Romney ended up winning by 8 votes, by what I find amazing is how close Nate Silver was, once again. Even when he took his models and then adjusted for windage, he was still pretty much a bullseye.
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
This really is a full service blog.
“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”
Consistently wrong since 2002
The revolution will be supervised.
Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.
Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.
In my day, never was longer.
You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.
Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.
All your base are belong to Tunch.
Tick tock motherfuckers!
fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)
Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.
Republicans in disarray!
The words do not have to be perfect.
I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.
I did not have telepathic declassification on my 2022 bingo card.
Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.
Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?
I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.
When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.
Black Jesus loves a paper trail.
When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.
We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.
chopper
8 votes over santorum, a guy who didn’t even campaign in IA until a few days ago. and mittens still can’t crack 25%.
with that kind of momentum, SC is in the bag!
gbear
I’m mostly amazed that both ‘winners’ of Iowa were under 25% of the votes cast. Via AP:
edit: but of course, first comment already went there. curses!
Punchy
And we know that Nate wouldn’t rape a nun on live TV.
merrinc
Nate’s uncanny prowess with numbers is no surprise. The real mystery here is what a bunch of flatland farmers found so attractive about Mr. Frothy Anal Mixture. Was it his irrational hatred of gays or that he wants to give states the right to make birth control illegal?
On a completely unrelated note, I am headed your way next weekend for a half marathon. Please arrange for suitable weather. Thanks.
Xantar
@chopper:
Actually, Senator Frothy Mix was campaigning very diligently in Iowa for several months. You just never heard about it from the media. In that sense, his campaign sort of resembled the early Obama campaign. And that’s the last time I compare him to the President.
Alexandra
Here and 538 in 2008 were my tippy-top go-to places… Nothing much has changed, except that I care even less about Nate’s Oscars and baseball picks. Just not my thing.
John, also just wanted to I’m very sorry about the ABL thing. It’s never nice to see two friends fall out. Hope that things work out over time.
chopper
gotta love that .01% difference. he’s got rom-mentum!
beltane
And Santorum hadn’t even peaked yet. Another day or two and he would have been the clear winner. I almost feel bad for Michele Bachmann: she’s just as full of the crazy as Santorum but is unacceptable to her fellow lunatics because she is one of those half-human, uterus bearing creatures.
The Moar You Know
I won a fairly decent amount of money in 2008 using Silver’s projections for the general.
He’s smart, and perhaps even more important, he’s willing to admit when he’s wrong and adjust for errors. There are not many people in the public sphere anymore who are willing to do that.
Walker
Well, Nate’s Iowa model has Mit dropping to third with 19.1, behind Paul. So it still has some issues. But the real point here is that these results are all within the margin of error of one another. When you have an election this close, there is no way any any polling model is going to give you an accurate result.
This was very clear in the run up to Florida 2000. The polls kept flipping back and forth and the pundits kept saying how fickle the voters are. It was clear to anyone who understood what was going on that the polling models were breaking down and that it would be a very close race.
beltane
@merrinc: Santorum’s appeal with the fundies is that he shares their view of women as being nothing more than two-legged companion animals, just like dogs except that you can breed with them.
Face
@beltane: Yes, but she’s an attractive broad. And she’s not any nuttier than Palin. Why she didnt get Palin-type hype, but Palin did for looking hot and saying batshit crazy things, is hard to understand.
catclub
@The Moar You Know: I was standing in line to vote in november 2008. Some bozo ahead of me said his name is just like MCCains, just spelled differently. I said that just like McCain, he would not be elected president, today. I soon could have bet a large amount that Obama would lose.
I am a) a coward, and b) suspect that these bozos would not pay up. So no bet.
gbear
@beltane: Those of us from MN wish you a speedy recovery from even the most fleeting feelings of sympathy for Ms. Bachmann. If anyone ever deserved to go down in firey flames, it’s her.
joes527
@merrinc: Is it really so hard to understand? Rick Santorum is one of “us.” He is dedicated to keeping the USA of the “us,” by the “us,” and for the “us.” The makes no bones that “they” need to be kept down. (imprisoned if need be)
That’s his appeal.
Dork
@Face: Per TPM, your hottie Republican retard is retiring from the rat-race.
Butch
Silver’s statistical analysis is always on but I have to admit I’m starting to find some of his commentary bizarre and shallow; his early post-mortem on the Perry campaign is one example.
Waldo
@beltane: I’d say Michele’s way crazier, and more ignorant to boot. But those are all selling points among GOPers. So, yeah, it was likely the chromosome difference that did her in.
Ron
@chopper: Uh, “didn’t campaign in Iowa”? Santorum has been campaigning in Iowa for about a year.
joes527
@beltane: The one I feel bad for is Huntsman. He was the ambassador to China, and now he will go down in history as “rounding error.”
Raven
@Waldo: Tell me when Palin graduates from law school, any law school. Her crazy is calculated but Mrs Moose’s stupidity is genuine.
merrinc
@joes527:
Ah, that’s right. I forgot all about his promise not to give any more of our hard earned money to lazy black people. That obviously played well in America’s Heartland.
JPL
OT…must credit TPM…Obama pictures
Of course His appointment of Cordray will cause some on the right to faint.
SIA
OT but good news
Via Benen
Xanthippas
He’s pretty incredible. I wish he’d devote his talents full-time to something worthwhile like sports.
Veritas
ROMNEY WINS!
As I said, the one-two knockout punch of IA-NH will set him up nicely for South Carolina, and only he has the resources, money, and organization to compete in Florida.
Santorum is a blip, Gingrich is a whiner, Paul is fringe, Huntsman is hopeless, and Perry and Bachmann are OUT, baby.
Things are lining up nicely for a Romney nomination. And if Santorum does turn out to be anything more than a blip, get ready for a media hammering of negative ads the likes of which has never been seen–all done by Super PACs, of course, while Romney swiftly floats above the fray to victory.
And then…on to Obambi.
RealityCheck
Culture of Truth
For those of us wondering about Ricky’s appeal, his speech last night was helpful. Misty-eyed treacle about his coal mining grandpa’s big hands was effective, as was his close about valuing life from fetii to the factory floor. True then he compared Obama to Mussolini, but compared to Mitt Romney’s broken code gibberish, he’s a Reaganite dreamboat.
JPL
@SIA: I just received an alert from the NYTimes also, so it must be confirmed.
Good for him. I can’t wait until Romney faints in horror at the abuse of power.
SIA
@JPL: Oh I see it’s already
dmsilev
The nitwits over at RedState are just about ready to start slitting their wrists. With Perry finishing a distance fifth and possibly thinking about dropping out, they’re starting to hope for a white knight Other Candidate to ride to their rescue.
chopper
@Walker:
that’s the really funny thing. in terms of delegates, it was a three-way tie for first, right? it’s not like that .01% of the vote earned shitty mitty any more delegates than man-on-dogg.
dmsilev
And while RealityCheck is touching himself over the thought of the coming of Romney, Obama is campaigning by …actually doing something to improve ordinary Americans’ life (the recess appointment which will get the consumer finance watchdog agency going at full speed).
dogwood
@Face:
It’s not hard to understand at all. I think Bachmann is better looking than Palin; she’s much more well-spoken than Palin, and she’s equal to Palin in the nutty department. What she lacks is the fundamental appeal to victimhood which is the motivating factor behind right-wing politics. Michele is actually a rather happy warrior. Hell, she’s married to a gay guy, and seems to have a happier marriage than Palin. Bachmann can speak to the intellectual incoherence of the right wing, but she doesn’t touch them emotionally. Right wingers want a victim, and Bachmann doesn’t fit that bill.
Waldo
@Raven: I was talking about Frothy Mix man — but yeah, Palin is just hopelessly (yet proudly) ignorant. Michele is well-schooled, by comparison, but her area of expertise appears to be in crackpot theories.
4tehlulz
@SIA: inb4 impeachment
chopper
@Veritas:
yeah, he’s got .01% extra mittmentum all right.
apparently newtie has decided the gloves are off, so this is going to be fun in SC, where newt is way ahead already. he’s cranking up the engine on his Zero as we speak.
maybe when all this is done, utah can put mitt on the back of their state quarter in honor of his inability to crack 25% in the polls.
scav
Su-us-spend, su-us-pend, su-us-spen-end-end-end. Sus-spends, su-uh-spend, sus-pends-end-end-end.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
I didn’t know Rick Santorum’s wife had an abortion in 1996.
JPL
TPM has both Boehner’s and McConnell’s statement. They are not happy.
chopper
@JPL:
how unexpected.
The Moar You Know
Sadly, all this is for nothing. Mitt is a Mormon, and thus unelectable. What irony that he’d have a far better chance if he were running as a Democrat.
The crazies over at Red State know that, see both Mitt’s inevitability and unelectability, and are hoping for a last-minute savior to come riding to the rescue.
Not gonna happen.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@beltane:
This wins the internetzezz for today. And I just spit Diet Mtn Dew all over my keyboard. I’ll bill you for another one.
Chyron HR
@Veritas:
If you can’t beat ’em, join em?
catclub
@SIA: Did anyone else wonder if the senate will jump back into session to stop him, given the one-day notice of intent?
dmsilev
@JPL: Did Boehner cry? It doesn’t count unless he cries.
chopper
@beltane:
wait, isn’t he against men getting it on with dogs?
Culture of Truth
Bachmann is out.
jurassicpork
Santorum spreads across US, emerging from the rear.
JPL
@dmsilev: No pictures yet but one can only hope.
Tom Hilton
All I can say is that someone should have done an Iowa results post titled “3-Way Tie (For Last)”.
pseudonymous in nc
Silver needs never to abandon what he’s good at, no matter what he gets offered to move up the ladder. Remember when Chuck Todd was a half-decent horserace numbers guy, before he got promoted beyond his capabilities and became a Village idiot?
Schlemizel
@Waldo:
Oh no, Batshit is not stupid (she would not stumble over “What papers do you read” or “Do you support the Bush Doctrine”), she is actually pretty bright. Despite being from Batshit University she does have a law degree. She is totally insane however.
Contrast that with the Quitta, she is dumb as a post but she is sane enough to know how to bilk the rubes out of millions. It took here a half dozen schools to get a half-assed degree but she can hoover money like nobodies business.
Gin & Tonic
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage: Nobody will reimburse you for drinking diet Mountain Dew.
Schlemizel
@chopper:
Nobody got a single delegate last night. The party is smart enough not to let the bible-thumping hog farmers have first say. That was a non-binding vote. IA won’t get around to picking actual committed delegates for weeks yet.
amk
Al Giordano predicted the same outcome without all the fancy number crunching.
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/thefield/4723/inevitable-romney-meets-santorum-surprise-iowa
Schlemizel
@chopper:
@Chyron HR:
DNFTT
Pillsy
@Veritas:
You’re taking a victory lap over eight fucking votes in an election where the delegates are awarded proportionately? I’ve seen some sad shit in this comment section over the last few days, but this takes the cake.
merrinc
@JPL:
Obama’s simple response should be: Then give me an up or down vote, bitches.
Mr Furious
That is a sickening story. That a couple could go through something as horrible as that, and come out of it and double-down on their anti-abortion stance is fucking disgusting.
They stared the health of the mother scenario in the face, chose what was essentially an abortion for all intents and purposes, and now work harder to deny or obstruct others in similarly terrible circumstances.
Schlemizel
@The Moar You Know:
I’d disagree with one thing – Willard will do better as a Republican than he would as a Dem. As a Dem the fundies would be all over his cult, but because he is with the GOP it will not come up.
Look at Reagans divorce as an example of how being an R erases a former negative. Or Noot.
Yutsano
@Mr Furious: Normal Republican thinking. Abortion for me but not for thee.
Elizabelle
Can we do a “Michelle Bachmann: Don’t Let the Door Hit you in the Ass on the way out” thread?
Waldo
@Schlemizel: Agreed. And I’d add that Palin is way more shameless — a huge advantage.
chopper
@Pillsy:
maybe mitt will get 8 really, really tiny delegates on top of the regular ones.
liberal
@dmsilev:
What happened to the Rethugs’ machinations designed to prevent recess apptments?
pseudonymous in nc
@Mr Furious:
What’s that line? “Abortion should be illegal, except for rape, incest and me”?
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@Elizabelle:
I wish someone would ask Michele Bachmann if God punk’d her.
SIA
@JPL: I’m really glad. It seems like an important symbolic as well as pragmatic decision.
dmsilev
@liberal: Obama basically flipped them the bird and declared said machinations irrelevant.
Mike in NC
@pseudonymous in nc:
Textbook case of the Peter Principle, which happens all too frequency in the MSM.
SIA
@SIA: And at that point, the telephone rang and the commenter’s attention was distracted…
Joel
Nate Silver’s been gold since long before his political foray. Back when he was the mind behind PECOTA at baseball prospectus, the system consistently outperformed every other prediction method around. Nowadays, PECOTA is no better than anyone else’s guess.
SIA
@catclub: Don’t know – hopefully the administration wouldn’t take it this far without having a solid way forward that can’t be blocked.
@4tehlulz: Poor dears, the President’s being unconstitutional. Or something.
The Moar You Know
@Schlemizel: Reagan was contrite, asked forgiveness. So did Tubby.
Romney has two and only two core principles, and one of them is that he’s a Mormon ’til the end. No apologies. Not sure how the evangelicals are going to get past that simple fact.
Brachiator
Jeebus. There is so much hedging here, and an admission that he is going against his own models, that calling this a bulls eye is a huge stretch.
Silver is good, but ultimately what he does is more useful as post election analysis than fortune telling.
Not that anyone will ever learn. We live in this strange age where many have this obsessive need to double guess what may be instead of actually living through goddam events.
smintheus
@Walker: Very unclear to me what if anything Nate predicted. As has happened in the past, he took two cracks at predicting the outcome, the second of which wandered all over and sort of vaguely suggested that Santorum’s momentum might mean he outperforms his 19% by another 9 percent and has a big upset over a fading Romney. That didn’t happen; Romney got the 25% he has consistently polled and Santorum got a more modest bump.
The reason he over-estimated the momentum swing in Iowa is that he made the basic error of lumping the history of Dem and GOP caucuses together…when (a) the two operate by radically different rules, and (b) GOP voters are extremely ideological whereas the Dem voters are not. Had he looked at GOP caucus history separately, he would have seen that GOP evangelicals could deliver a 6% boost to Santorum at the outside, and thus a tie with Romney.
It gets a lot easier to take credit for prescience when you take multiple cracks at predicting a race. And yet, I still remember Nate’s multiple and greatly divergent predictions about the last general election in Britain – both of which turned out to be wildly wrong. It’s easy to speculate about possible large, late, undocumentable swings in an electorate. It’s also a little self indulgent because we don’t expect to be held accountable when, as usual, that speculation turns out to be off the mark.
smintheus
@Brachiator:
Indeed. We’ve been trained
wellbadly by journalists, who care only about the horse race and not at all about what is true and significant.