Comments on: Nate Silver Ought To Leave the Internal Illinois Politics to Others

By: Rich Miller

Rich Miller — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 19:10:36 +0000

===and fund properly===

Key point.

By: Dan Curry

Dan Curry — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 15:36:37 +0000

His poll numbers were good enough to put him in a position to win the race had he decided to run and fund properly. Whether he would have won is another question, but those who suggest he couldn’t have won are rewriting history.

By: JonShibleyFan

JonShibleyFan — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 13:53:34 +0000

OH NO! Facts!

By: ArchPundit

ArchPundit — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 05:19:03 +0000

====Mr. Fitzgerald, the first Illinois senator to bow out after one term since the 1930′s, said he was confident he would have won in 2004, pointing to a poll his campaign conducted last week that showed he would beat all the prominent Democrats considering the race. But only 45 percent of the 600 people surveyed said he deserved re-election, and he was favored by 43 percent to 52 percent in the various head-to-head matchups, low for an incumbent.

Now, I was wrong on the point because George Ryan was far more unpopular by then , but Peter’s numbers were far from good.

By: Peter Fitzgerald for Senate? Ah…. no « John Bracken

Peter Fitzgerald for Senate? Ah…. no « John Bracken — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 05:04:26 +0000

[...] Silver kool aid as anyone (of both the political and baseball variety), but I have to agree with Larry Handlin that Nate is off track with his conjecture that soon-to-be Illiois Governor Pat Quinn could select [...]

By: Dan Curry

Dan Curry — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 04:18:46 +0000

Arch:
I worked for Peter Fitzgerald and saw an internal political poll and you couldn’t be more wrong. His numbers were quite solid and slightly better than Durbin’s at the time. He was right about corruption and he was right about O’Hare. He had guts that almost every other politician in Illinois lacks. You are right, however, that he now lives in Virginia.

By: JonShibleyFan

JonShibleyFan — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 03:13:11 +0000

Stuart, I hear what you’re talking about. Stephanopolous said, “Obama worked on Blagojevich’s 2002 and 2006 campaigns…”

No. He sure didn’t.

It’s bad enough you have supposed “news” outlets like Drudge and WLS AM (and even politico) leaving out enough details to make it appear there’s a connection. When the supposed real news outlets get at it, it’s a disaster.

By: Stuart Shiffman

Stuart Shiffman — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 02:44:13 +0000

This is just an example of ‘the more you know about a subject, the more you realize how little the so-called experts know.” I have read and heard quite a bit today about indictments (no indictment) and the connection between Blago and Obama (actually they are rivals) and other ruminations of so-called experts. Nate can crunch numbers but he is a little out of his league on Illinois politics.

By: ArchPundit

ArchPundit — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 01:16:31 +0000

I think Nate is brilliant when he’s talking about polling, but this gets to a far different area than his expertise. It doesn’t mean he’s dumb, it just means he’s beyond what his expertise is.

By: GB

GB — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 01:04:43 +0000

Agreed. I love FiveThirtyEight but when I read this, I was pretty disheartened. Maybe I like it so much because I don’t know much about what he’s talking about (Idaho polling history, for example), so I buy into it.

By: Dr. Squid

Dr. Squid — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 00:45:13 +0000

Hey, Bill Brady wants to run again.

(pause)

(longer pause)

OK, you can stop laughing now.

Maybe Pat O’Malley’s available.

Really, stop laughing.