Krugman Defends Nate Silver

Nate Silver of the 538 blog at the New York Times has come under attack because he continues to maintain that Romney has "no" momentum and Obama still has the edge. In response to a National Review article that calmly criticized Silver's methods Paul Krugman launched one his patented diatribes full of lots and lots of his patented snake oil in defense of Silver.

So Silver has gone from being an honest broker of polling data to a far left hack whose biggest supporter is Paul Krugman! He must be so proud.

Protecting Nate Silver | The Daily Caller

LowDown said:

Nate Silver of the 538 blog at the New York Times has come under attack because he continues to maintain that Romney has "no" momentum and Obama still has the edge. In response to a National Review article that calmly criticized Silver's methods Paul Krugman launched one his patented diatribes full of lots and lots of his patented snake oil in defense of Silver.

So Silver has gone from being an honest broker of polling data to a far left hack whose biggest supporter is Paul Krugman! He must be so proud.

Protecting Nate Silver | The Daily Caller

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Krugman defends Nate and therefore you take it that nate is wrong. No stats. No evidence.

BTW... the attack that Krugman is defending Nate from?...




Because personal traits a blogger points out he doesn't like about Nate means he has to be a terrible pollster.


Whatever tho mang... we'll know whose correct in a week.

ROFLMAO

Silver has suddenly become a hack because a right wing rag criticized him and a Nobel winning economist defended him?

Silver is credible because he knows his stuff, he has a great track record, and he makes sense. And of course his current prediction is quite similar to that from the conservative RCP site.

Nice fail, but go ahead and ignore the evidence. Maybe it's better to get blind sided than to suffer a slow motion train wreck.

LowDown said:

Nate Silver of the 538 blog at the New York Times has come under attack because he continues to maintain that Romney has "no" momentum and Obama still has the edge. In response to a National Review article that calmly criticized Silver's methods Paul Krugman launched one his patented diatribes full of lots and lots of his patented snake oil in defense of Silver.

So Silver has gone from being an honest broker of polling data to a far left hack whose biggest supporter is Paul Krugman! He must be so proud.

Protecting Nate Silver | The Daily Caller

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Is there an actual argument here? supported by, like, evidence?

So a conservative pollster says Nate Silver is wrong because of his physical attributes and because Krugman defends him on this, he is a shrill for the left now?

LowDown said:

Nate Silver of the 538 blog at the New York Times has come under attack because he continues to maintain that Romney has "no" momentum and Obama still has the edge. In response to a National Review article that calmly criticized Silver's methods Paul Krugman launched one his patented diatribes full of lots and lots of his patented snake oil in defense of Silver.

So Silver has gone from being an honest broker of polling data to a far left hack whose biggest supporter is Paul Krugman! He must be so proud.

Protecting Nate Silver | The Daily Caller

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It's not exactly a fact filled reason why Silver is wrong other than we disagree with Silver's results.

Furthermore, Krugman isn't that far off base. The right has been calling polls wrong for months because they were showing an Obama lead. Gallup comes out with a very different poll and suddenly polls are valid to the GOP. You have to be living under a rock not to notice that. The amusing thing is that the same criticisms that the GOP was throwing that the polls before they do not throw at Gallup, despite Gallup having a history of seriously over predicting. The last several elections Gallup was way past the actual result. It got the results right, but its accuracy on the final margin was nowhere near what others polls showed. Furthermore, Gallup has a history of wild swings in both directions that no other poll can replicate even when they try. Krugman is correct that the GOP are picking and choosing when they want to believe polls and refusing to apply their own standards against polls that show a Romney lead.

"This is, of course, reminiscent of the attack on the Bureau of Labor Statistics — not to mention the attacks on climate science and much more. On the right, apparently, there is no such thing as an objective calculation. Everything must have a political motive."

He's spot on there. The GOP went to conspiracy that the BLS data was a hack job. Despite the fact that they could find absolutely no one in the organization to support this conspiracy. And they ignored the fact that BLS data is regularly revised upwards and has been revised upwards for months. They kept to the same line of political adjustment because it was favorable to Obama. And when you look at the attacks on the Koch funded former global warming denier scientists who has now come out and said that Global Warming is happening and man is contributing to it, everything is seen in a political light.

Krugman is basically sick and tired of the GOP picking and choosing when it wants to accept data and using the cover of political manipulation to avoid admitting that the data is not favorable to them. And he's not the only one sick of it.

poweRob said:

Krugman defends Nate and therefore you take it that nate is wrong. No stats. No evidence.

BTW... the attack that Krugman is defending Nate from?...

Conservative Pollster: Nate Silver’s Numbers Can’t Be Accurate Because He Seems Kinda Gay​

Because personal traits a blogger points out he doesn't like about Nate means he has to be a terrible pollster.


Whatever tho mang... we'll know whose correct in a week.

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Actually Krugman is defending Silver from an interesting article in National Review not the article that you linked to.
Nate Silver

obvious Child said:

It's not exactly a fact filled reason why Silver is wrong other than we disagree with Silver's results.

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Check out the National Review article which Krugman was responding to. It is fact based.
Nate Silver

jerry7 said:

Actually Krugman is defending Silver from an interesting article in National Review not the article that you linked to.
Nate Silver

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Funny how all the sudden out of nowhere there's this "uncoordinated" simultaneous attack on Nate Silver from various right-wing sources. Remarkable ain't it?

I stand by Nate and I'll go ahead and say I'll eat crow next Wednesday if he is way off. It's a bet I'm willing to take based on his unmatched accuracy in 2008.

poweRob said:

BTW... the attack that Krugman is defending Nate from?...

Conservative Pollster: Nate Silver’s Numbers Can’t Be Accurate Because He Seems Kinda Gay​

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That's just flat-out wrong. Krugman was referring to substantive criticisms of Silver by Josh Jordan as posted at National Review, not this bull****. Where did you get this?

poweRob said:

Funny how all the sudden out of nowhere there's this "uncoordinated" simultaneous attack on Nate Silver from various right-wing sources. Remarkable ain't it?

I stand by Nate and I'll go ahead and say I'll eat crow next Wednesday if he is way off. It's a bet I'm willing to take based on his unmatched accuracy in 2008.

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The link you provided could be seen as an attack. However the National Review piece is a review of Silver's work and the methods he uses to arrive at his conclusions and why the author disagrees with their accuracy. If you'd bother to read it you'd see it's no more an attack than this article from today's Politico.
Nate Silver: One-term celebrity? - POLITICO.com

jerry7 said:

Check out the National Review article which Krugman was responding to. It is fact based.
Nate Silver

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That article focuses too much on party affiliation weight, and the idea that undecideds always break for the challenger. Trying to measure polls by what they're party affiliation numbers is ridiculous, despite the fact it happens every two years by whatever party is losing. Party affiliation is a dynamic trait that is more affected by the topline question than that question is by it. The rule that the undecideds ultimately break to the challenger has not seemed to applied for the last few election cycles as the 24-hour news cycle has formed and almost 100% of the population has an opinion one way or another about both candidates.

jerry7 said:

The link you provided could be seen as an attack. However the National Review piece is a review of Silver's work and the methods he uses to arrive at his conclusions and why the author disagrees with their accuracy. If you'd bother to read it you'd see it's no more an attack than this article from today's Politico.
Nate Silver: One-term celebrity? - POLITICO.com

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Another substance-free article. The right hates Silver because they don't like the results his model is producing. And there are a lot of talking heads who don't like him because they don't understand math, and it interferes with their ability to make a living sribbling unverifiable blather.

Anagram said:

That article focuses too much on party affiliation weight, and the idea that undecideds always break for the challenger. Trying to measure polls by what they're party affiliation numbers is ridiculous, despite the fact it happens every two years by whatever party is losing. Party affiliation is a dynamic trait that is more affected by the topline question than that question is by it. The rule that the undecideds ultimately break to the challenger has not seemed to applied for the last few election cycles as the 24-hour news cycle has formed and almost 100% of the population has an opinion one way or another about both candidates.

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Silver has written posts on both topics. I might take the NR author seriously if he actually addressed Silver's math.

AdamT said:

Another substance-free article. The right hates Silver because they don't like the results his model is producing. And there are a lot of talking heads who don't like him because they don't understand math, and it interferes with their ability to make a living sribbling unverifiable blather.

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I don't know of anybody who hates him. Not many people have even heard of him.

jerry7 said:

I don't know of anybody who hates him. Not many people have even heard of him.

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Everybody who makes their living in politics or covering politics knows him well.

The attitude seems to be that Silver is wrong because he's too optimstic about Obama's chances. But the truth is that Silver falls in the middle of the sites that analyze aggregate polls and the betting sites. The MSM is just looking at the national polls and is therefore missing the story.

Now, if you want an example of an analyst whose results are *really* pro Obama, look here: http://votamatic.org

jerry7 said:

The link you provided could be seen as an attack. However the National Review piece is a review of Silver's work and the methods he uses to arrive at his conclusions and why the author disagrees with their accuracy. If you'd bother to read it you'd see it's no more an attack than this article from today's Politico.
Nate Silver: One-term celebrity? - POLITICO.com

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Okay... Your link:




Right there is clearly the author's idiocy of taking national polls as meaning something. They mean nothing in our electoral system. If Romney gains more support because X thousand more people in already red states are now polling MORE for Romney... it simply doesn't matter. In our system, only the swing states matter at this point and Nate's calculations take this into account... unlike this guys ridiculous notions about national polls mattering at all.


Like I said a few posts back, I stand by Nate's work and I'll eat crow come a week Wednesday if he's way off. I'm betting he's got his **** together and is less partisan than most if not all these other polling orgs.

poweRob said:

Okay... Your link:

"Romney, clearly, could still win," Silver told POLITICO today.

Prediction is the name of Silver's game, the basis for his celebrity. So should Mitt Romney win on Nov. 6, it's difficult to see how people can continue to put faith in the predictions of someone who has never given that candidate anything higher than a 41 percent chance of winning (way back on June 2) and — one week from the election — gives him a one-in-four chance, even as the polls have him almost neck-and-neck with the incumbent.​

Right there is clearly the author's idiocy of taking national polls as meaning something. They mean nothing in our electoral system. If Romney gains more support because X thousand more people in already red states are now polling MORE for Romney... it simply doesn't matter. In our system, only the swing states matter at this point and Nate's calculations take this into account... unlike this guys ridiculous notions about national polls mattering at all.


Like I said a few posts back, I stand by Nate's work and I'll eat crow come a week Wednesday if he's way off. I'm betting he's got his **** together and is less partisan than most if not all these other polling orgs.

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Your confusing the Politico link with the National Review link. Krugman was defending Silver in reference to the National Review article which is more substantive than the Politico piece. Politico is left leaning and I was surprised to see them challenge Silver even the little bit that they did. They are usually very light on details and heavy on spin.

jerry7 said:

Your confusing the Politico link with the National Review link. Krugman was defending Silver in reference to the National Review article which is more substantive than the Politico piece. Politico is left leaning and I was surprised to see them challenge Silver even the little bit that they did. They are usually very light on details and heavy on spin.

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I think Politico is pretty unbiased.

AdamT said:

I think Politico is pretty unbiased.

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They started out that way but have evolved left. Mike Allen usually appears on "Morning Joe" on MSNBC every day and always has something to perk up the lefty panel.

jerry7 said:

They started out that way but have evolved left. Mike Allen usually appears on "Morning Joe" on MSNBC every day and always has something to perk up the lefty panel.

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From the right wing tip everything looks left.

AdamT said:

From the right wing tip everything looks left.

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LOL. You're so predictable.

This is what happens when that awkward moment comes... when the guy that is right says things that aren't in line with what conservatives need them to be; evolution, climate change, economics, civil rights, therefore they have no choice but to go full retard and attack him with a straight face. This is what happens when you won't be their bias monkey, they turn on you.

Verax said:

This is what happens when that awkward moment comes... when the guy that is right says things that aren't in line with what conservatives need them to be; evolution, climate change, economics, civil rights, therefore they have no choice but to go full retard and attack him with a straight face. This is what happens when you won't be their bias monkey, they turn on you.

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Yeah ... STUPID MATH!!

jerry7 said:

Check out the National Review article which Krugman was responding to. It is fact based.
Nate Silver

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Link's not working now, but from what I remember it didn't actually cite anything but vague statements regarding why they disagree with his model. It did not (that I remember) provide links regarding how Silver's methodology was wrong. Essentially the argument is we don't think Silver is reliable because of his methods but we aren't going to actually going to detail as to why we think his methods are wrong.