15 Comments

I found that The Economist did a bang-up job with their coverage. On the 7th they wrote, "our model thinks the most likely scenario is a mere Republican ripple rather than a red wave." I find that it is often necessary to listen to those who look at America from the outside in.

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Yes. You are right. Touché...

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I love Robert Rubin's 3 questions that groups should always be asking themselves.

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I did not follow the polls at all and was cautiously optimistic that things might not be as bad as everyone was saying. Read James Fallows "Breaking the News" Substack today. The title is 'The Political Press Needs a Time Out.' It's a good read and he is one who has been around the block a lot of times.

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I just commented in reverse on Mr. Fallow’s substack that he should take a look at Prof. DeLong’s post.

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I second Mr. Fallows' motion.

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How about a new Hexapodia on Twitter, your experience on Mastadon, and the future of Substack?

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I'm just a retired English professor of very little brain, and looking at Silver and listening to a lot of folks clearly smarter than I led me to expect a 52-48 Rep Senate & 235-200 Rep House. The lesson here: just accept Silver's numbers, go to bed early, and get up late to a big breakfast before checking the news.

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I think that is wise...

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Too many talk shows, too many op-eds, probably too many Substacks (present company excepted), certainly too much noise. It's possible to find thoughtful stuff out there and have good conversations, but there are too many voices who are desperate to be heard and therefore making stuff up.

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IMO, Yglesias is still over-projecting his own views onto Florida, given 1) Florida demographics, and 2) the Florida gerrymander.

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Perhaps...

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Demographics is a big factor, and I don’t mean Hispanics. Florida’s reputation for being a low tax jurisdiction for irresponsible people (“Florida man” stories), is becoming a draw for retirement age righties (I know a few who relocated there), and may be simultaneously making retirement age liberals start to shun the place. Over the last 20 years Broward and Dade Counties.no longer look as blue.

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Yes, by demographics, I meant aging.

The thing is, multiplying explanations does not increase the amount of variation to be explained. We can be completely confident that gerrymandering has a causal effect; it is the consequence of arithmetic. We can be very confident that an increase in old white voters has an effect, because it has a strong effect for America overall. Exempting Florida from this would require a special reason. So that is a lot of variation used up.

We don't really have anything beyond Matt's intuition that 15-week abortion bans have a causal effect; even if we accept his claim about popularity, causality remains to be demonstrated. And if it were demonstrated, how material would it be?

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Yes...

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