Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How I Acted Like a Pundit and Screwed Up on Donald Trump

fivethirtyeight.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 59 posts

Re: How I Acted Like a Pundit and Screwed Up on Donald Trump

#11

Post by PantaloonFlames »

throwaway_xx9 wrote: post #5

I don't think 538 gets it even now. Trump is a celebrity who gets free media coverage and people aspire to. So of course he was a serious contender from Day One. The fact that he is not polished for the media is a plus to most people. As one woman said to a news reporter earlier in the campaign, "Well, I could vote for the other candidate. But he's a politician."

> The fact that he is not polished for the media is a plus to most people.

He is EXTREMELY polished. He's a professional personality. He's been doing it for a decade, wooing audiences. He knows how to do it.

What he is not, is a politician.

> Well, I could vote for the other candidate. But he's a politician.

exactly.

People aren't happy, and they'll vote for anyone that isn't "more of the same". eg Trump and Sanders.

Re: How I Acted Like a Pundit and Screwed Up on Donald Trump

#13

Post by thebooktocome »

PantaloonFlames wrote: post #9
goodcanadian wrote: post #4

Trump's (presumptive) nomination was a big surprise to me. However, in retrospect, it looks less surprising. Trump was always going to attract a sizable minority, and there were really no other compelling candidates in the race. While I'm sure that the majority of Republican voters would prefer "not Trump," who that "not Trump" candidate could be was never clear. At the end, well, I am not certain that I wouldn't pic…

> I am not certain that I wouldn't pick Trump over Cruz, for example. The negatives sprinkled throughout that sentence don't make it clearer. isn't it just: "I would pick Trump over Cruz"?

No; the evidential "I am not certain" is not logically exclusive with its negation, "I am certain". So the principle of double negation does not apply.

Brought to you by a partially wasted youth as a philosophy major.

Re: How I Acted Like a Pundit and Screwed Up on Donald Trump

#14

Post by sverige »

goodcanadian wrote: post #4

Trump's (presumptive) nomination was a big surprise to me. However, in retrospect, it looks less surprising. Trump was always going to attract a sizable minority, and there were really no other compelling candidates in the race. While I'm sure that the majority of Republican voters would prefer "not Trump," who that "not Trump" candidate could be was never clear. At the end, well, I am not certain that I wouldn't pic…

> While I'm sure that the majority of Republican voters would prefer "not Trump," who that "not Trump" candidate could be was never clear.

Why are you sure of that? He's gotten a record number of votes for a Republican primary. It's very clear that, in fact, the majority of Republican voters want Trump, along with a sizable percentage of independents who voted in some of the primaries.

It's this kind of wishful thinking by non-Republicans that leads to all the laughable errors of the pundit and pollster class.

Re: How I Acted Like a Pundit and Screwed Up on Donald Trump

#16

Post by calibraxis »

> These fundamentals usually consist of economic indicators and various measures of incumbency.

I looked at a couple links, and couldn't quickly find the exact "fundamentals" he refers to. For instance, do they include campaign financing (corrected by peculiar things lke Trump's free media coverage, and perhaps whatever unpaid labor of Sanders' supporters)?

Given that politicians spend enormous time on financing, this is an obvious indicator. But it may be politically incorrect to use models that imply money drives the US.

(Chomsky mentioned, "At the moment, the polls indicate an even race. Usually, US elections can be predicted pretty well by the level of funding, overwhelmingly from the very wealthy and corporations. In the early stages, Bush was far in the lead, not a surprise in the light of the enormous gifts his administration has lavished on a very small wealthy minority and on corporate power. However, that funding gap has reduced considerably in the past months, apparently reflecting concern among elite sectors over the extraordinary incompetence of the Bush planners and the harm they are doing to core elite interests." https://chomsky.info/20041011/)

Re: How I Acted Like a Pundit and Screwed Up on Donald Trump

#17

Post by dragonwriter »

WalterBright wrote: post #3

I've watched Trump years ago on The Apprentice. What he brought to politics was business sense and marketing know-how, which has been surprisingly absent from political campaigns before.

Neither business sense nor marketing know-how have been absent from political campaigns before; plenty of politicians (and many of their close advisors, as well) have been quite successful in business before or between political campaigns, and the people running campaigns are generally experts in marketing (many of them quite successful in that in the commercial realm before and between political campaigns as well.)

Re: How I Acted Like a Pundit and Screwed Up on Donald Trump

#18

Post by caf »

throwaway_xx9 wrote: post #5

I don't think 538 gets it even now. Trump is a celebrity who gets free media coverage and people aspire to. So of course he was a serious contender from Day One. The fact that he is not polished for the media is a plus to most people. As one woman said to a news reporter earlier in the campaign, "Well, I could vote for the other candidate. But he's a politician."

Identifying the Reasons in hindsight is not the point. There are always Reasons but if you can't reliably identify them before the event rather than after then it's not of any predictive interest.

Re: How I Acted Like a Pundit and Screwed Up on Donald Trump

#20

Post by thedevil »

douche wrote: post #19

Scott Adams (of Dilbert fame) called it months ago[1] [1] http://blog.dilbert.com/post/131749156346/the-case-for-a-tru...

Not only did he call it, he explained and predicted in detail. For example, he predicted the Megyn Kelly interview.

Edit: He predicted the interview and that it would mark a turning point where Trump softens his image, destroys Clinton's image, and coasts towards a landslide victory. The interview happened and the polls are turning now, on cue.

He also predicted Trump would use the word love and possibly be seen hugging minorities. Anyone see Trump's Cinco de Mayo tweet?

Unfortunately, Trump is our next president.

Second edit: I highly recommend Scott Adam's blog. He and Trump are both psychology geniuses and the blog explains it.

Post reply on HN