossible except for statistical probability) that the Dems would win those 5 states and only those 5 states. But even the 5 largest Democrat states (CA, NY, IL, PA and MI) get 140 votes...still a better showing than Dukakis made, and again I mention this only because HW bush isnt considered to have won in a landslide.
Which brings us to the irony of the new 2016 poll truther...even if by some miracle their totally unsupported hypnosis was right (that the electoral split would be at least 45 states) they would still be wrong about it looking like a comparative landslide.
I guess Ron White (from the blue collar comedy tour) is right....you really cant fix stupid.
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