Mathematics Says Romney and Santorum Tied In Iowa 457
Hugh Pickens writes "Presidential candidate Mitt Romney received eight more votes than candidate Rick Santorum or 0.007 percent of the total number of caucus votes in the Iowa caucus, 'eking out a victory' on the path to winning the Republican nomination for president but experts in statistics say Romney and Santorum actually tied. 'From a statistical point of view, you can't say Romney won any more than you can say Santorum won,' says Charles Seife, a professor of journalism at New York University who studies election error. That's because in the Iowa caucus, where voters marked their choices with check marks or by writing the candidates' names in by hand, the error rate in counting the votes, which is also done by hand is orders of magnitude above the victory margin — around 0.5 to 1 percent. There are several sources of error that could easily render eight votes meaningless." (Read on for more.)
Hugh Pickens continues: "First, ballots sometimes stick to the bottom of ballot boxes when the boxes are overturned, and fail to be counted. Next, election officials occasionally misread messy handwriting, or tally their totals incorrectly. Finally officials can misjudge who a voter intended to vote for: 'You'd be surprised how often people place a check mark in an ambiguous place,' says Seife. Whether it's statistically significant or not, any official declaration of victory can have big ramifications. With political pundits regarding Romney's 'victory' as evidence that he's in a good position to win the Republican nomination, the failure to recognize a statistical tie in Iowa could impact the future of the country. 'It's Romney, not Santorum, who can head to New Hampshire claiming the win,' writes Nick Rizzo. 'But if you just counted the exact same votes all over again, there's a good chance the result would be different.'"
Higher Power (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Higher Power (Score:5, Insightful)
Fortunately, they don't have to -- it's not a government election, so it's not a government matter.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not like we count the votes in real elections either.
Which is of course false, we actually do count votes in real elections. It just gets tricky when the vote is really close. My guess is you said it that way to be slightly sensationalistic (and humorous), which is why it was modded troll. I guess, I didn't mod it.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
There was no known winner in 2000 (Score:3)
( Mathematically, speaking that is, and how could math possibly be relevant to vote counting? :-) )
The results were clearly within the margin of error of the counting (including recounting) techniques.
The only fair way to have decided it (other than a re-run) would have been a coin toss or equivalent.
Re: (Score:3)
Wow. Mod troll. Looks like I hit a sore spot : )
Parry with an A Gate [colbertnation.com] is a reference to Stephen Colbert poking fun at the fact that Republican straw polls (like the primaries) are not official events and therefore not subject to the same oversight rules.
In 2000 the US Supreme Court ordered Florida to stop counting votes and the results never were properly tallied (Even George W Bush signed legislation as Governor of Texas declaring hand recounts to be the preferred method to resolve discrepancies. Why his campaign went to the US Supreme court to interfere with Florida's decision to do the same is beyond me. So much for States' rights). I assumed this is what OP was referring to.
I'm sorry you find these facts to be so disturbing. Mod away.
It's probably because instead of adding anything of value top the discussion you decided to go go on a Bush stole the election rant.
Re:Higher Power (Score:5, Informative)
Nonsense. The Supreme Court already told us that states don't actually have to count votes, so long as state statute says they don't.
Just don't make the mistake of thinking you live in a democracy. In democracies, they count all the votes.
Re:Higher Power (Score:5, Informative)
no. The supreme court says that you can't continually recount votes until you get a result you like.
Bush won BOTH the original count, and the recount in Flordia. Both counts said he won. Nobody disputed that. What happened is Gore then asked for -another- recount (we're up to count #3 here) and the problem is he asked for a hand-recount, which wouldn't finish by the state-mandated deadline. The florida supreme court said "well we will just extend the deadline then." and the US supreme court said "uh, no, you can't randomly extend deadlines for recounts when we have two legitimate counts already in hand." because if gore had won that one, then Bush would have asked for a recount, or if gore had lost he probably would have asked for another one, and we'd still be waiting for results.
Stop parroting talking points. We're not talking about things that happened 400 years ago. These events happened within recent memory.
Re:Higher Power (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, Gore only challenged and wanted recounts in the counties of major cities. That was his first mistake.
That, and the Florida constitution said all counties must submit their final count by the end of one week after the election. The state supreme court overrode that line of the constitution without giving a reason. So, that's where the US Supreme Court overturned it, after asking the state court again to give a justification, which they let lapse.
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Gore wanted a partial recount, and the court should have rejected that -- and they did.
Bush wanted no recount, and the court should have rejected that -- BUT THEY DIDN'T. That's the problem.
The obvious answer, the only right answer, is to carefully recount all the votes. Duh. That isn't difficult to decide, even though it is difficult to actually do (count). Of course we should count all the votes, duh.
The court should have rejected both parties and demanded a count of all votes.
Re:Higher Power (Score:5, Informative)
What the newspapers* found is a bit more complicated than what you say. And amusing too.
If the recount that Gore had asked for, using his methodology, had gone forward, Bush would have extended his lead. So if SCOTUS had ruled the other way, Bush would have become president.
But, hold onto your hat, if the recount had gone forward, using Bush's methodology, Gore would have won by 3 votes.
And just to add to the confusion, if the recount had included discarded ballots from 2 counties, Gore would have won. The effect of ballots thrown out in other counties is unknown.
The net result? Who knows.
In 1960, under even more suspicious vote counting in Illinois, Nixon didn't demand the recount that historians say would have given him the White House. Shit happens. Some people are better at moving on.
* http://articles.cnn.com/2001-04-04/politics/florida.recount.01_1_ballots-without-presidential-votes-undercounted-ballots-miami-herald-and-usa?_s=PM:ALLPOLITICS [cnn.com]
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Well, of course he can make up departments, appoint directors, essentially play Monopoly and just plain have fun. And he can pay for it out of something discretionary.
But a department that actually *does* anything? Outside of law? Only until the courts (fat chance) or the Congress (fat chance) choose to or are embarassed into doing something about it, whatever that is.
Our current President doesn't seem to be letting nuances stand in his way.
Oh, by the way, complaing of the hypocrisy of our current Presid
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Umm citation? Isn't he the one who says it should be up to the states? I'm pretty sure that's what the Constitution says. Something like the 10th Amendment...
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The fact that whether you can get an abortion is up to the states, as opposed to the individual as it is now, is an increase in government power.
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Being a libertarian who would assert government power over reproductive rights is a bit hypocritical.
Not at all. He hasn't really advocated such a thing, only that the Federal government should be completely out of making decisions about abortion completely, but states have authority to do so. There's nothing hypocritical about that. If you want to be picky about it, you'll have to figure out how a person in the womb can be deprived of life without due process, but as soon as they exit the womb they get those protections, even though they are just as easy to kill or allow to die.
I'm not trying to get in
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The federal government should be completely out of making decisions about abortion completely. For the same reasons, the state governments should be completely out of making decisions about abortion completely.
Anyone who would assert that reproductive rights should be governed by anyone but the owner of the reproductive system isn't interested in liberty in any way shape or form.
You're including BOTH reproductive systems involved, then, right?
I know it seems like it should be a simple issue, but I don't think it is. It would be nice if unplanned pregnancy was always treated like it was in the movie Juno, but it's not, and there are simply conflicts. Abortion is traumatic for the women involved, and few understand just how traumatic it is before they actually go through it.
I agree with you that strict government rules are invariably wrong-headed on this issue either way, but irr
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You're including BOTH reproductive systems involved, then, right?
Sure. As long as your reproductive system is required for a pregnancy, you have the right to withdraw your consent. Once your reproductive system isn't required, it's too late. This works for both males and females.
Although, I'd argue that there is good reason to give males the same ability to opt out of a pregnancy that females have. But that's a discussion for more enlightened times.
Abortion is traumatic for the women involved, and few u
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Being a libertarian who would assert government power over reproductive rights is a bit hypocritical.
Ron Paul says it should be in the hands of the state. As does the Constitution.
Roe vs Wade was not about a right to choose, and it was not about a right to privacy.
It was about the State being unable to produce admissable evidence to show that a person had an illegal abortion.
Their evidence was inadmissable because the State was unable to show that their interest in preventing abortions was more important than the individual's interest in keeping their medical history private. The State couldn't get past
Re:Higher Power (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Higher Power (Score:4, Informative)
You mean the Consumer Protection Bureau that Congress passed in to law in July of 2010? That one? The one that required a Presidential appointment to lead, but the House had been delaying on for years in hopes that they could nullify a law that a previous Congress had passed without actually, you know, repealing the law creating the bureau?
And bypassing Congress, like it says in the Constitution, Clause 3, Section 2, Article 2?
And Obama, the Senate Majority Leader during the Congressional sessions in 2007-2008? The same Congress that did recess and had Bush make the recess appointment of Jon Bolton as U.N. Ambassador?
Oh, except that Obama was never majority leader of either house of Congress and had no discretion on the calling of pro-forma sessions. Oopsy-diddle! My bad!
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"The same Congress that did recess and had Bush make the recess appointment of Jon Bolton as U.N. Ambassador?"
The US Senate was recessed when the Bolton appointment was made. The current US Senate is still in session according to the rules of the Senate and the law.
Re:Higher Power (Score:5, Insightful)
"The same Congress that did recess and had Bush make the recess appointment of Jon Bolton as U.N. Ambassador?"
The US Senate was recessed when the Bolton appointment was made. The current US Senate is still in session according to the rules of the Senate and the law.
Why is this modded down? It's absolutely true. The President doesn't get to decide when the Senate is in session. The Senate does. For all of the bitching about Bush's recess appointments, they were done according to the letter of the law, during a Senate recess, and when it came time to vote for them, the Senate voted against those appointments, and they didn't stay in office. Just as the Constitution and law provide. Obama's appointments yesterday, simply put, are unconstitutional, and will almost surely be struck down in court.
By the way, for the people cheering those appointments, answer a serious question: do you want Republican presidents to have the power to bypass the Senate for appointments?
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You know their opinion will change just as soon as the shoe is on the other foot.
Also..."The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate..."
Once can argue that the head of the Consumer Protection Bureau is not a vacancy that "happened" since it was never filled in the first place.
Re:Higher Power (Score:5, Insightful)
And bypassing Congress, like it says in the Constitution, Clause 3, Section 2, Article 2?
And Obama, the Senate Majority Leader during the Congressional sessions in 2007-2008?
Please point out where that gives the President unilateral power to appoint people to office without the consent of the Senate, and while the Senate is still in session?
The Constitution gives the Congress the authority decide if they'll let the President appoint minor officials on his own. Congress has not. Further, Congress says these appointments are not to minor offices, but important ones that require Senate confirmation. Obama pulled a Caesar on this one and dared the Congress to do anything about it.
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Please point out where that gives the President unilateral power to appoint people to office without the consent of the Senate, and while the Senate is still in session?
OK!
and
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Yep. That's parliamentarianism. That's politics. Congress tries to shit on the Pres, the Pres tries to shit on Congress. Then it's election time again.
Re:Higher Power (Score:4, Informative)
Which SC?
Florida's partisan supreme court ruled that it didn't matter what the voting standards are. Counties can change the vote standards and count the votes as often as they like until they get the answer they want. I bet you would have a problem with this if it was a republican county.
The US supreme court disagreed. The first two times all the votes were counted (per the legal standards at the time) were the legal counts.
In hindsight the only possible thing that would have changed the outcome was to allow outright voter fraud. Which you are apparently for.
Re:Higher Power (Score:5, Informative)
The SCUSA said that it was acceptable that the state statutes did not require all the votes to be counted. That is my problem. The number of votes left uncounted, was larger than the margin between the candidates' tallies. Therefore, it was not possible to know who won the election. I don't mean that literally all the votes need to be counted, I mean that figuratively all the votes need to be counted, by which I mean enough votes to be sure of the winner. If the margin between the candidates is X, then Florida need to count all but X-1 votes. Florida did not meet that threshold, and therefore I reject its election statutes as un-Constitutional; the SCUSA should have done the same.
I don't know what you mean by voter fraud. The votes were there, on paper, in a warehouse. They should have been counted. And eventually they were counted, in their entirety, and the winner was not the person who was certified by the state. It is a 100% perfect example of why all the votes must be counted.
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And eventually they were counted, in their entirety, and the winner was not the person who was certified by the state.
I don't know where you get your information, but according to a study by the Miami Herald and USA Today [cnn.com] and another by the National Opinion Research Center [florida2000election.com] found that Bush would have still won if the vote count had proceeded and SCOTUS not intervened.
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Re:Higher Power (Score:4, Informative)
Republic - A country with the head of state as an elected position
Democracy - Two forms :
Direct Democracy : where everyone votes on every decision is impractical
Representative democracy : where you vote for a person to represent you
USA is a Republic with a Representative democracy
UK is a Monarchy with a Representative democracy
Ancient Greece was a Republic with Direct Democracy
Iran (strangely) is a Republic with a Representative democracy
Americans get confused by the party names Republican and Democrat ... perhaps they should change them ...
Re:Higher Power (Score:5, Informative)
The qualifier is only shown after the second moderation. So if somebody moderates troll, and afterwards you moderate underrated, your moderation causes the "troll" qualifier to show (but increases the score back to 2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Posting in a story from the same IP address you modded from will remove your mods. Whether the post is logged in or AC makes no difference.
It's sad either way (Score:4, Funny)
Mitt the anti Christ or Mr Frothy Santorum? This is a choice?
Re:It's sad either way (Score:5, Funny)
As I heard recently, it's boiling down to a choice of "man on dog" versus "dog on car".
I gotta say I've been enjoying watching people have fun with the headlines. My favorite was :"Romney squeezes out Santorum"
Re:It's sad either way (Score:4, Funny)
I gotta say I've been enjoying watching people have fun with the headlines. My favorite was :"Romney squeezes out Santorum"
Probably that headline author knew full well what Santorum means, and did it on purpose! Ew, still gross.
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Words don't get to change just because you want them to.
The slang "meaning" of santorum was deliberately conjured up to reference the person.
I can't just say natasrevol is a slang for the dried crust of stagnant breast milk that forms on nipples.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It's sad either way (headlines) (Score:5, Funny)
My favorite was "Santorum Surges From Behind in Iowa" [philly.com].
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Also:
It's really just too easy.
In other words... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Common Sense just talked it over with Reality, and they both concluded that your just being a douche.
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To within p = .05, yes.
But no complaints about the count? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:But no complaints about the count? (Score:5, Informative)
Because the results are not binding anyway, there's no need for a recount, or so the NYTimes says:
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/04/no-need-for-recount-in-iowa-caucus/?scp=1&sq=iowa%20recount&st=cse [nytimes.com]
Re:But no complaints about the count? (Score:5, Informative)
It's because the caucus votes don't really count. There's two layers of delegates between the voters and the people who vote who actually count. By the end the delegate voters generally vote for whoever is "clearly" going to win the nomination in the national races. The vote that occurred recently in Iowa is just for the media.
Re:But no complaints about the count? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:But no complaints about the count? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:But no complaints about the count? (Score:5, Informative)
Also, this year there is a proportional assignment of delegates based on the percent of vote received. Iowa has a total of 26 delegates, and 1,144 are needed to win the party nomination. At 1/26, there can be as much as 4% error in the vote and it shouldn't affect the delegate ratios.
CNN lists the following delegate votes [cnn.com]:
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Small but relevant typo: Santorum has 7, not 8.
Dude, (Score:5, Insightful)
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The straw poll was in August. This was a caucus.
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The straw poll was in August. This was a caucus.
A straw poll is, by definition, a nonbinding vote, as the grandparent mentioned--e.g., the Iowa Republican caucuses, or the Ames Straw Poll you are referring to. You drop a secret ballot in a box. The final decision (these are all effectively ways to gauge potential nominees) is made by the Party much later in the season.
Iowa Democratic caucuses are a bit different, by the way--no ballots, for one thing. I was actually surprised the Republican caucuses were different. I had to look this up to make sure the
So... what's the difference? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So... what's the difference? (Score:4, Interesting)
Really? Because Santorum [spreadingsantorum.com] is about as right-wing nutjob as it gets, and Obamacare might just as well be called Romneycare, since it's very similar to the Massachusetts plan.
And yeah, Ron Paul is a different kind of RWNJ, the big difference is that he understands the futility of the drug war and is against foreign entanglements.
Fortunately for the country, we're not going to have to deal with any of it beyond the campaign, since Obama is going to be reelected.
Re:So... what's the difference? (Score:5, Insightful)
Some (Republican) friends were over for New Year's Eve, and one of them quoted someone else, "Looking at the economy, there's no way Obama can be reelected. Looking at the Republican field, there's no way Obama can lose."
The real disservice to the country is that something terribly bad has happened to the American English language, at least as it appears in the mainstream media. With very few exceptions, the late Ted Kennedy being a notable one, the word "Liberal" is unquestionably bad. The phrase "too conservative" appears to be null and meaningless. From what I can see in media coverage of the Republican race, with the possible exceptions of Ron Paul and Jon Huntsman, it all comes down to who can be more conservative than the others, and the possibility of being "too conservative" hasn't been considered, where any amount of "liberal" is "too liberal".
And I guess the only phrase for "too conservative" has become "right wing nutjob", which gives it a pejorative rather than descriptive feeling, and thus removes its effectiveness.
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What does "conservative" even mean? Sometimes it means "not radical", sometimes it means "frugal government", sometimes it's "military adventurist". Same with "liberal" - it seems like the terms are set up to mean whatever people want them to mean.
Re:So... what's the difference? (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, the 3 who did well in Iowa represent 3 different strains of thought within the Republican Party:
- Mitt Romney represents corporations and business interests. His electoral base are the sort of moderately successful business owners and middle managers you'd find a local meeting of the Chamber of Commerce, while his monetary base is fat cat corporations.
- Rick Santorum represents the religious right. His electoral base are members of evangelical churches. He hasn't raised all that much cash, but has some monetary support from fat cat corporations and from evangelical Christian groups.
- Ron Paul represents the libertarians. His electoral base is a mix of independent farmers and suburbanites who believe they don't depend on the government for anything. He also has nowhere near as much money as Romney, and interestingly is funded almost half by small contributors.
Not in the Republican party, but relevant:
- Barack Obama represents the 'Washington consensus' on most issues. His electoral base are urban residents, racial minorities (those constituencies overlap but are not identical), and educated voters who don't consider themselves business management. His monetary base is fat cat corporations.
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It's not surprising that he's getting a larger amount of money from corporations this time, considering how successful the GOP has been at stymieing attempts at fixing really anything. That and his willingness to put private insurers out of business and his audacity to actually appoint somebody to run the new consumer protection agency.
He's getting huge donations from corporations this time because they know he won't do anything to temper their rapacious greed. Obama didn't put private insurers out of busi
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I know you're aiming for sarcasm, but you're actually right. After a certain level of income, a few percentage points of taxes do not change your lifestyle. Instead, the question then becomes, what kind of government do these taxes buy me? What kind of society do I want to be a part of?
Re:So... what's the difference? (Score:5, Interesting)
Note, however, that no one EVER says they are going to raise taxes on the rich. They raise taxes on the high income workers - because those people are a threat to the rich (they might catch up!), and they can count on sour grapes votes from the poor as well.
If we wanted to tax the rich, we would tax accumulated wealth, not income. Most high income people are struggling to build businesses, and taxes definitely adversely effect them. (I know, I'm in that boat)
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Taxing accumulated wealth would stimulate spending instead of saving, reducing inflation and moving money through the system. This is good.
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HAVING A HIGH INCOME!
You are literally complaining about having more money then me. Suck it up nancy.
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Wealthy people are far too stupid to keep most of their assets as productive real things (land, businesses etc).
They just keep it in a vault so they can count it like 'Scrooge McDuck'.
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Really? I wish that was true but in my case we had to sell off a small family farm due to the impact of inheritance taxes. This is a common occurrence all across america and is one of the contributing factor to the decline of the family farmer. It really doesn't take much for the value of the land and equipment to yeah into the millions. In most cases this "wealth" cannot be accessed in any liquid way and the annual income is not extravagant. There are far more people in sillier situations than there are
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The one thing that government really needs to do, it will never do- streamline efficiency and stop the culture of waste. It's horribly inefficient. The budget system is broken. In my state gov't, for example,each little dept is given a set budget each year; some years they need to spend more, others, less, as would be expected; but if by the end of the fiscal year they haven't spent all of the monies they were allotted, the budget for
Re:So... what's the difference? (Score:5, Insightful)
Based on the last 20 years, you can conclude that tax rates and job growth are directly (not inversely) related, or you can conclude (more likely, IMO) that job growth depends on other things and is unrelated to tax rates across a broad range of values. But there's no evidence to support the theoretical position that increasing tax rates results in lower job growth.
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Based on the last 20 years, you can conclude that tax rates and job growth are directly (not inversely) related, or you can conclude (more likely, IMO) that job growth depends on other things and is unrelated to tax rates across a broad range of values. But there's no evidence to support the theoretical position that increasing tax rates results in lower job growth.
So..., you're saying..., what? That all the noise coming from the right for the last 30 years, about "job creators" and "trickle down" and all the other bullshit is, what? All just so much bullshit? I don't know. If it were, I'm sure that news media would be all over it. Right? I mean every time some retard ditto-head opened his mouth and spewed such lies, the mainstream corporate media would... Oh. Wait....
Re:So... what's the difference? (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't let the internet bubble in any way interfere with your example of the 90s. Seriously, it wouldn't have mattered if we raised, lowered, or did nothing at that point it time...they were going to be boom years.
oh, no not a manual recount situation again :) (Score:2)
last time it did not go too well
Nobody Cares (Score:2)
"Momentum" (Score:5, Insightful)
What candidates hope to get out of Iowa, mainly, seems to be being able to say they won an election, or did way better than expected (e.g. Santorum), essentially in the hopes that it will persuade primary voters in other early primary states (NH, SC, FL, etc) to jump on the bandwagon and vote for them.
Which is sad. If you're just going to vote for the candidate everyone else is voting for, why bother voting at all, especially in a primary? Primaries should be all about voting for your *favorite* candidate, not the guy you think might win if you can just push him over the top.
Does anyone really care? (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously, it's Iowa, the only thing this one's good for is showing who definitely should not run, and even that's questionable.
They really should run all the caucuses in just a few days. There's no good reason, other than lots of opportunities to bribe, err, donate to your favorite candidate, that these should run more than a day or two for all 50 states. But, that would go against the political machine and those that keep it greased purposes.
Not a Tie (Score:2)
not a tie (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
"Slightly more likely" in this case equals "so deep in the margin of error that there is no meaningful distingtion between the votes for each of them"
Re:not a tie (Score:4, Interesting)
Right, the votes don't tell you which of them won. But that's different than a tie, which says they got the same number of votes.
The votes just haven't been counted carefully enough to know who won. But it's almost certainly not a tie.
The journalism prof said "Scientists know that when you can't tell the difference between the two things, they say that, as best they can tell, these are the same size." Which just goes to show that he doesn't understand statistics very well. The correct interpretation of the result is that you can't prove there's a difference between the two. That's a weaker conclusion than concluding that they are equal.
Mathematics be hanged! (Score:3)
Delegates Won (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Delegates Won (Score:5, Insightful)
The sad thing is that you were able to describe this in just four sentences, yet the mainstream media hasn't mentioned this at all because all they can see is the horse race.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Delegates Won (Score:5, Insightful)
Not lose much other than vital media attention. Rudy Guiliani found out in 2008 that this is a disaster when he skipped everything before Florida, and found that by then no one was taking him seriously anymore.
The horse race leads to ratings (Score:3)
Then I should have said "mentioned this enough for most people to notice".
So you've rephrased:
the mainstream media hasn't mentioned this enough for most people to notice because all they can see is the horse race.
There's a reason for that:
"Fear -> anger -> hate -> suffering" -- Yoda, The Phantom Menace
"Suffering -> perseverance -> character -> hope" -- Paul, Letter to the Romans
"The horse race -> ratings -> advertisers -> profit" -- Cable news executive, my behind
Margin of error (Score:3)
Umm, Last I looked the margin of error for the caucus vote was listed at 2.0% to 3.7% not 0.5% to 1.0%.
Which means that it was a three way tie.
My numbers came from the reports at NBC and CBS so they are published news reports and not direct statistical data, and you can decided how much you want to trust the news from NBC and CBS.
Personally, with a difference of less that 3% of the vote between the three I am looking forward to the next caucus vote. It is a bit exciting to see where this goes.
I hear... (Score:5, Funny)
That this news put Mr. Santorum's followers in quite a froth.
It was a 3-way tie (Score:3)
This is an interesting academic discussion, but entirely irrelevant to the process. The Iowa caucus vote is non-binding, so it's really just more of a suggestion. Think of it as a big straw poll.
The actual result that came out of Iowa is a 3-way tie. Romney, Santorum, and Ron Paul each got 6 delegates.
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If the error rate in counting votes is higher than the difference between two candidates' votes, then we DO NOT KNOW who actually won. It is ENTIRELY POSSIBLE that a handful of votes could have been miscounted or misplaced somewhere along the line, the people who collect and count the votes admit this.
Also, it doesn't take 50% plus 1 to win, because there are more than 1 candidate
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Except in the US of A, where you can be President with less than 50% of the total votes, of course, due to a meaningless system (to the rest of the world, at least) of delegates.
The UK laughs at your 'less than 50%', when its last 'majority' government was elected with around 22% of the votes.
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Except this time they didn't (most Christian Fundies will say that Mormons aren't Christian.
(Even though they are conservative on social issues)
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Re: (Score:3)
I love this phrase. It sounds meaningful, but it really isn't. It comes from people who figured out that democracy isn't all roses and rainbows, but have never experienced what life in a true tyranny is like.
Re:The Best of Our Government (Score:4, Interesting)
It comes from people who figured out that democracy isn't all roses and rainbows...
This reminds me of an interview with a common man from a recent "Arab Spring" nation I heard on the radio. He was asked about an upcoming election. The translation: "How can this be democracy? There is no one who represents me!"
Welcome to the club buddy.
Re: (Score:3)
LOL... your country shits out candidates
You should check the Google results for "Santorum" and see just how accurate your choice of terminology is. :)
Re: (Score:3)
To vote for him is to vote for more W's politics.
That statement applies just as much to Obama as it does to Romney, unfortunately.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:speaking of which (Score:4, Insightful)
Obama got the Arab League* to endorse the no-fly zone over Libya, and got the Europeans flying many of the missions, for a final cost of about $2 billion and no known American lives. Does that sound even remotely like either of Bush's wars?
* Which, mind you, is not only Arab and Muslim like Libya, but also mostly dealing with internal dissent themselves, and are obviously wary of Western intervention themselves. How eager do you suppose they were to throw Libya under the bus?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The value of democracy isn't as much the best person wins, but the person who is most supported wins. Unfortunately there isn't really a fair voting system that cannot be manipulated.
When you have more then 2 choices often the one who stands out more will win. Not because he is better but there is less competition.
For this case Romney won because he was one of the few moderates. And Santorum got just as much (minus 8) because he was the few evangeli
What do Libertarians eat? (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Nonsense. If you want to spin something you use a) no statistics or b) incorrect or incomplete statistics. For example, the GP's 8>0 is spin - the actual numbers are 8+-1000* == 0+-1000*.
* value made up out of thin air.