As many commenters will be quick to tell you, this is a physics blog and we should stay away from politics, about which we are hopelessly naive. But I have the keys to the blog, so I can occasionally quote myself. March 2007:
The fact that Rudy Giuliani is currently leading in Republican polls, and that smart people occasionally opine that he could win the election or even be a good President, is a source of unlimited amazement to me…
If Rudy Giuliani wins the 2008 general election, I promise to never again make a political prediction in public for the rest of my life.
Whew, that was a close one!
Heck, I may do nothing but politics from now on. If Mark Penn and Bob Shrum can pull down millions as Democratic consultants, why not me?
Best quote from that comment thread: “Fred Thompson isn’t inspiring anyone? Once again, Sean Carroll erroneously invokes pluralis majestatis.”
Yeah way back then I thought Rudy had a shot. It was more out of sheer fear and cynicism that I made that prediction. I am incredibly relieved that Ghouliani has finally dropped out.
“If Rudy Giuliani wins the 2008 general election, I promise to never again make a political prediction in public for the rest of my life.”
Dang! There goes the best possible reason to vote Republican….
Now if we can only get the GOP to nominate Mitt. That would be fun.
e.
Wow, that graph really drives home how hard it is to make political predictions. Just look at those sharp changes in slope! Does each sudden shift coincide with one of the primaries?
Sean, I’d be interested to hear a physicist’s perspective on how best to make predictions from polling data, if you have any thoughts on the matter.
The clearest message from the graph for me is that early opinion polls, before the race starts, are meaningless. At that stage the best predictor is probably the amount of money raised by the candidates, not the opinion polls themselves.
I’m amazed, frankly, that Romney has done as well as he has. If there was a candidate who looked likely to fail on close inspection I would have picked him. That turned out to be Thompson and Giuliani. Can’t say I’m sorry to see him out…I think President Rudy would have made Dick Cheney look like an ACLU lawyer.
Here’s a musical tribute.
Mr 9/11 is a scary man. His rhetoric on occasion makes Goerge Bush seems like a hippy. In a way Rudy is a strange and paradoxical figure. On one hand he is a strident war monger when required, and on the other he’s a cross-dressing, corset- wearing good time Charlie who has quite laissez-faire views on the social stuff that gets conservatives all riled up.
The “weird” word comes to mind.
Good point on Romney. I too have been amazed he has done so well. He has been caught spinning fast ones about Dad marching with MLK. He also has this penchant for acting various parts – like the time he did a perfect take-off of JFK with arms folded on the chest, head bowed.
There is something phony about Romney. There are also character issues. You have to wonder about a guy who sticks his dog in a box for the long haul to Ontario – then when the dog shits itself – pulls into a gas station to hose it all done, before driving off with the dog STILL boxed. The ‘big hunter’ of varmints (unlicensed) is also another side to the Romney BS.
Early days, famous last words, and all that, but I am quite glad to see McCain surge ahead. I don’t agree with his policies, but at least he’s a reality-based politician.
He probably would have been a good statesman in Washington. When he was in NY he micromanaged everything to the nth degree and did it better than anyone in recent history. He was just extremely efficient at identifying and correcting problems without the usual bureacratic redtape. Agree or disagree with the rather harsh tactics in executing the policy, but nonetheless it did work.
He is a little hardcore on the warmongering front, but frankly that scares me less than the opposite extreme in this day and age.
Maybe I’m looking at this wrong but the trend, starting in the middle of 4th Qtr 07, seems very predictive. Gulliani plummets (base shifts to Huckabee?). Huckabeee surges and then levels off (evangelical support saturated perhaps). Romney and even Paul a steady upward tick, and then McCain a meteoric rise. If one were to hazard a guess then just before Xmas the trend is clear – McCains the man.
On the money side, take a look here (http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/index.asp) for some interesting data and see if one can draw any correlation between fund raising and poll data.
I guess politics inhabits the middle of that grey zone between faith in the powers that be(the past) and a logical consideration of the facts on the ground(the future). While religion leans more toward the former and science toward the latter.
My interpretation of that plot is that McCain has basically managed to steal away Giuliani’s base.
Or perhaps, given the timing, that Giuliani managed to alienate the voters who were attracted to his “forceful, straight-talking” act; Huckabee managed to pick up some of the votes that Giuliani shedding early on (maybe the young evangelicals?), but he failed to attract the middle voters. So they all went to McCain?
McCain and Thompson definitely took his votes. Their base is the same (moderate, fiscal republicans and libertarians to an extent, but not social conservatives).
I’m glad one of them won out, before it got too far and they both lost. I view this as an excellent change for the Republican party in moving it towards the center and away from the wackjobs. I don’t understand Democrats who have the shortsighted perspective that its better to make them lose (presumably b/c it makes their candidate easier to elect) rather than see a bonafide passing of the guard towards something more reasonable.
Well, the whole thing has gotten very ironic and topsy-turvey: Ann Coulter just said that if McCain is the R. nominee, she’s going to campaign (or maybe just vote) for Hillary Clinton (hours ago interviewed on Faux.) She said she’ll campaign for Obama if he gets the D. nom instead, since she’d rather have the Devil than McCain (approx.) Not that McCain is actually more liberal than Hill or Barrie now, but rather that the Repubs will get the blame for how screwed up things will be if McCain wins, but if Obamary gets it, Democrats will be blamed – get it?! So, who gets the blame for the last eight years? Just askin’
PS I’m glad to see Rudy step down, his candidacy already shone a spotlight on the “character matters” and values-voters Republicans.
Wonder if John Edwards made a handshake deal with Obama or Clinton, when he finally dropped out. Maybe it would strike fear in conservatives if either of them assigns Edwards to run the department of justice, as US Attorney General.
McCain is not an ideologue, perhaps that is why he seems to have support in this intellectual crowd. He thinks! He reasons! I’m amazed that the old fogy (sorry pops) is way ahead of the youngins on the ethanol issue. He is against the subsidies and for repealing the tariffs. Both are good environmental policy. He also has a track record as a non-partisan, which is what Obama is running on. And of course I love it that so many rabid conservatives hate him. He’s looking better and better! However, since I am a registered Democrat I have to deal with the primary first, can’t get a handle on that one!
“McCain isn’t an ideologue”?
Really. He supported the surge, and has been known to back positions that aren’t exactly in sync with the “intellectual crowd” – whoever they happen to be.
Wasn’t it McCain who went cap-in-hand to try and get back in the good books of Jerry Falwell?
This McCain revisionism that is suddenly in vogue is bizarre. Vote McCain into the big house and I guarantee that when push comes to shove he will be just as divisive and controversial as Bush has been.
Also McCain is 72. This is a man who cannot possibly channel the emerging force in America that is seeking change that is more than cosmetic. His vision is too heavily conditioned by dated considerations.
McCain was critical of how the Iraq war was being waged from day one. The surge was a needed change in tactics (since we are there). He is not a ideologue because on any given issue he may group with a wide variety of colleagues from liberal to conservative. I have problems with him, but I think he has a good brain and isn’t afraid to use it. I don’t think he has much in common with George Bush which is why many conservatives don’t support him.
There has been a cosmetic spin put on the ‘positives’ of the surge, and if you look at what has been happening on the ground in Iraq it gives very little room for confidence. The cosmetic spin put on it by Fox News is extremely dubious at best.
I would never argue that McCain is a ‘pure’ ideologue – obviously he isn’t cut from the Neocon cloth. However McCain has been what I would term “ideologue-of-convenience” – he doesn’t shy away from getting on-board with policies that I think are disastrous for America and its relations with the rest of the world, if it suits him at any given point-in-time.
When he was playing the role of broker, he had the rare advantage of being able to present himself in the media as the reasonable man, and indeed I do think that John McCain has a reasonable side to him. But there is also another side to McCain and that will become clear if he is handed the levers of power. Recently for example he spoke about “more wars to come”.
McCain is a man who has done honorable service for America and who suffered personally in the course of it. On many levels he’s a fine human being. But he doesn’t bring the type of energy and vision with him that will create momentum in a new direction, and although age doesn’t of necessity have to define a person, he is in the later period of his life and his view of America is heavily conditioned by the past.
I believe Barack Obama holds the greatest potential for renewal and a new vision that unifies as it inspires, while also opening the door to a new relationship with the world.
“Ann Coulter just said that if McCain is the R. nominee, she’s going to campaign (or maybe just vote) for Hillary Clinton”
I think the Romney support is a result of the Republican establishment- particularly those who have a financial interest in promoting red-dog conservatism- has been supporting Romney as an “anyone who isn’t Huckabee or McCain” candidate.
While a democratic president would set their agendas back, it would be good for business, and they would have somebody to fulminate against.
Huckabee, a evangelical who actually believes in 1 Timothy 6:10, is the most dire thread to those who get rich stoking the fires of neoconservative ire. But McCain’s anti-corruption activities have made him a threat as well.
Romney has a record as a moderate yankee, but he at least seems to be pliant enough to be less threatening than the other two. He may not be getting heaps of support, but he seem to be attacked less than Huckabee and McCain.
My prediction: An Obama presidency will mean…business as usual.
“Obama’s mantra of bringing everyone together may appeal to the naïve illusions of youth who are making their first political experiences, but Obama and the Wall Street bankers and media moguls who are promoting him know exactly what they are doing. Theirs is a conscious policy of blurring social and political differences and denying class divisions in a society more deeply divided along economic lines than ever before in its history.”
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/feb2008/obam-f04.shtml
One physics list I am on has been rubbished up by politics. Politics is a seductive arena to engage in for some reason. A brief summary below:
Hillary: the ultimate corporate candidate, she is made by corporate power and her health plan is made by the insurance companies. The only different between Hillary and a GOP prez is the velocity their knees will reach the floor when confronted by corporate power and their representative. Much the same goes for …
Obama: Nice guy, but very general in his rhetoric. At this point he probably is my pick — though as said above, he will largely be business as usual.
These two are being nicely financed over the other DLC candidates because they have vulnerabilities. The GOP can launch a pure hate campaign against Hillary. Obama simply will never garner many voters in the southern red states — sorry, but your average rednecked southern white man is just not likely to go for a black guy.
So the manipulted electoral system is set up to create a greater likelyhood that the GOP wins again! It might happen. So there we have:
McCain: Will the real McCain please stand up! Frankly this guy’s stances on things are mercurial and shift with the winds. One might worry that the GW Bush global militarism program will be continued under McCain.
Romney: A vestige of what once were called liberal Republicans.
Huckabee: Well if this guy manages to become Prez, anyone with an IQ above 120 and any interest in science will be getting that exit visa in order. I think his chances are minimal — fortunately. I can’t live in a nation run by Huckleberry Hound.
Lawrence B. Crowell
Certainly physics is far more interesting, like a million other topics, than politics, and I resent that politics has taken a portion of my time. Politics becomes more interesting to people who feel, rightly or wrongly, that they have been victimized by corrupt political powers. Sakharov comes to mind, as do the former residents of New Orleans.
One of the most macabre images that has ever visited my sick mind is that of Albert Einstein being worked to death in a German concentration camp. Of course things like that could never happen here.
Aren’t they all rather improbable? I agreed with every critique of of Giuliani in the previous relevant post, but when I moved to the next candidate and went down the list of pros and cons, I’d always find myself thinking “Well, then again…”. Huckabee’s only a lock on the hard core of the Christian Right, and his economic policies, while certainly not boring, are also batshit crazy. Plus he’s way too soft in immigration to appeal to the hard right. Romney’s Mormon and done a complete 180 on nearly all the issues “the base” cares about, in a patently cynical attempt to appeal to them, and comes across as the utter phony he is to a significant proportion of them. McCain? The venom much of the right-wing pundits are spewing in his direction has shocked even me, and I’m not shocked by much of anything Republican anymore. His soft stance on immigration is one of the major killers, but the list of other liabilities is too long to do justice to. Much of the core right HATES the guy, and while he appeals to the moderates, I see few “independents” and right-leaning Democrats going McCain’s way with his stance on the war in Iraq. The Pubbie field is a shambles. The progression of the candidates through the polls looks like a random walk more than anything, to me. One could bet on any of them to fail, and have made a reasonable judgement.