No poll watching this year.

Every (primarily presidential) election cycle I used to track the polls that appear on RealClearPolitics to try to extrapolate a realistic result by filtering out polls that are what I would consider statistically unreliable.  Some were too small (high margin of error), some oversampled Democrats (not a truly random sample, therefore biased), some polled adults or registered voters instead of likely voters.  Some may have even defined likely voters oddly.  They needed to be filtered out  in order to get a clearer view of how race really looked.  It worked in 2016, I was seeing a Trump narrow win over Hillary Clinton.  I thought I had to be wrong and it turned out I was; I understated president Trump's electoral performance. 

In 2018 I looked at Senate races and my filtering method still did pretty well.  But in 2020 I did not see a Let's Go Brandon victory. In 2022 I didn't do that well in senate races either. I'm not convinced that my methodology was wrong, but I think the polling has changed in a way that is not clear to me. That could mean I am doing something that is wrong that perhaps used to work, I don't know.  But the point is, as a poll watcher, I do not trust my input data any longer.  

I've enjoyed looking at the What-If scenarios, and I may still do it this year. I like statistics and doing the analysis. But until I can figure out why the polls are different and my previous method of filtering out suspicious results can be fixed, I don't think it's productive to share my results here, at least for this election cycle.

Besides, I don't believe, as Rush Limbaugh used to say, poll watching is the best use of our time. I'll find another way to be productive and useful to the conservative cause. What does it matter if the polls show a close race and it turns out that hundreds of thousands of Let's Go Brandon votes appear at 2 a.m. in Pennsylvania for Let's Go Brandon, with a corresponding (and statically impossible) zero votes for Trump. 

But outrage over suspicious results won't change the results. What will change the result is a rejuvenated RNC that  does it's job properly. Let's hope the RNC's new leadership is up to the task.

Google's AI anti-white?

Google's AI Gemini is kind of weird, and seemingly trained on data that is slanted  anti-white.

Want more data to consider? Watch this:

Inflation and bad data

Data means everything.  You've heard the expression "garbage in, garbage out"? It applies completely to data.  If you have bad data, it doesn't matter how sophisticated your formulas in a system are, your results are going to be flawed.  In a more real world example, let's say someone tells you that eggs are on sale at the local supermarket for 10 cents per dozen.  You love eggs and that's an awesome price, so you hop into your car and drive to the store, hoping to buy so many dozens that you couldn't have walked and saved on your carbon emissions.  But it turns out when you get there it's actually not on sale.  So much for your egg-stravaganza this month. Bad data, bad result.  But there is one thing worse than bad data, and that's manipulated data.

Manipulated data means that someone using that data has altered it to get the outcome they desire. I've been arguing that inflation is going to get much worse than it is. I've also argued that a lot of the price of inflation is hidden by things like size changes in product prices.  Fewer sheets of toilet paper on a roll does not get factored into the price of a dozen rolls of toilet paper.  12 rolls before is 12 rolls now, even if the rolls have been shrunk down to half their former size.  This is how companies hide price increases.  And it aids and abets government's calculation of inflation. It isn't some sort of deliberate co-operative effort, but it is mutually beneficial so no one does anything about it.  The only ones hurt are consumers (aka people).

Here's a great video explaining how it's more prevalent than you might know, and indeed far scarier.  It's worth watching if you want a better understanding of what's happening to us in 2022.

Data versus Information versus Wisdom

Setting aside the privacy issue for a moment, the United States government has served itself a wealth of your personal data. But that doesn't mean it has intelligence on you.  Intelligence requires that it do something with that data to have insights.

WASHINGTON—The National Security Agency's monitoring of Americans includes customer records from the three major phone networks as well as emails and Web searches, and the agency also has cataloged credit-card transactions, said people familiar with the agency's activities.

The disclosure this week of an order by a secret U.S. court for Verizon Communications Inc.'s VZ +0.54% phone records set off the latest public discussion of the program. But people familiar with the NSA's operations said the initiative also encompasses phone-call data from AT&T Inc. T -1.01% and Sprint Nextel Corp., S -1.36% records from Internet-service providers and purchase information from credit-card providers.

The Obama administration says its review of complete phone records of U.S. citizens is a "necessary tool" in protecting the nation from terror threats. Is this the accepted new normal, or has the Obama administration pushed the bounds of civil liberties? Cato Institute Director of Information Policy Studies Jim Harper weighs in. Photo: Getty Images.

The agency is using its secret access to the communications of millions of Americans to target possible terrorists, said people familiar with the effort.

The NSA's efforts have become institutionalized—yet not so well known to the public—under laws passed in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Most members of Congress defended them Thursday as a way to root out terrorism, but civil-liberties groups decried the program.

There's a lot of data being collected.  But data is a long way from insight and knowledge, let alone wisdom.  Those of us in the data and analytics field understand the difference.  Just because the government has collected a large amount of data - big data - doesn't mean it has the ability to convert that data into information, let alone knowledge or wisdom.  If it did, the Boston Marathon bombings might have been prevented.  There is a hierarchy of transforming data into understanding, as can be seen in this graph.

The BAD news: The federal government is indeed sitting on a trove of data, and it is ill-gotten data.  The GOOD news:  Given the government's track record for bungling, it is doubtful they will ever be able develop wisdom about you. The EXTRA BAD news: They will still try, and they will still probably fail to prevent further terrorism on U.S. soil, or overseas.  The WORST news: No matter what, many on the left as well as the right, will feel that the government is justified in its snooping efforts. And the government will continue to feel empowered to do more of this sort of thing.

Saturday Learning Series - Data Modeling and Mining

Stay with me on this one. I can't stress enough how important this episode is for the conservative movement.   In the past I've argued that there is a much smarter way to use data in everything, but it's particularly true in politics.  Conservatives can argue until they are blue (or red) in the face about what could have defeated president Obama in the 2012 election, or what is needed to win in 2016, but what made a big difference for Obama was targeted tactical efforts in key areas, maximizing their results to spectacular effect.

Barack Obama won the 2012 presidential election, defeating Mitt Romney in nearly all battleground states, securing a total of 332 electoral votes and winning 51% of the popular vote. Following the election, several prominent media outlets reported the Obama campaign’s effective mining of the large databases of voter information was a major factor in the president’s victory. In fact, during the election, Time Magazine interviewed several of the Obama campaign’s “data crunches” and estimated their efforts “helped Obama raise $1 billion, remade the process of targeting TV ads and created detailed models of swing-state voters that could be used to increase the effectiveness of everything from phone calls and door knocks to direct mailings and social media.” Obama strategist David Axelrod told news reporters “nothing happened on election night that surprised me — nothing. Every single domino that turned over was in keeping with the model that our folks had projected.”

...Data was continually collected through cookies and tracker programs on Obama’s website and social media apps. Using data mining, the Obama campaign’s data scientists were able to comb through all the information to discover important patterns and draw conclusions about potential voters. They assigned potential swing state voters numbers of a scale of 1 to 100 in four metrics: the likelihood that they would support Mr. Obama, the likelihood they would show up at the polls, the likelihood an Obama supporter who did not consistently vote could be motivated to go to the polls, and finally, how persuadable someone was by a conversation on a particular issue.

The Obama campaign then utilized advanced statistical algorithms to run test models predicting what actions or messages would persuade the most voters to swing democratic.

...David Axelrod stated that because of the 2012 results he would: “invest in people who understand where the technology is going and what the potential will be by 2016 for communications, for targeting, for mining data, to make precision possible in terms of both persuasion and mobilization.” Because of the crucial role data mining played in Obama’s victory, “guys sitting in a back room smoking cigars, saying ‘We always buy 60 Minutes’ is over.” Fundamentals and gut feelings are being replaced by the information driven insights of data scientists and technology.

Axelrod email crimes

That's right Mr. Axelrod, and everyone else at the White House, crimes. Direct Marketing is an interesting business. It basically consists of the effort of creating a message and sending that message to a targeted group of people, through any number of channels - telemarketing, direct mail or email for example. There's a lot of complexity underlying how that's done, particularly if it's done well.

If it's not done well, it goes to the wrong target, or a mass untargeted group, or includes people who don't want to be included, or worse. And there are a lot of ways it can go wrong. And I know that personally, since it's my day job to manage direct marketing campaigns.

One of the touchiest areas around direct marketing involves privacy. People who have asked to not be solicited and are solicited are having their privacy violated. It's something to take seriously, so much so that there are laws against violating privacy, specifically related to telemarketing, and email spam.

With that in mind, recently the White house sent out what appeared to be a spam type message, regarding health care. The issue was brought to the nation's attention in an at length exchange between Fox News' Major Garrett and White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on the matter.

The problem was serious enough, that as Politico reports the White House followed up on the issue by making changes to it's email rules.

“We are implementing measures to make subscribing to e-mails clearer, including preventing advocacy organizations from signing people up to our lists without their permission when they deliver petition signatures and other messages on individual’s behalf,” spokesman Nick Shapiro said in a statement Sunday night.

...

“The White House e-mail list is made up of e-mail addresses obtained solely through the White House website. The White House doesn't purchase, upload or merge from any other list. … [A]ll e-mails come from the White House website as we have no interest in emailing anyone who does not want to receive an email.

“If an individual received the e-mail because someone else or a group signed them up or forwarded the email , we hope they were not too inconvenienced. Further, we suggest that they unsubscribe from the list by clicking the link at the bottom of the e-mail or tell whomever forwarded it to them not to forward such information anymore.”

The complaints concerned a 1,500-word e-mail sent Thursday in the name of White House senior adviser David Axelrod, including “8 common myths about health insurance reform.” The e-mail mimicked the style of chain e-mails attacking President Barack Obama’s health-reform plan. The subject line: “Something worth forwarding.”

The White House had sent other e-mails to the list without complaint.

The email even sounds like spam in the title. Despite Politico's attempt in the last line to run interference for the White House, serious questions remain unanswered. It doesn't matter if 500 lists went out without complaint, this one is the one where the problems exist. The question is why did it happen?

The White House is clearly trying to deflect blame by indicating some organizations mass enrolled others without their consent. Maybe that's the case, but maybe it isn't. If this were a private company, no doubt the Federal Trade Commission would be all over it wanting to see the database, and understand what the company has done to be compliant with the CAN-SPAM act of 2003 and the changes of 2008.

Regardless of the spam aspect of the situation there are some real ethical concerns with these unintended recipients.

1) How did the White House get their email addresses?

2) Why did they not have any sort of gatekeeper mechanism (for example a verification step) in place to prevent this from happening?

3) Did the White House willing accept these mass lists without any sort of screening process or at least questioning the list sources and contents?

4) What other private data might the White House have, just because they think the target of the data might be someone 'fishy'?

These are legitimate questions and the answers might, if not prove criminal activity, at least provide some difficult to explain away ethical shortcomings of the White House, Mr. Axelrod or, more likely the scapegoat they decide to blame the whole issue on if it ever gets that far.