Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Politics / News The L Magazine's Guide to Panicking Over the Massachusetts Senate Election
Posted by Mark Asch on Tue, Jan 19, 2010 at 12:15 PM
- Why, he's positively Kennedy-esque!
Well, continue panicking (a separate Don't Panic guide is also available):
-Nate Silver, Predictor of Elections, predicts: Might as well just tend to that festering would yourself, rather than wait for healthcare reform. "Swing voters" is actually code for "people who don't follow politics closely enough to know what they think," and it's these voters who are most excited to vote according to a compelling populist narrative, which apparently charismatic former laughingstock Scott Brown certainly is.
-Ha! A guy named Joe Kennedy, no relation, is also on the ticket, as a Libertarian. This should not confuse disengaged liberal-leaning voters or old people in the least!
-The weather is not great there, today, which tends to dampen the motivation of voters who are less excited about their candidate. (Hint: "candidate" means "semi-frumpy gaffe machine from a state with a weak Democratic bench.")
-Citizen journalism: terrible floundering newspaper the Boston Globe is encouraging readers to submit reports on their voting experience to their website. Because of said enthusiasm gap, it is mostly like reading the teabag-infused comments section of any nominally nonpartisan website covering the election over the past few weeks. Actually, upon reflection, this item may mostly just make you depressed, about the internet, and literacy of the American populace.
-As a New Englander, I've never really gotten the liberalism of Massachusetts: outside of a few collegiate pockets, it's pretty much fratty and semiemployed loudmouths in Bruins caps who you wouldn't want on your side anyway; the suburbs; and lots of people who only come down from the woods to file their income tax, which they really really hate doing because they've never actually seen an impoverished person.
-Along those lines, yeah, sure, start panicking about this November's midterm elections, and why not, the 2012 presidential elections. This is what happens, you see, whenever America forgets itself (which is easy, see above re: "swing voters") and elects a left-leaning president: populist rage and a hard turn to the right. On the plus side, nobody in the Obama administration has fatally shot himself in a park yet (more comforting thoughts like these coming later today!).
Comments (4)
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We are zeroing in on Massachusetts today and studying the supply demand curves of all Massachusetts IP.'s. We are seeing what people are searching for around Brown/Coakley and what people are supplying them for answers. We clearly see Brown as winning this race based on search demand and search "results"
We study search demand/supply trends from around the world to find profitable niches and products and the main problem with predictions and "trends" is that no one looks at the "supply" side to these predictions. A niche, or hot predictions, is not just a demand side issue, but a supply/demand curve. If you predict IPHONE apps will take off, and there are already 100,000 aps, then you aren't going to hit that one. If you see that demand for cell phone radiation shields is going nuts and there are only two suppliers, then you can be pretty sure that it will be a good year for those 2 supplies. The software at www.TheInternetTimeMachine.com studies both the demand (search volume) and supply (think "results" in Google). The Google Phone is generating much more buzz right now then say the Apple Tablet.
Cheers,
Curt
Here is a video on what I mean.. http://bit.ly/SupplyDemandCurves
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Today's article is far better than yesterday. No one has to use foul language or name calling if they have a legitimate point of view. America needs different points of view, as long as they are honest and fact based. It is the contention of people with different points of view that creates the best outcome. Intellectual honest people will welcome alternative viewpoints whereas people that are not interest in the best answer, but rather to fill themselves with a diet of their own rhetoric will migrate to extreme viewpoints, foul language and name calling.
zk: You know this was posted yesterday, before the earlier one, right? Why would a preview of yesterday's election be published today?
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