My review so far is just a teaser of so much more vital information you will find in the body of this invaluable narrative. The back matter is also a priceless review of the author's previous writings on prior elections. We are provided with an illustration of raw exit poll data, which Simon was wise enough to pounce on right after Election 2004 before it was quickly disappeared in favor of warped distortions of the real total to match it up with the fudged, laundered totals.
This "stuff" lost power when October surprises--read massive GOP blunders--so skewed the vote count away from the reds that they were powerless at the last minute, even with all their bells and whistles, depending on polling totals that preceded their oh-so-welcomed debacles. For example, in 2012, at the last minute Romney called 47 percent of us bloodsuckers on the respectable hard-working public--hunh? We support them.
In 2008, various scandals hit the scene ("Foley, Haggard, Sherwood, et al"), but I argue that anyone short of falling off the planet on the right did not want Sarah Palin a heartbeat away from making even more of a mess out of things than we're already in. If the presidency is hazardous to one's health, so are the wrong presidents, who have graced the oval office so disastrously again and again.
The Likely Voter Cutoff Model (LCVM), which is explained in the narrative and then discussed in depth in the back matter, describes a Gallup invention ten years ago, a kind of polling that discriminates against the "usual suspects"--minorities, transients, former felons, seniors, poor people--by eliminating those most likely to vote Democratic and hence least likely to vote: to wit, it underpredicts the Democratic vote and overpredicts how many of the GOP will show up, thus distorting the picture enough to catch up with the "red-shifted votecounts": polling and exit polling samples are also weighted by partisanship or Party ID.
Find out more about this and so much more. Code Red is priceless, an education for all of us.
All I can add is a modest request for an index in the next edition (the book is dynamic and updated regularly to the benefit of all--hint, hint, Jonathan, keep at it). A copy of the most recent edition can be downloaded for free at https://digioh.s3.amazonaws.com/vendors/vendor_16768/em_files/em_file_38879/CODERED-PostE2014s.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAJ23IM33EG3FDC6XQ&Expires=1424875301&Signature=igOG3WEUWp98F/g2ObliHCu4lF8=.
My volume is inscribed, "Well, kid, at least we can't say we didn't try."
So let's keep at it. Jonathan doesn't like to be told to keep up the good work, but he's doing it. When so many of the people are kept strapped by supporting the aggressive greed of the "haves," those few survivors of the middle class, the rest of us, have to do their work for them. John Adams, Tom Jefferson, and other founders who wrote that democracy is hard work didn't know the half of it.
(Article changed on February 25, 2015 at 08:37)
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