I think that's a big part of it for sure.   That and I think when people do have politics in mind a lot of people see Conservative = Republicans but Liberal =/= Democrat.

I know i tend to think that way.

The average union democrat would be offended if you called them a Liberal. 

That's why Perot was able to catch such a sizebale third party and take a lead in Clinton VS Bush VS Perot.

He appealed both to the workers and the average conservative.

Democrats are really seen more a a "Center-Left" party depending on the candidate.  While centrist republicans seem to have to move too far right to get out of the primary process.

If it were me... i'd start the primary process out with swing states.

Correct, Mitt was a terrible candidate.  Sure he did semi alright in the election but he was a pitiful candidate in my opinion.  He constantly changed his stances and contradicted his own stances almost day to day especially during the primaries.  He was the John Kerry of the Republican party.  He was also a Mormon which probably lost him a few votes from the Republican base.  Basically, he better not try to run again and the Republicans have to come up with a better candidate because the only one that was decent was Ron Paul and now he is too old and irrelevant.  If they were smart they would push for his son but I have a feeling they will push for that idiot called Jeb Bush.

@kasz and gameover

Sorry, but I'm still confused as to what the original point was.
Nate's saying that over the final three weeks there was republican bias on the polls, and then even down to the very end, that bias correct except for some, and only because of certain polling techniques.

I'm not sure why, but I'm still getting the sense that you guys are saying that Nate Silver is being partisan with this meta-data.

I'm not saying he's putting a partisan slant on it. I even admitted there's seems to be a republican bias to the polls....the bias is just much smaller if you look at the later polls (the final week). Generally, when people look at the accuracy of polls, they look at the polls over the final week because it gives a better snapshot of the electorate. Point being, the closer you get to the election, the more accurate the polls tend to be.

For instance, an actual peer reviewed article on poll accuaracy from 2008. If you recognize, the earliest poll they consider was released on 10/29....7 days before the election.....not 21 days. The main point is, a lot can happen over three weeks, and a snapshot 3 weeks out is not necessarily an accurate snapshot of election day behavior.

Polls having republican bias is not to surprising, but the extent to some of the polls is just ridiculous. If polls are usually biased like this, then they are pointless and meaningless.

Pretty much it...

Well that and Nate Silver talked previously negativly about thoughts of polling "conspiracy theories" on the basis that pollsters don't mess with their numbers.

Yet his reason for spreading it out to 21 days ?

"Our method of evaluating pollsters has typically involved looking at all the polls that a firm conducted over the final three weeks of the campaign, rather than its very last poll alone. The reason for this is that some polling firms may engage in “herding” toward the end of the campaign, changing their methods and assumptions such that their results are more in line with those of other polling firms."

Pollsters may be messing with their numbers.

More or less he just picked a longer sample period for to have a wider variance and wider bias to inflate interest and create some more inflamatory numbers.

Talking about errors up to 6% is going to get you more hits and keep peoples attention more then 1.

A more accurate analysis, that would very little extra time since the data is already there would be to run three analysis.

A 21 day, a 7 day, and a final survey analysis.

I mean, if your familar with a statistics program all it takes no time at all to run more analysis off parts of data already entered.

Then you'd even be able to compare them to each other and get a clearer picture of what was going on and figure out what variables likely made the biggest differences.

Heck pretty much anybody who remembers a statisitcs class could run the analysis Silver did with those added parameters... if they wanted to go through the trouble setting up the dataset and of actually doing it.

I think one of the points is that people like nate had the correct data for a while 21 days and more and lots of people, including many members of this site, chose to believe differently based on their own suspicions of bias, and even down into the last days denied the truth even when their trusted polls began to slip.

This sentence is kind of confusing, though no, that really isn't a point, at least not in regards to this thread.

I also get the feeling that you don't quite get what Nate Silver does when using the term "correct data".

Since everybody had the same data... and scrutinizing data sets is only ever a good thing, at least among researchers.

If you'll note, practically all the current coverage is actually just that, analysing why things turned out why they did, confused why republicans didn't vote in higher numbers.

You always have to comment on the semantics. Sorry! He had the correct study results, the correct model.

The way things turned out as they did because they weren't the majority. Not sure what else there is to add to that.

Then of course, there's the "experts" who (admittedly) just pulled an answer out of their ass:

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/dick-morris-admits-he-predicted-romney-lan