Comments on: The Oatmeal Experiment

By: Equisetum

Equisetum — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 09:05:39 +0000

“Does anyone else find it strange that money and votes are considered to be so tightly correlated (even positing a causative relationship)?”

We’ve achieved economic democracy: one dollar, one vote. Well, OK, maybe a little more than a dollar.

By: Mystyk

Mystyk — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 04:53:39 +0000

It seems to me that as long as the two variables in play (the donation and the election result) cannot be causally linked, there is a missing set of possible outcomes that cannot be ignored.

I could give $10,000 right now to Harry Reid’s campaign in an effort to keep Sharron Angle out of Nevada’s US Senate seats, and the oh-so-extreme Angle could still win. Likewise, I could give nothing but my vote (which, as a Clark County voter, I already have) and that could be enough to secure Harry’s win.

Simply put, we won’t know for sure the results until the morning of November 3rd, no matter how much money we funnel in any given direction.

(Of course, everyone reading here probably already knows everything I said, but it can’t hurt to put out the reminder. Elections matter. Local elections matter a lot. Candidates should court votes — court intelligent voters — and not 11th hour campaign cash.)

By: TheBrummell

TheBrummell — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 22:10:48 +0000

Does anyone else find it strange that money and votes are considered to be so tightly correlated (even positing a causative relationship)?

What’s the slope of that regression – I want to know dollars per vote. I’d also like to know the significance and the correlation coefficient (Pearson’s r or r^2, either is fine).

After all that we can discuss breakfast food flavour, I suppose.