Free Nate Silver!

Nate Silver goes out on a limb and opines that Presidential popularity is tied to perceptions about the economy.  Yes, he knows as well as the rest of us that this is a chestnut, since his post it titled "It's The Economy, Dumbass!".  (I favor "It's Still The Economy, Stupid", but whatever).

So where is the whiz-bang statistical analysis for which Nate Silver is justly famous?  What numbers does he marshall in support of this utterly conventional wisdom?

Brace yourself - we are offered a chart showing poll results for (a) Obama's overall approval rating and (b) approval for Obama's handling of the economy, accompanied by this high-tech analysis:

The two lines track each other uncannily well.

That was easy!  Causation, correlation - who cares?!? 

Is this tracking "uncanny" relative to similar historical poll results for Bush, or Clinton, or Reagan, or anyone?  Who knows?!?

Do either of these uncanny lines track with broader questions about whether the economy is getting worse/better, or whether the nation is on the right track/wrong track?  Don't ask!

Is there even a possibility that people are getting disenchanted with Obama for other reasons and are blaming him for everything, including the gloomy economy?  Don't be a dumbass!

Look, if I had to guess I would back the CW here - it's tough for a President to buck a bad economy, as Carville noted.  But the Shorter Nate Silver would be, Believe the Conventional Wisdom, dumbass!  Geez, why crowd Sully's niche?  There are a million sources for free-floating opinions unsupported by anything - why does 538 want to make it a million and one?

IF THIS WERE MY BAILIWICK...  Here is some Gallup daily tracking data on public attitudes towards (a) the job market and (b) economic conditions.  Based on extensive eyeballometric analysis I would say that the job creation index has been uncannily flat (and negative) since January 2009, while the general economic index has been flat (and negative) since April.  From a different group, the Consumer Confidence index has bounced around 50 since May.

If these tracking polls are useful (IF!), then the public is no gloomier about the economy now then they were six months ago; that sorta suggests that the bloom is off the Obama rose for other reasons, since his approval has fallen from roughly 62% in April to 49% now.  Or one might argue that folks had hope in the spring but come November nothing has changed, although one might think that would have been evident in the economic conditions poll. 

Well.  If I were a whizbang stats jockey I would hop to, rather than recycling the CW and denouncing skeptics as dumbasses.  But I'm not.

HMM:  Gallup touted a "new low, worst ever" reading on their job creation index earlier this week, which touched 8%; the graph still looks flat to me, and they note that the index was at 9% in February.

Comments

[MTF]

You passed over the best part of his post! That was the part where Nate calls for a "jobs bill" as a means of restoring the Democrat's popularity domination. We already got that bill, thank you Nate, in the form of the failed "Stimulus" and we don't need to replay that bill again.

If Democrats cared one whit about jobs, they'd support lower taxes and spending. A "jobs bill" in their lexicon is merely a synonym for buying time, hoping in the meantime that citizens will learn to like relying on government for hand-outs.

[anduril]

I believe I saw somewhere today a suggestion that the Dems might consider shifting some of the as yet unspent stimulus money to things that would employ people, like building roads. As opposed to using it to reward (read: pay off) their core constituencies, I suppose.

[clarice]

there's a difference between causation and correlation? Who knew?

I have another theory --it also uses eyeballometric analysis -chart the number of times Obama is shown bowing to foreign leaders and plot it over a graph of his poppularity.

Or do an apology tour..How many points down is he for each apology about his no good pretend or not homeland.

[centralcal]

Once again, Clarice channels the great PUK! I do love the smell "eyeballometric analyses charts" in the morning (or afternoon, while having cocktails).

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Free Silver?

Insert "Cross of Gold" speech here?

[narciso]

It's not a surprise, despite all the slight of hand, he hasn't delivered on anything. Except a lot of additional bureaucracies that muck up the works.

[Frau Silber]

"Free Silver?"
In my neck of the woods, we get only free cheese. I demand equality for CA; we need that silver to pay our taxes. Cheese, of any kind, is not accepted.

[ben]

Nate is a fraud, baseball statistician turned poll guru. Why anyone cares what he writes is beyond me. Yeah, he was doing ok while he was predicting all Democrats to win all the time, but that lasted for 2 cycles. But his simplistic formula didn't last and now he is just another political hack lasting more than his allotted 15 minutes because he keeps getting quoted. Better off going to Intrade, they don't have any insider or privileged information either, but at least there are some people there putting their money where their mouths are.