EMAIL OF THE DAY

“Disclaimer: I’m a kerry supporter. As a statistics student…Slate’s polling deal is about as unscientific as you can get. This is the kind of shit I study at school part-time and do for a living full-time. I strongly urge you not to rely too much on Slate’s summary. In short, it is comparing apples to oranges. By aggregating the data like that they are compounding the errors in their data rendering any sort of grand prediction pointless. The differences in methodologies between the polls (the phrasing of the questions alone!) makes aggregating the data like that USELESS. The best I can say is that the electoral votes that they consider “solid” are indeed that…the rest of it is nonsense.
I believe Bush is ahead but seeing a modest and predictable dissipation of his convention bounce which was both strong and entirely within the parameters most professionals predicted. Best guess is that Bush has and will maintain a statistically significant edge of about 5-7 points going into the debates….barring outside forces. The good news for Bush is that with every passing day the ranks of the undecided decline and the polls actually become somewhat more accurate.
Interesting but useless fact: At this point in 2000 Al Gore maintained a lead over Bush that is almost identical to the lead Bush currently enjoys over Kerry.”