greenpass

Predicting the votes

Mathew Gross has challenged, and I have answered. Here are my predictions, based on:
a) the economy
b) the numbers and preferences of self-identified registered voters AND leaning independents
c) how I think the campaigns have gone so far, and
d) past performance in elections of candidates
e) all other random factors that I could think of that affect my perception of the race.

Bush: 52% of the popular vote
Kerry: 48% of the popular vote

Bush victory: about a 65% chance (MLE estimate)

Electoral college: I think that PA, OH, WI, NV and ME will go for Kerry, and Kerry will have 268 electoral votes, leaving Bush with 270 votes (giving him NH, IA, NV and AK).

I think that adds up...trust a statistics concentrator to have made a regression model for the popular vote and then not be able to add up the electoral college votes correctly. Let me just say right now though that I REALLY REALLY hope I'm wrong. No one will be happier than me to find out that I am way off.

China advice

Although I usually write about chinese political stuff, this was an interesting task - advising Matt Singer what to do in Beijing for six days in December. For the edification of everyone soon or someday on their way to the great Zhongguo, here's what I said:

I would say definitely try to get your hands on a car (and a driver that speaks english) and take a day trip out to Huairou county (buy food in the city first). Ask to be taken to the parts of the Great Wall that are completely run down and unrestored - it's utterly gorgeous (and may require a little hiking - a little desolate in December but still fun).

Another fun thing to do might be to take the train to Shanghai - the trains are incredibly anachronistic, Shanghai is an amazing city, and it would be a fun 3-4 day trip. Another trip could be up north to Harbin to see the ice sculptures.

In Beijing, make sure you get someone to take you to one (or more...) excellent Sichuan restaurants - someone who knows how to order and preferably speaks chinese. (Hopefully you like incandescently spicy food...) A good place to find someone to help you would be to go to the bars in Sanlitun district after midnight and buy a journalist a drink - they know all the best restaurants and will probably end up taking you there themselves. I highly recommend the bars Bookworm and Hidden Tree (cheap Chimay Belgian ale).

Other fun things: the Silk Market on Jiangguomenwai, eating lunch at the stuffy old Beijing Hotel, flying kites on Tiananmen Square, and if you're going in December you HAVE to go ice skating in Beihai Park and then go to the cooked food market afterwards. You can rent skates or these little metal chairs on runners with metal poles to punt yourself along with. Get your friend to take you to a traditional teahouse as well - lots of fun.

One thing that will make your stay far more enjoyable - take taxis everywhere. They're unbelieveably cheap and the taxi drivers are fun to talk to, and they'll take you anywhere you need to go. Bikes are also fun to ride around on but it can be bitterly cold in December, and you probably won't have access to bikes if you're only going for six days.

And lastly: a) make sure your visa is obtained WELL before you go, and b) if you're in town on Christmas Eve and aren't too much of a stickler about religious things, be sure to go to the midnight mass at the Irish embassy - they serve excellent Irish whiskey at the reception afterwards, and it's open to anyone who wants to come (minimal audience participation makes it perfect for religious dilettantes like myself).

Red letter day

The theory of everything - one of our oldest friends wins the Nobel Prize. We all knew it was coming, it was just a matter of when and where. Of course, Betsy was thrilled, and blogged all about the call from Sweden and the aftermath.

Let it be known that I beat Frank SOUNDLY this summer at Lord of the Rings Trivial Pursuit, although he plays the piano far better than I do. My dad also named a particle that Frank discovered one summer - the indron (after Indra, the Hindu god). Frank helped my brother Chace with his physics problem set last night as well - I wonder if they'll rescind the Nobel if they find that he couldn't solve an electrodynamics problem for college students.

One important thing he said today at the press conference - that he was entirely educated in the American public school system, and that without it he wouldn't be where he is today. (Reported by the NYTimes as "I want to thank the U.S. for supplying the system of public education that did so well by me.")

Hence the importance of funding public schools and therefore in a roundabout way voting Bush out of office (or that was what he intended, I think...)

More NYTimes fallout

Betsy stands up for me, and points out the obvious - in that NYTimes article, the female bloggers were either cute and lolling around wearing tank tops, or they were Wonkette. The men got much more substantive attention to their work and actual ideas. To be fair, there were many more men there, but Betsy goes on a nice, polite, irked warpath. And yes, that really is a picture of a shirtless Matt Klam. Sort of looks like he's doing a Japanese cat food commercial.

Reading...

Current reading for class: campaigns don't matter because they are so easily predicted by environmental and other exogenous factors. The vast majority of voters have their minds made up by partisan identification before the campaigns even begin, and undecided voters are unlikely to change their mind on campaign effects but rather on the basis of the economy and the performance of the incumbent prior to the start of the campaign. Discuss.

Also, Betsy liked this article on Kos. I thought that the best part of the debate was that it was obvious that Kerry had sat down with his debate prep team beforehand and said, "I need to come up with something to counter the 'flipflop' thing and the '87 billion dollars' thing. Do it." And they did.

In related news, the head TF of my gov class is the head of Bush's debate team, and was away all last week prepping Bush. Yet another nail in the coffin for the "crazy wooly liberal university" meme.