Modesty forbids me, but honesty compels me: my 15-month-old predictions for the 2008 Presidential elections have thus far been so spot-on, it’s spooky. I know that many of you have clamored for us to drop the science stuff from our blog entirely, and just talk about politics and/or our personal lives, topics that are severely under-served in the blogosphere. My own preference would be to focus exclusively on physics, to the exclusion of any other topic of any possible interest, but who am I, anyway? This is a blog, after all, and I think we can all agree that the loudest commenters should have final say on what we post about.
Therefore, I feel compelled to offer up another round of predictions, now that we’ve narrowed the field to two major candidates. By why not make it more fun and have a prediction contest? Anyone can join in, just by leaving your prediction the comments. Entries that appear before the end of June will officially count.
But to make things somewhat science-y, let’s use equations to judge who will win. Each prediction consists of two numbers: the fraction f of the total popular vote cast for the two major candidates that goes to Barack Obama, but also the standard deviation σ of your prediction for that percentage. We are thus ignoring the electoral college entirely, and dealing with the annoyance of third-party candidates by concentrating exclusively on McCain vs. Obama. And we are assuming for purposes of misleadingly-precise quantification that each prediction follows a normal (Gaussian) distribution:
$latex displaystyle P(x) = frac{1}{sigma sqrt{2pi}} expleft(-frac{(x-f)^2}{2sigma^2}right) ,.$
And here is the rub: the winner is not the one whose fraction f is closest to the final answer, but the one whose value of P(x) is the highest, when x is equal to the fraction of votes Obama actually does win. The smaller your standard deviation is, the higher your P(x) will be for x very close to your predicted value f , but the faster it will die off as you get further away. So if you are extremely confident, you can ensure victory by choosing an appropriately tiny standard deviation on your prediction. Contrariwise, if you choose a large standard deviation, you might get lucky if none of the confident folks comes close to the actual result. Cool, eh?
So here we go: I predict that Obama will win 55.5% of the popular vote fraction, with 1.5% standard deviation. That’s right — a blowout. Might be crazily optimistic of me, but right now the portents are good. In Obama’s favor, the current electoral map is extremely favorable (not that it matters for our contest), he is an energetic and charismatic campaigner, his organization is impressively seasoned and effective, he will have twice as much money to spend, Democratic identification among voters is soaring, the incumbent President is world-historically unpopular, various economic crises are putting the squeeze on middle-class voters, the war in Iraq is hugely unpopular, and McCain is a bumbling and unconvincing candidate with a tattered organization, little support among the party faithful, a disturbing penchant for changing his mind and misunderstanding his own policies, and little interest in anything other than foreign policy. In McCain’s favor, Obama is black and his middle name is Hussein; also, McCain has a great rapport with the press, who respect his maverick image. Overall, I think the scales are pretty heavily tilted on this one, and I will not be surprised if McCain replaces Bob Dole as the Presidential candidate that Republicans would most like to pretend never happened.
Of course, I could be wrong. So let’s hear your predictions! The winner will receive a lifetime subscription to Cosmic Variance. Or maybe a T-shirt, if we get caught in a generous mood.
graviton383, let’s save that for future prediction contests!
Can we bet on whether or not Sean can extract comment 22’s sha-512 hash?
Ryan:
I’ll bet “no”. 😉
(50.5 pm 0.8)% for Obama with a 10-day fight over who wins Ohio
It is nice to see the previous predictions. I’ll take 54.28% with a 0.85% sd.
I will not be surprised if McCain replaces Bob Dole as the Presidential candidate that Republicans would most like to pretend never happened.
This, but also replace McCain with Obama and Dole with Mondale. Both candidates have severe electoral weaknesses that have not yet really been beaten in the regular campaign, and it remains to be seen who is weaker. I don’t think either candidate is really all that electable, charisma or maverick-ness notwithstanding. But somebody’s got to win.
All that said, my data-free wild guess, based mainly on my supposition that people like known quantities in their politicians:
f = 47.0
sigma = 2.0
f = 45%
sigma = 3%
…but I’m definitly a sort of monkey. Worst (or as a consequence) I’m french and yes I eat cheese. So the question has to be asked. Indeed, I’m afraid of some American values. Or votes.
More to the point, it’s basically impossible to “extract” a message from a hash: the message is much longer than the hash, so the hash doesn’t contain enough information to reconstruct the original message. The best Sean could hope to do is find a collision with the hash – find another, completely unrelated message with the same cryptographic signature. Of course, that would take more work than finding the ground-state vacuum of M-theory. And even then it’d just be random bits.
f = 49.999
sigma = .001
I don’t trust Diebold….
Obama 54.4%, +/- 1%. Only force majeure could stop the Big O. Strictly on probabilities, Hillary has a better chance of winning the election than McCain.
Pingback: Off to read a book…but « blueollie
Obama wins decidedly but there’s a huge fraction of America that would vote Republican no matter what (incidentally, same goes for Democrats). Therefore I predict Obama wins 52.5% with 1% standard deviation (the precision is not because I’m that confident, but because I want to win). Good news is this doesn’t change much if Nader enters the race, as I think Nader’s demographic composes the most passionate Obama fans.
f= 61%
sigma= 5%
Sean wrote:
So here we go: I predict that Obama will win 55.5% of the popular vote
fraction, with 1.5% standard deviation. That’s right — a blowout.
————
I came to a similar conclusion. The only problem is that their are some jokers in the deck. These are Karl Rove, or his clones, and Diebold. All things being equal I agree with this conclusion, but things might not be “equal.” A combination of voter intimidation and software manipulation could turn that 55.5% to 49.5% or maybe a Scalia Supreme Court Coronation of McCain. Of course this will be followed up with Bill O’Reilly shouting SHUT UP to anyone asking rude questions.
Lawrence B. Crowell
54.2% with a s.d. of .35%
f = 53.0
sd = 0.1
Voting for president is not like primary voting and poll responses, which are times to be venturesome and pleased with oneself. General election for preasident is for keeps and Americans take it very seriously. It’s for their leader and “the leader of the free world.” The person with the formal photo in the post offices. Obama’s national poll leads are already slipping; he got no “post Hillary bounce,” which was much expected. McCain’s latest favorability rating equals Obama’s, who used to be miles ahead when he was new kid on the block. McCain will win on experience and comfort level, as Nixon (not your basic lovable guy) did over McGovern, (tho not by so much) altho a vast majority were by then against the war whcih McG. had steadfastly opposed. Obama is too unpredictable, too grandiose, while being the most eloquent campaign orator since Adlai, maybe even Wm. Jennings Bryan, whom I confess I never heard, except on tape. His “change” smacks too much of the “participatory democracy” of the New Left, which the Ayers association doesn’t help. McCain has al ot of weaknesses, chiefly age, but the hoi polloi like him. Look how fast he won the GOP nomination, with arguably more formidable foes than O. faced, with hardly any money and an ineffective staff, and with most conservative comentators dumping on him 24/7, as many like Will still do. People pardon a little bumbling when a guy spent five years in a cage with broken limbs — and still chases skirts. Give O. four to eight more years in the Senate, with a record to point to and marked movement to the right, and he’ll make it to the White House for sure. f 47%, /sigma 1.5%, with McCain’s margin wider in electoral votes.
JCF,
McCain won against more formidable foes???? You are joking of course…
e.
Elliott,
Giuliani, Romney and Thompson in my book trump Hillary (w/ her huge unfavorability rating and louche background), the retread Edwards and Richardson, perhaps the best of the lot. And Huckabee, who came in second, was a surprisingly gifted campaigner. Biden and Dodd, the best quallified Dems, showed little effort and less support.
Osama 53.45% of the combined 2 candidate vote variance 0.125
Ill add in just for kicks: 49.45% of the total of all candidates, variance 0.15
McPain will be spanked harder than this in the electoral though.
has anyone seen this?
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/06/opinion/06tyson.html?bl&ex=1213070400&en=751c11f3322c497f&ei=5087
written by Neil deGrasse Tyson, an astrophysicist and the author of “Death by Black Hole and Other Cosmic Quandaries,” is the host of “Nova scienceNOW.”
an Analysis shows Obama would lose if the election were to be held TODAY.
This should’ve been printed in February! Well the media is on a honeymoon with him so…
Obama has time. But he doesn’t seem to rising only falling.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/20/opinion/20brooks.html?hp
The two Obamas.
In the American idiocracy, height trumps race. So I’ll go with:
f = 51.5%
sigma = 0.5%
Obama wins the popular vote 51-49, McCain wins electoral vote.
Obama wins 57%, with a std. dev. of .75%
50.3% for Obama, sigma 0.05%