Probabilities Can Mislead in Politics and Baseball
Nov. 2 -- Contests, both political and sporting, brings polls and probabilities to mind, and these, often enough, need to be deconstructed a little. Let me start with a topical example from presidential politics.
George Bush Versus Candidate X
There have been several polls in recent months indicating that, were the presidential election to be held early, President Bush would lose to a generic Democrat in a close race. This is an interesting fact on the surface, but becomes somewhat paradoxical when these same polls also show Bush beating each of the primary Democratic contenders by a slight margin.
One way in which this can occur is for each one of the viable Democratic contenders to have a different and distinctive policy or personality trait that alienates 5-10 percent of likely voters. When asked whether they would prefer Bush or a generic representative of their party, Democratic voters reasonably assume that the generic representative will not have the offending policy or personality trait, and so the generic Democrat gets their vote.
Related to this is the fact that the title "Democratic Nominee for President" has a certain weight that many of the actual candidates suffering from low name recognition lack. Incredibly, polls show that a majority of Americans can't name a single Democrat (other than Wesley Clark) running for the nomination.
Among those who can identify some of the candidates a small, but non-negligible percentage idealize the generic Democrat, yet disdain Kerry, Dean, and every specific candidate. One conclusion hard to resist is that poll questions about generic Democrats are almost useless.
The old comedian Henny Youngman had it right. His signature joke has somebody asking him, "How's your wife?" He replies, "Compared to what?" (In our presumably less sexist era, "How's your husband or significant other?" may be substituted.)
Other bits of political news also sound like jokes. Last month many news sources reported, "Bush told his senior aides Tuesday that he 'didn't want to see any stories' quoting unnamed administration officials in the media anymore, and that if he did, there would be consequences, said a senior administration official who asked that his name not be used."
