This is the website of Abulsme Noibatno Itramne (also known as Sam Minter). Posts here are rare these days. For current stuff, follow me on Mastodon

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September 2012
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@abulsme Updates from 2012-09-23 (UTC)

  • Reading – The Romney Campaign Needs a New CEO (Peggy Noonan) http://t.co/22ZBnFlC #
  • Reading – Nest home monitoring device pops up at the FCC with ZigBee, greater ambitions (Jon Fingas) http://t.co/IVn8592D #
  • Reading – How the Tea Party Killed Mitt Romney (Kevin Drum) http://t.co/J4lp9pn8 #
  • Reading – Ground Truth (Devin Coldewey) http://t.co/asmGqrOh #
  • Watching – Walk and Talk the Vote – West Wing Reunion – Bridget Mary McCormack (Bridget Mary McCormack) http://t.co/DTmvkiu2 #
  • EC Update for Sep 23 done. Polls added in 6 states. All backfill from @PollTracker. VA changes cat. Blog post soon. http://t.co/kF2iz3uE #
  • RT @appwiz @abulsme I’m glad ZigBee is finally going mainstream. I worked with the technology a decade ago and it had promise even then. #
  • Finished recording this week’s CC with Ivan about 30 min ago. Cameos from Alex & Manuel. It will be out later in the week when I have time. #
  • MT @fivethirtyeight: We’ve published forecasts since June. The ONLY two states where the favorite has switched at any point are OH and FL. #
  • Reading – Apple Is Already Shipping Many “Late” iPhone 5 Pre-Orders (Frederic Lardinois) http://t.co/aqSrdyyI #
  • RT @McCainBlogette: What kind of asshat jumps into a tiger cage at the zoo? #
  • Reading – The Cloud Factories: Data Centers Waste Vast Amounts of Energy, Belying Industry Image (James Glanz) http://t.co/glE7MGyH #
  • Reading – Mitt Is Overpaying His Taxes – For Now (Josh Barro) http://t.co/dla9d44G #
  • Reading – Using predictions in the service of ideals and profit (Sam Wang) http://t.co/zBfCpb2l #
  • MT @mschmitt9: Rom tax rate avg 20% 1990-2009. Why? Inc 8 yrs when cap gains rate ~30% (90-97) & 5 yrs at ~21% (98-02) http://t.co/uaJyNh7v #
  • Reading – My Product Feedback (MG Siegler) http://t.co/EoigopsF #
  • Reading – September Ratings Of Five Election Scenarios (Sheri Rivlin And Allan Rivlin) http://t.co/5KksRxj1 #
  • Reading – Lincoln’s Laws of War and Our Own (Doctor Science, Obsidian Wings) http://t.co/DCI5u6Kg #
  • Reading – Sept. 21: Presidential Race Changes, but Swing States Stay the Same (Nate Silver) http://t.co/8FwcMQvw #
  • Reading – Don’t Blame Mitt!
    (Michael Tomasky) http://t.co/ZYbUsY2z #
  • Reading – Romney Shambles, Income Tax Edition (Oliver Willis) http://t.co/tprQZFgo #
  • Reading – Obama tries to lock up Wisconsin (Darren Samuelsohn) http://t.co/4CQYTzs2 #
  • Reading – Texts from Mitt Romney (Nick Douglas) http://t.co/oIVYbbMp #
  • Reading – Source: Apple Aggressively Recruiting Ex-Google Maps Staff To Build Out iOS Maps (Darrell Etherington) http://t.co/DLIAzvmD #
  • RT @KevinGoldsmith: One day in and I am regretting upgrading my iPhone4 to iOS6. Phone is now slow and crashy and using more battery. #
  • Reading – The Free Internet Will Be Just Fine With Do Not Track. Here’s Why.
    (Sarah Downey) http://t.co/ulIeT8WX #
  • Losing was the plan then? Reading – Mitt Romney: My Campaign ‘Doesn’t Need A Turnaround’ (Evan McMorris-Santoro) http://t.co/e1sQ37lT #
  • Thanks Marc! MT @ThoughtnDesign: Curmudgeon’s Corner is like Manna from heaven even though @abulsme flamed my argument: http://t.co/GzOLbinR #
  • RT @BuzzFeedAndrew: iPhone 5’s at a FedEx distribution center. http://t.co/Z7YIrIUd #
  • Reading – The U.S. Suffered Its Worst Airpower Loss Since Vietnam Last Week and No One Really Noticed (John Hudson) http://t.co/G74kG8wo #

Electoral College: Virginia Blue Yet Again

No truly new polls today, but I added some more slightly older ones from Polltracker now that I am using them as a source as well. They have a few that were not included by my other sources. In any case, only one change came out of that today:

With this, the five poll average in Virginia goes back above 5%. If I’d gotten the polls “in order”, Virginia actually would not have dipped below 5% yesterday at all. Polls arrive out of order all the time of course. As I’ve mentioned before, with a few exceptions when I find really old polls, I mark changes in category based on my best knowledge as of any given day, I don’t try to retroactively change the status on past days.

In any case, Obama now leads by 5.3% in the five poll average. So, Virginia once again leaves the group of states I consider possible for Romney to win… if the election was held today that is. Things can of course change.

In the mean time though, the summary:

Romney Obama
Romney Best Case 278 260
Current Status 191 347
Obama Best Case 180 358

Virginia may be bouncing around the 5% Obama lead line at the moment, but be it a little below or a little above, either way, it is a state that would make Romney’s electoral math much easier if it was actually in play. At the moment, it is just out of reach. Without it, Romney’s road is pretty hard.

It has been pointed out that although the state by state math looks bad, if there are campaign events that bring a uniform national move toward Romney, then a bunch of states will of course move in his direction too. That is how it works. States that are leaning Obama will start leaning Romney. States that are weak Obama and currently out of reach will start being close.

This kind of move is very possible. No chickens should be being counted by the Democrats. But time is running out for things to happen (either positive things from Romney, or mistakes by Obama) which bring about that kind of move. Polls looking into how set people are on the candidates they support at the moment show a pretty small percentage of actual undecided or “persuadable” people though. So it may be pretty difficult to bring about that kind of move.

As I’ve said before, to get there we probably need a major screwup by Obama as opposed to anything Romney could do to bring people toward him.

Note: Chart and map from the Abulsme.com 2012 Electoral College Prediction page. Both assume Obama vs Romney with no strong third party candidate and show polling as it currently exists. Things will change before election day. On the map red is Romney, blue is Obama, gold states are too close to call. Lines on the chart represent how many more electoral votes a candidate would have than is needed to tie under several different scenarios. Up is good for Obama, Down is good for Romney.