Reply #95: laughing about the Trojans

[OnTheOtherHand]

A few days ago I considered posting: USC wins Rose Bowl! based on the undisputed rule that in over 100 years, no team has ever lost the Rose Bowl when its quarterback passed for over 360 yards. But then I couldn't find out whether that was true -- and hey, I try to get the facts right. (Ryan Leaf came pretty close in the late 90s, I know that.)

A tip of the hat to you: I have always admired your posts, and look forward to verifying the exact meaning of "between 5/7 and 1/3 chalk."

Someone afflicted with selective literalism may tee off on your brief reference to "security moms," but I think the party ID trend is pretty striking, demographic correlates aside. And as you say, Bush did better in many, many places, regardless of voting technology.

I think Anax's #90 is pretty revealing: it was the conventional wisdom around here* after the election that of course Kerry had to have won, and that's why none of the particular arguments supporting that view has to be very compelling. It's like whack-a-mole.

*EDIT: I'm not sure where "here" is, which I suppose is why I inserted the "around."

I might try pointing out that if Democrats become Republicans, that wreaks havoc on "defection rates" if we are comparing 2000 to 2004. OK, in 2000 we have (according to the weighted and rounded tabs) 39% Dem, 35% Rep, 11% Dem defection rate, 8% Rep defection rate. In 2004 we have 37% Dem, 37% Rep, 11% Dem defection rate, 6% Rep defection rate. So does that mean that Kerry got as big a vote share from Democrats as Gore did? No, since on net 2 percentage points worth of Dems defected to the Reps. So, of the 39% of former Democrats (so that we are comparing apples to apples), 37 points defect at an 11% rate, and 2 points defect at a 93% rate. That's an average of over 15%, which is obviously substantially higher than the defection rate among Republicans. (Obviously I don't mean these numbers literally.)** So I don't see how the Constant Mean Defection Rate argument can work unless someone can prove that the 37 Dem/37 Rep split Just Can't Be Right -- as was nobly attempted, and now has crashingly failed AFAICS, with the 2000 recalled vote question.

**EDIT: In particular, I don't think that 2% of the electorate magically changed from Dem to Rep. Probably some Dems became Reps, some Reps became Dems, etc. etc., there was sampling error, there may have been weighting distortions.... Regardless, I don't see how comparing the party tabs in 2000 and 2004 supports a fraud inference.

Same general problem with the ideological comparison -- and with ideology as with party ID, there is external evidence supporting the shift. Although maybe we're not supposed to refer to external evidence these days. It is hard to keep track.