I’m in the throes of election withdrawal and exhibiting many of the classic symptoms, including:
“Confusion, disorientation and agitation and other signs of severe autonomic instability (fever, tachycardia,hypertension).”
Another, lesser-known consequence of election withdrawal is uncontrollable creative output. My doctors (two Austrians and a Swiss) tell me that writing is a way for my mind to cope with the ebb of adrenaline now that my maniacal 24/7 addiction to blogs, MSM, and political Twittering no longer has an object. Obama won but I’m wishing the campiagn could continue, like Orwell’s vision of Total War, in perpetuity.
I sat down yesterday to write Ben an email about our friend Jessica’s surprise engagement to her boyfriend Patrick. It is big news for our little group – no one had seen it coming and she’ll be the first of us to get married. I also meant to inquire about Ben’s girlfriend, Erin, and gossip about our buddy Andy. You know, a normal, conversational email. You’ve written thousands of them.
What came out was this, a zombie-like homage to Pollster.com‘s daily Morning Status Updates. These polling breakdowns were the cocaine that sustained me for months leading up to the election and their very DNA has oozed into my brain like nuclear seepage into the local aquifer.
Unless you’re a polling junkie, this may not make much sense. I am no longer capable of normal human communication:
Four new polls (SurveyUSA, Fox/Rasmussen, ABC/Post, Diageo/Hotline) show enough trending towards bachelorhood to shift Stillman from the light blue “Lean” to the dark blue “Strong” Last to Be Married category (a move Nate Silver suggested, presciently, last week). The movement may be based on his recent separation from Stacy or, as Mark Blumenthal has suggested, his internals have been skewed by geographic proximity to a large market of attractive, educated women in the New York metropolitan area.
The real surprise is in the seven new polls we’ve logged for Jessica. Random sampling noise, historical assumptions, and a lack of reliable state-level data had put her in the yellow “Toss-up” category until very recently. Although we normally eschew generalizations based on the latest news cycle, the data indicates Patrick’s marriage proposal – which has effectively dominated both national and Facebook media – has had a significant impact. As such, Jessica has shifted the to dark red “Strong” First to Be Married category. Expect the major networks to call her early on election night.
Ben and Andy show no significant statistical shift and remain in the “Lean” Second to Be Married (light red) category. We’ve adjusted our models to smooth some random sampling noise from Zogby, which has been erratic this season. Next week we’ll crunch the results from new focus-group testing of Erin and Sharista on the boys’ favorables/unfavorables. As noted, stable long-term relationships do not interesting polling make!
We’ll know more at 5 PM when the Gallup daily tracker is posted. Also, a reminder to our readers: These predictions are based entirely on automated statistical programs (“Science”), and while we are continually tweaking our models we do not factor in human cognitive/emotional factors (“Guessing”).
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