The Cain File

Discussion in 'Politics' started by Tiassa, Jun 8, 2011.

  1. adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    7,829
    NO NO NO

    From your own post you can see I gave you the percent of the popular vote for the Republicans, 51.4% and the Democrats, 44.8% .

    (red highlighting added for clarity)

    YOU made the MISTAKE of computing the percent for the Dems by subtracting the Repubs percent from, or 100 - 51.4 and thus coming up with a BOGUS 48.6% of the popular vote for the Democrats, as if no one else was in the race, which led you to cut the actual difference more than in half and then complain:

    You then tried to blame your math mistake on me:

    But there was no wrong assertion, the 51.4% was indeed accurate as has been every number I have posted in this thread. You simply screwed up and thought the popular vote for the Dems was an inflated 48.6% when in fact it was only 44.7%.

    Which was in both my posts and in the LINK provided.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections,_2010

    So, had you done the math CORRECTLY, you would have seen the percent difference in the popular vote was 6.61%

    Which is NO DIFFERENT than what I stated:

    6.61% of 86.78 million votes is equal to 5.74 million more votes for the Republicans and 5.74 million votes is indeed 14.77% MORE votes than the Democrats received.

    SO NO, it has nothing to do with the sort of number you push at people in television adverts when you want them to buy more, more, more, because the more, more, more, they buy the more, more, more they'll save.

    Indeed, the 6.61% of the Total Vote is exactly equal to the Republicans getting 14.77% more votes than the Democrats did.

    Tiassa, the fact is that you made a simple mistake and now, even when you have been shown repeatedly that you did so, you won't admit it.

    Arthur
     
    Last edited: Nov 7, 2011
  2. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  3. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

    Messages:
    10,890
    Given that everybody else manage to attract only 3.6% it's not going to make that big of a difference.
     
  4. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  5. adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    7,829
    Well it depends on how you use that 3.6%.

    It WAS central to why Tiassa came to the erroneous conclusion that the margin between the Repubs and the Dems wasn't very much.

    Because he subtracted the Republican popular vote percent (51.4%) from 100 and assigned the result to the Dems, in essence giving them 3.6% more votes, which at over 3.1 million votes, is indeed a lot of votes.

    The net was he then subtracted his erroneously computed 48.6% for the Dems from the actual 51.4% for the Republicans to come up with the relatively low 2.8% margin, which is why he then posted:

    Of course that low percentage number was simply because his math was wrong.
    I presume that low margin he calculated was why he thought that the 14.77% difference between those who voted Republican and those who voted Democrat also had to be wrong or some wierd use of percents to make a point.

    It wasn't.

    Arthur
     
    Last edited: Nov 7, 2011
  6. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  7. Gustav Banned Banned

    Messages:
    12,575
    i am currently undergoing regression therapy to determine whether i was molested by cain.
    i strongly urge all here to do so

    ja
    screw that nutjob

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  8. gmilam Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,522
  9. adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    7,829
    I like the name of the magazine, ESTRO
     
  10. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    37,882
    Still, duh

    You are correct. I did forget to include the off-ticket votes.

    However—

    —you are introducing a nonstandard statistic. That's not problematic in and of itself; rather, it's a number that becomes insignificant when we account for it generally.

    Expressing a difference as a proportion of a single addend is just an unusual expression of a difference.

    There is still no point to including it as a specific consideration.

    The 6.6% difference between Republican and Democratic vote totals is not a particularly wide margin, but here's the thing—neither is the 14.77% difference as a proportion of a lesser addend.

    It's true, I omitted 3.6 million votes from my consideration, and that's my error. But as you're well aware, my point has been about your perception of a wide margin. And what puzzles me most is that you didn't think anyone would notice, or check the numbers on other elections in order to get a reference point for whether or not a newly-invoked statistical perspective is significant.

    And it's not. In either case, accounting for off-ticket votes or simply comparing Democrats and Republicans, it's not significant.

    The difference between the Democratic and Republican votes in the 2008 presidential election expressed as a percentage proportion of the Republican total was 15.88%. And that margin was wide enough to earn basic and unyielding obstructionism.

    I'm not certain, then, what you expect to accomplish by declaring that, "So while I know it is unpleasant to be in the minorioty Tiassa, the fact is in the most recent national polls, by a wide margin, Americans did not agree with your incredibly partisan and lopsided views."

    And I would note that I'm a leftist. I expect my views to be unpopular with a majority of Americans. Your presumption that a majority of Americans—and a "wide margin" at that—are actually getting what they voted for? In a two-party system? No, really, what is the likelihood of that?

    The Republican Party, after succeeding with an obstructionist agenda, are doubling down. They are using their authority in the House to stall the process of governing.

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!


    Adam Zyglis, Buffalo News, October 20, 2011
    (via Cagle)

    They are still trying to sell a formula that doesn't work. The economic agenda they promote is known to exacerbate upward wealth concentration. It is known to require cycles of boom and bust. It is observable that wealth concentrates even more during bust periods. This is what they're offering. Did you see the 999 graph?

    Did those people really vote for more government, such as rewriting zoning codes to close businesses Republicans don't like?

    Did they really vote to default on our debt unless the whole economy is solved once and for all right now?

    Are the people really ready for another culture war, such as the GOP is bringing? Is that really how they felt when they voted in 2010?

    Do you really think that 14.77% is really worth all that much?
     
  11. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    37,882
    Reference

    Note for Arthur:

    \(d=$\frac{(a-b)}{b}\)​

    The difference between Democratic (+21) and Republican votes in the 2008 House election expressed as a proportion of Republican votes: 25%

    The difference between Democratic (+8) and Republican votes in the 2008 Senate election expressed as a proportion of Republican votes: 13.1%

    Total difference between Democratic and Republican votes in 2008 House and Senate elections expressed as a proportion of Republican votes: 20.66%

    Just, you know, to get a reference on your idea of a wide margin, and all it implies.
     
  12. arfa brane call me arf Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    7,832
    Why is expressing the vote MARGIN as a percentage of the total Democrat vote "meaningful" whereas expressing it as a percentage of the total Republican vote isn't meaningful?
    Who decides? I bet it isn't the guy dressed up just like a Union Jack.

    What's meaningful about saying the Democrats got 38.85 million votes and so did the Republicans (twice that many voters shared their vote equally between the parties, if that's at all meaningful), except the Republicans also got another 5.74 million votes (which is how many voters didn't "share"). That's why the Republicans won.

    You can express the 5.74 million extra votes in all kinds of ways, but only some of them will be meaningful, or statistically significant. Expressing the extra votes that went to the Republican ticket as a percentage of the Democrat vote has the same meaning as expressing it as a percentage of the Republican vote.
    Unless Arthur can come up with a reason that they have different meanings, which I very much doubt, that leaves shameless self-promotion with dodgy statistics as the intended meaning.

    And only two pages of posts to get the message across!
     
  13. adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    7,829
    Ah, no it's not.
    Indeed it is the simplest and most direct way to express what percent of people voted for Republicans vs voted Democrats. 14.77% more to be exact.

    Well that's a different issue, how significant the 14.77% is.
    I claim it is significant and that was my original point, but then we couldn't even address that issue till you agreed on the percent now could we?

    Total BS Tiassa.
    You were the one who posted the WRONG margin, one you made the error in calculation on then posted your error and claimed it was small.

    In contrast my posts included the raw vote counts and the percent of the popular vote and a link to the data.

    You just went bananas after you claimed that the margin was only 2.8% and then claimed the 14.77% was some form of a deception.

    It wasn't.

    So since then we have just been trying to establish that the 2.8% was an error on your part, which FINALLY you have admitted to and it would also appear that you are also finally admitting that the 14.77% is also accurate as well and not some sort of "cheap misrepresentation".

    Yeah, I think they are, but without the Senate or the Oval office, there is only so much the Repubs can do but slow down the spending.

    Yes, it was worth a lot.
    Indeed it was a HUGE turnaround from the 2008 vote, and so indeed it got a lot of Dems to consider their votes going forward.

    Arthur
     
  14. adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    7,829
    I'm well aware, the Dems indeed did win by large margins in 2008 (and I never said otherwise), that's why 2010 was such a HUGE turn around.

    Arthur
     
  15. adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    7,829
    No one decides, but then certain calculations provide answers to basic questions.

    My calculation answers the basic question:

    What was the percent of voters that went for the Republican Candidates vs went for the Democratic Candidates?

    Answer 14.77% more voters went for the Republican Canididates

    Now arfa, please state the question that your calculation answers and we'll see if that's a question that anyone normally wants the answer to.
     
  16. arfa brane call me arf Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    7,832
    But that is NOT the answer to the question "What was the percent(age) of voters who voted for Republican vs Democrat candidates?". Is that question even well-formed, does it, dare I say, leave some room to wiggle the hat before pulling the rabbit out?

    Instead it's the number of extra votes the Republicans received, and the Democrats did not receive, expressed as a percentage of the votes the Democrats did receive.

    So it should make as much sense to express the extra votes as a percentage of the votes the Republicans received. The Republicans therefore got 14.77% more votes than the Democrats, and 12.87% more votes than the Republicans.

    Conversely, the Democrats got 14.77% fewer votes than the Democrats. Etc and ad nauseam.
     
  17. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

    Messages:
    10,890
    This:

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!


    Is a summary of the popular vote for every presidential election since 1876 - with the exception of 1896 and 1900 because the democratic party seems to have split in those years.

    The number, which ranges between -1 and 1 is calculated using this:
    \(d=$\frac{(R-D)}{R}\)
    Where R is the number of Republican votes, and D is the number of Democratic votes.
    (raw data from Source)
    It seems to me that 15% - represented by the change in tone, is nothing to get terribly excited about.

    Likewise, it seems to me that the results of the 2010 midterm are also nothing to get terribly excited about because they typically experience low voter turnout - peaking in 1966 at 48.7%, and falling as low as 39% in 1978. It seems, also, that they typically result in the presidents party loosing seats in both the house and the senate (eg source, source).

    The average change in seats in the house for the presidents party is to loose 32 (the median is to loose 29, so it's not terribly skewed towards large values), and the average change in senate seats for the presidents party is to loose 4.

    Although I will concede it's the third highest loss since 1910, I remain skeptical of it's significance, because while the magnitude might be the third greatest loss, Roosevelt came back from a greater midterm loss for a third term, and the Democrats stuck around for another three terms, Harding didn't make a second term, but the Republicans managed two terms after that. So it hardly strikes me as being a death knell.

    As I believe I have suggested once before in this thread, the only significance it may have is in indicating the apathy expressed by a proportion of democratic voters during this midterm.
     
  18. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    37,882
    (chortle!)

    One would think people would use it more, then. I mean, hell, \(d=$\frac{(a-b)}{b}\) is much simpler, much more direct, than \(a-b\). How could they not see it?

    How dare anyone question the perfect simplicity of your complexity?
     
  19. gmilam Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,522
    Percentages can be confusing if you're not aware of what numbers are being compared. As Dilbert showed 25% less and 33% more can be applied to the exact same figures.
     
  20. adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    7,829
    And that would work if only two parties were running.

    But since there are more than 2 parties running, just subtracting the difference in the percent of the popular vote does not tell you how many more people voted for the Republicans vs the Democrats.

    The simple math I used does answer that question though and does so precisely.

    Indeed Tiassa, that very simple math was clearly not intended to confuse.

    And of course, when one compares the vote of one of our two dominant parties to the other, anyone with just a bit of common sense expects to see a percentage number a bit more than twice the difference in the popular vote between them.



    As to the compexity?

    What you suggest:

    Vr + Vd + Vx + Vy ... + Vz = Vtot

    Vr / Vtot = %Vtotr
    Vd / Vtot = %Vtotd

    %Vtotr - %Vtotd = %Vtot-diff

    Versus the MUCH simpler calculation that I used:

    Vr - Vd = Vdiff
    Vdiff / Vd = %Vr-over-Vd

    Arthur
     
    Last edited: Nov 8, 2011
  21. adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    7,829
    Yeah it is.

    Arthur
     
  22. arfa brane call me arf Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    7,832
    No, it doesn't.


    Because you single out the Democrat vote rather than the total vote, the statistic is bogus. That is really all there is to it. Notice it also says that the Republicans got 14.77% more votes than their total vote minus the winning margin.

    So, it's meaningless. It sounds convincing but it isn't statistically valid, which is why it looks stupid when you substitute the Republican vote minus their winning margin for the equivalent Democrat vote, or when you say the Democrats got 14.77% fewer votes than the Democrats (or the Republicans, as long as you subtract the margin to make the vote totals equal).

    So, you have to go to quite a bit of trouble. Nothing common sense about it after all.
    It suggests a serious lack of understanding of how statistical inferences work.
     
  23. adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    7,829
    afra

    Please learn just BASIC MATH

    There were 44.64 million votes for the Republicans
    There were 38.9 million votes for the Democrats.

    14.77% * 38.9 = 5.74

    5.74 + 38.9 = 44.64

    The Republicans got 14.77% more votes than the Democrats.

    Do us all a favor and just learn to use a calculator.

    Arthur
     

Share This Page