Romney bounce over already?

[Jaskalas]

Romney bounce over already?

POLL: Romney leads in 11 swing states...
PA now in play?

I love how the media's narrative is to call the election. They've been chanting Obama for a while now...

 

[jackstar7]

POLL: Romney leads in 11 swing states...
PA now in play?

I love how the media's narrative is to call the election. They've been chanting Obama for a while now...

I don't think that's been the case. The media's best situation is a close race. People view/read/ingest more news when there's a close race. More eyes sell more ads.

The polls have certainly shifted, but the media couldn't be salivating more.

 

[mshan]

http://news.yahoo.com/popularity-high-romney-ditto-obama-110519458--abc-news-politics.html

(FWIW, Washington Post / ABC is supposed to lean Republican +1.4 according to 538: http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2266842)



Hard to tell what is really going on, but my guess is that main effect was some Romney supporters who were personally insulted by his 47% video have come back to the fold, now with renewed it's us vs. them (generic R vs. D) enthusiasm.

Still hard to tell if Obama improved his standing among true independents / persuadables, and those disillusioned Obama voters who may have historically voted Republican but gave him a chance in 2008 (?)

And as a baseline for whether Romney's debate performance was really a game changer or not, I go back to comments from this article written before debate:

"The Obama and Romney campaigns anticipate little movement in national polls before the first debate on Oct. 3, which both see as the most important day of this campaign. They also see eye to eye on their belief that the election will come down to whether Romney can persuade voters he understands the problems of ordinary people and that his solutions are at least marginally better for turning things around economically.

Where the two camps differ — and differ starkly — is on their theories of the case for navigating the final nine weeks. Romney, armed with more dismal jobs numbers, will run a one-size-fits-all campaign, wrapped around the message that the economy is bad, Obama is to blame and that change of leadership is absolutely essential. The Republican plan rests heavily on Romney’s capacity to bury Obama with negative ads* — and reap the benefits of his billionaire backers hitting the president even harder, and more relentlessly. This, more than anything else, alarms the high command in Chicago.

A Democratic official said the other big worry for the Obama campaign is that when you dig into the small slice of undecided voters (probably only 6 percent to 8 percent of the electorate, according to the campaigns), the demographics are not favorable to Obama: mostly white, many with some college education, economically stressed, largely middle-aged.

“Many of them voted for Obama in 2008 and felt good about that vote, and still think Obama’s a good person who really tried hard, but the economy sucks for them,” said the Democratic official, who has access to reams of internal polls and focus groups.

Despite that, Obama officials have maintained for several weeks that there are too few undecided voters for Romney to get the bounce he needs from the debates. “Romney is not going to win undecided voters 4-to-1,” a senior administration official told reporters on Air Force One on Friday. “If you are losing in Ohio by 4 or 5 points and trailing in Colorado by 2 points, if you are trailing in Nevada by 2 or 3 points, you are not going to win in those states.

“There is a small number of undecided voters so you are not going to see tremendous movement out of these conventions, even out of the debates.

… [W]e have a small but important lead in battleground states that is a huge problem for the Romney camp. … Ohio needs to be tied, Florida needs to be tied at least.”


http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0912/80949.html

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0912/81566.html

* http://www.usatoday.com/story/onpol...-billion-dollar-campaign-fundraising/1620831/ (don't know how outside groups like Karl Rove's Crossroads GPS is doing, or if they have already bought up all air time in key media markets already:

e. g. Cincinatti, OH, Tampa, FL, and Prince William County, VA http://video.msnbc.msn.com/the-daily-rundown/49343156#49343156)

 

[OneOfTheseDays]

Romney won't be able to hold that lead unless he can deliver similar knockout blows in the next two debates. Highly unlikely that Obama comes out so flat ever again, especially given how much ammunition he has to work with. Do you really think that's likely to happen?

I suspect after the next debate we'll see all of the momentum shift back towards Obama and he'll continue with that lead until Election Day.

 

[Fern]

-snip-

(Morningstar economist Bob Johnson has previously wondered whether the surprisingly weak August numbers and the slightly better than expected September numbers could in part be explained by college students with summer jobs going back to school earlier than current seasonal adjustment factor accounts for (apparently colleges are trying to complete fall semester by Thanksgiving break so students don't have to come back till next year (?). Seasonal adjustment factor may not have been changed to reflect change, so numbers undershot in August, but overshot in September). In reality, August's numbers were probably never as bad as they initially seemed, and September's numbers are slightly better than underlying reality.

Every time I go searching for more information on how the unemployment number moved so substantially on so few new jobs I see someone with a new hypothesis.

The one you posted above is another new one.

I find it increasingly odd that no one seems able to simply recreate the 'math' with known factors.

Fern

 

[OneOfTheseDays]

Every time I go searching for more information on how the unemployment number moved so substantially on so few new jobs I see someone with a new hypothesis.

The one you posted above is another new one.

I find it increasingly odd that no one seems able to simply recreate the 'math' with known factors.

Fern

So you think the BLS is lying and fudging the numbers on behalf of the Obama administration?

Lunatic conservatives.

 

[Fern]

So you think the BLS is lying and fudging the numbers on behalf of the Obama administration?

Lunatic conservatives.

I never said that.

What I have said is that I find it counter-intuitive that 114,000 jobs moved the number so substantially. There is nothing even remotely unique in that feeling, many economists have expressed it.

And I am saying I find it odd that no one seems capable of taking the published data and re-creating the calculation of the unemployment number.

Nor does being unwilling to blindly trust govt data make one "lunatic".

Fern

 

[chowderhead]

I don't think that's been the case. The media's best situation is a close race. People view/read/ingest more news when there's a close race. More eyes sell more ads.

The polls have certainly shifted, but the media couldn't be salivating more.

this. The media has chomping at the bit for a close race since Romney's terrible RNC. The fundamental state of the election is still with Obama in the key battleground states. Romney still needs to win out most of the contested states for an inside straight. Obama's approval numbers are at the cusp of reelection for incumbents and Romney's approvals are.still.under.water.

 

[OneOfTheseDays]

I never said that.

What I have said is that I find it counter-intuitive that 114,000 jobs moved the number so substantially. There is nothing even remotely unique in that feeling, many economists have expressed it.

And I am saying I find it odd that no one seems capable of taking the published data and re-creating the calculation of the unemployment number.

Nor does being unwilling to blindly trust govt data make one "lunatic".

Fern

The bottom line is you can't sit here and slam the President on unemployment numbers just a few months ago using the same BLS statistics and then criticize them when they are better than expected. That is the height of hypocrisy.

Either you believe the BLS numbers are real or not. You don't get to cherry-pick which facts you like.

 

[Fern]

The bottom line is you can't sit here and slam the President on unemployment numbers just a few months ago using the same BLS statistics and then criticize them when they are better than expected. That is the height of hypocrisy.

Either you believe the BLS numbers are real or not. You don't get to cherry-pick which facts you like.

There's nothing hypocritical involved.

The E-6 number was unchanged.

And no, I don't have to settle on your either/or model. I can express doubt for the reasons I have enumerated and search for confirmation. And I grow more wary as that confirmation cannot be found.

In the past I have expressed concerns about aspects of the model, but lack of transparency was not one. It is now.

Fern

 

[chowderhead]

The bottom line is you can't sit here and slam the President on unemployment numbers just a few months ago using the same BLS statistics and then criticize them when they are better than expected. That is the height of hypocrisy.

Either you believe the BLS numbers are real or not. You don't get to cherry-pick which facts you like.

jobbers! The new offshoot of the birther movement.

 

[Schmide]

I never said that.

What I have said is that I find it counter-intuitive that 114,000 jobs moved the number so substantially. There is nothing even remotely unique in that feeling, many economists have expressed it.

And I am saying I find it odd that no one seems capable of taking the published data and re-creating the calculation of the unemployment number.

Nor does being unwilling to blindly trust govt data make one "lunatic".

Fern

I don't see may economists expressing it. I see tons of conservative republicans crying fowl.

Dude the reality is you can't just look at the 114k number. When they do these surveys, they always go back and check the previous numbers. In this case the previous numbers were off. Think of it not as a drop by 0.3 but more a 0.1 drop for 3 consecutive months.

It's not like the trend line hasn't been moving this direction for a while, just look at the graphs.

Does that make you feel better?

 

[OneOfTheseDays]

I don't see may economists expressing it. I see tons of conservative republicans crying fowl.

Dude the reality is you can't just look at the 114k number. When they do these surveys, they always go back and check the previous numbers. In this case the previous numbers were off. Think of it not as a drop by 0.3 but more a 0.1 drop for 3 consecutive months.

It's not like the trend line hasn't been moving this direction for a while, just look at the graphs.

Does that make you feel better?

Exactly. The only people doubting the numbers are fellow conservative nut jobs like Fern himself.

 

[Fern]

I don't see may economists expressing it. I see tons of conservative republicans crying fowl.
-snip-

We're looking in different places.

I'm not concerned with what the Repubs are saying. I'm searching business/economic sites. And as I mentioned in a previous post, I'm seeing different hypotheses for how the unemployment calc can work out. I find that surprising. I assumed these economists could take the published data and confirm the calculation, yet I have not been able to find any who can do so at this point. I.e., I assumed it was a widely known formula and others could just input the data and viola! - there's the number, apparently not.

I imagine an explanation will eventually pop up.

Edit: Forgot to mention that a bunch of the head scratching comes from the Housing Survey numbers. If I understand correctly it shows a huge jump in employment and that contrasts with the Business Survey.

Fern

 

[buckshot24]

The bottom line is you can't sit here and slam the President on unemployment numbers just a few months ago using the same BLS statistics and then criticize them when they are better than expected. That is the height of hypocrisy.

Either you believe the BLS numbers are real or not. You don't get to cherry-pick which facts you like.

Guess what? 7.8% still sucks.

 

[Schmide]

We're looking in different places.

I'm not concerned with what the Repubs are saying. I'm searching business/economic sites. And as I mentioned in a previous post, I'm seeing different hypotheses for how the unemployment calc can work out. I find that surprising. I assumed these economists could take the published data and confirm the calculation, yet I have not been able to find any who can do so at this point. I.e., I assumed it was a widely known formula and others could just input the data and viola! - there's the number, apparently not.

I imagine an explanation will eventually pop up.

Edit: Forgot to mention that a bunch of the head scratching comes from the Housing Survey numbers. If I understand correctly it shows a huge jump in employment and that contrasts with the Business Survey.

Fern

DUDE look at the freaking graph?

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/05/forecasting-unemployment/

I can only assume partisanship is clouding your eyes or you're just going to crazy conspiracy sites.

 

[OneOfTheseDays]

Exactly Ferns "economic" sites likely include the Drudge Report, Fox News, etc.