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Statistics With Nate Silver: Masters in Business (Audio) · Masters in Business

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: This is Masters in Business with Barry Ridholds on Bloomberg Radio.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: This week, we have a very special guest. And I
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: know I say that every week, but really, this week
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: we have a very special guest. You know him from
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: the five thirty eight blog, formerly of The New York
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Times and now with ESPN, Nate Silver. We had a
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: wide ranging and lengthy conversation about everything from sports to
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: statistical analysis, to politics and campaigns, and given the current
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: madness in the um campaign season, we spent a lot
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: of time talking about what's going on, much of which
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: is really really fascinating. We we went a little long,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: and normally I like to give you a little more
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: details in these intros, but I think this, uh, this
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: podcast stands on its own. We covered everything, so rather
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: than me continually babbling about how fast and in this is,
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: let's just jump right to it. Here's my conversation with
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: five thirty eight Nate Silver. This is Masters in Business
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: with Barry Ridholts on Bloomberg Radio. This week on Masters
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: in Business, my special guest is one Nate Silver. You
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: probably know him from five thirty eight. A quick bit
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: of background about Mr Silver graduated in two thousand from
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: the University of Chicago bachelor's degree in economics, became frustrated
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: by what he was seeing both in the world of
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: sports statistics and politics. Created we'll talk a little bit
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: about Pacoda, which was the baseball statistical system you had
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: set up, and basically said, while stranded in an airport
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: in New Orleans, the idea for five thirty eight popped
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: fully formed into your head. Is that true? I'm not
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: sure fully formed right. There was a certain amount of
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: you know, gumbo and stuff have been consumed, and yeah,
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: and on a slash slash thought lots of other things
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: in New Orleans to but the analysis about about elections
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: was frustrating you. And and obviously five thirty eight is
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: a number of total votes in the US Electoral College,
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: of which you need to sixty nine or two and
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: um and created five thirty eight. Just a quick background
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  Speaker 1: about five thirty eight. In two thousand and eight, it
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  Speaker 1: correctly predicted the winner in forty nine of fifty states
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  Speaker 1: for the presidential election. Uh. It gets licensed by the
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  Speaker 1: New York Times in two thousand ten in anticipation of
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  Speaker 1: the two thousand twelve election, and he basically Nate runs
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: the table in two thousand twelve predicts every state and
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  Speaker 1: the district of Columbia correctly as to the winner of
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: Barack Obama versus Mitt Romney, as well as all thirty
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: five UM senatorial race. I should be correct. The Senate
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: was in two thousand and eight, we had thirty thirty five.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: We missed think two in how dare you sir? Well
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: the irony and we'll talk about this morning ironies and
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: like the fact that you know, uh, because we got lucky. Basically,
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: you know, there's some skill, but there's a lot of lucky,
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: and so let's jump right into that. So normally at
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: this point I say, welcome to Boolberg, but I know
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: you've been here before, and I'm I'm really thank you
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: so much for doing this. I'm really excited. We'll talk
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: a little bit about your relationship UM with various uh
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: statistical approaches, how five thirty eight just blew up at
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  Speaker 1: the New York Times, and how life is currently at ESPN,
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: and then we'll take a really close look at the elections.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: So I'm sure there's a ton of stuff. I would
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: be remiss if I failed to mention that you were
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: named by Time magazine is one of the hundred most
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: influential people in the world, and that your book, The
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: Signal in the Noise was a New York Times best
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  Speaker 1: seller and an Amazon number one pick for Best our
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  Speaker 1: Nonfiction in two thousand twelve. Well, thank you. So so
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: that's really um, we're out of time now, but let's
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: let's let's start with a little bit of of baseball.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: So you develop something called Pakoda. Tell the listen one,
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: it's exactly what that. So Pakoda is a terrible acronymic. Yeah,
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: it's like picture empirical comparison and optimization tests algorithm. But
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: the idea is that couldn't you've come up with something
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: wonkier than that? Yeah, but Pakoda built Pacoda was a
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: baseball player. I played for the Royals, like in the eighties,
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: the Tigers fan and so it was a thorn in
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: the side of the Royals, right, So it was meant
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: to be kind of intentionally self parrying and giffy a
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  Speaker 1: little a little um part of the punt inside baseball,
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: a little inside baseball. Yeah, And that's the thing I
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  Speaker 1: think people don't realize about, you know, kind of what
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  Speaker 1: I do. It's always a little bit very serious work.
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  Speaker 1: But we're not taking ourselves too seriously. But anyway, the
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  Speaker 1: idea of Pakoda was to use baseball is very rich
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  Speaker 1: history to project the future, which is really all you
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: know of Cisco models are really using this history protict
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: the future, right, an extrapolation based on what's the highest
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  Speaker 1: probability relative to what's happened in the past. But in
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  Speaker 1: baseball you have so many good years of data and
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: so many players every season where you can say, you know, uh, taked,
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  Speaker 1: you know current player, right, Curtis Grander cent or whatnot,
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  Speaker 1: age thirty three whatever is for the Mets, and go
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  Speaker 1: back in history and see who were the guys who
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: were like Curtis Granderson at age thirty three and similar attributes,
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: similar history, similar attributes, right, and you can say, okay,
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: so now we can say kind of, here are a
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: hundred different career paths for um, what's the risk of
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: a you very easily could have ended up in a
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: career path where you would have either been in Wall
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: Street analyst or economists because essentially the better ones. That's
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: what they do recognizing the limitations of pretty similar right.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: And we're spoiled in sports in the sense that, um,
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  Speaker 1: so much data is so much data. The data is
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  Speaker 1: so reliable, you know, there's not really a lot of
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: uh uncertainty there in terms of measurement error. Right. Um,
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  Speaker 1: so you get really spoiled in sport and you spend
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: a lot of your time actually testing hypotheses, whereas in
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: most fields, you know, to some extent, including politics, you're
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  Speaker 1: spending nine saying your time cleaning up the data and
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: scratching your head and saying, you know, does this tell
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: us anything at all? We we look at non farm payrolls,
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  Speaker 1: the way it's measured each month has changed and evolved
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: over time. Everybody forgets, you know, this data doesn't go
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: back forever. Was only after the Great Depression, and FDR
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: essentially created the Commerce and Bureau of Labor Statistics Department
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: in order to assemble this data so we can actually
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: so so let's get into a little more details and
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: and we'll we'll come back to Pacoda because it's it's fascinating.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: In two thousand and seven, you're still working for you
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: sell Pacoda to Baseball Perspectives, you're writing for them, and
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: you start posting at the Daily Coast under the name
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: Poblano looking at various um polling data in a way
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: to to, well, why don't I let you describe, yeah,
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: what you're doing? An oh seven? So uh, So, I
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: had worked for Baseball Perspectives for for several years that point,
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: and this was kind of in an era when Moneyball
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: came out in two thousand three, right, fantastic book, the
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: movie was great, great book, and you kind of that
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: triggered a lot of interests and things that Bill James
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: have running about for decades. Actually, metrics has been around
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: for yeah, it seems like forever. But you saw how
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: much of an impact that had both on the game itself,
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: the way the game was played, and the way the
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: game was covered by the media, and it seemed like
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: there was very little of that in campaign coverage at all. Um.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: So I kind of started anonymously a daily coast, uh,
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: kind of writing these little things about about the two
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: thousand and seven primary between Clinton and Obama. Um and
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: eventually said, you know, I kind of want to be
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: on my own here, and so I launched five dot
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  Speaker 1: com in March two eight. You're listening to Masters in
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: Business on Bloomberg Radio. My special guest today Nate Silver
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: of five thirty eight, the man who correctly predicted just
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: about every race that mattered in two thousand and twelve
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: and came pretty darn close, and in two thousand and
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: eight got just about everything right then. So you launched
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: the side in o A. You do a great job
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: with the election in oh eight, uh, not only determining
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: who's going to win the Democratic primary. So a lot
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  Speaker 1: of your insights turned out to be very prescient on that.
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  Speaker 1: But then you do the head to head between Obama
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: and McCain and Hillary McCain and tell us what you found. Well,
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  Speaker 1: I mean, two thousand and eight was not really among
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: them more suspenseful general elections. Um, I guess early on
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: in March when I launched, uh, it was a little
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: bit closer. But historically polls in March don't tell you
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: very much, right, And that's one of the things you
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: talk about very often, which I think a lot of
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: people don't really pay attention to us, which is, hey,
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: here's the polls, but at this stage don't give us
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: at election cycles are really really long thing, right, And
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: we spend this country, in this country, the UK, they
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: don't understand it's five and a half weeks and they
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: spend nine million dollars and They look at us like
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: what crazy? But here we have it's a two year process, right, um,
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: and we probably spend eighty percent of that time at
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: eight saying you know what, these polls are not very meaningful.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: You should not take them to literally interpret them with
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: a lot of caution. Right. Then at the end we say, actually,
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: when you get after Labor Day, polls do a pretty
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: good track record, right, and pay more attention to them.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: And so but people people don't do that, right, the
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: kind of are too distrustful of the polls in November
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: and much too serious about the polls like now in
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: August of all things, a year before the election. Um,
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: you know, you could go back and look at who
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: was ahead in August of the past nomination campaigns. Well,
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: in two thousand twelve, Rick Perry at this point in
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: time was surging past Mitt Romney. In two thousand and eight,
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: it was Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton. Two thousand and
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: four it was Joe Lieberman and Howard Dean on the
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: Democratic side. Right, Um, so kind of four in a row.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: I'm before that two thousand was a more predictable year,
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: right u. Um, but you know ninety two, Bill Clinton
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: hadn't even entered the race yet. Um, So you know,
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: people kind of ignore history at their at their peril.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: That's fascinating. We'll get to that more in in a
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: later segment when we talk about this carent election. So, so,
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: oh eight comes and goes and you do a you know,
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: killer job. Who else besides The Times approached you? How
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: did that come about? We had four or five or
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: six conversations with different people, and you know, I try
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: and be respectful of those conversations, but there was there
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: was a lot of interest. I mean, I think people
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: knew how big a story two thousand and eight had been.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: You know, for me, it was kind of like it
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: would be useful to have. I mean, I was basically
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: running eight on my own. We had some other part
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: time contributors. I was doing everything from doing the graphics
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: to writing the stories, trying to promote the blog, and
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: it was just a lot of work. And I think, um,
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: that's a nuver used word, but there has to be
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: some synergy between what a contributor might have to say
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: and a big media company like The Times. For example, Um,
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: was that the M I. T. Sloan Business Conference, which
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: is a sports business conference every year and ran into
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: an editor from The Times on a train platform and
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: we really and we talked, and so it's kind of spontaneous, right,
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: a little serendipity and uh yeah, a little serendipity, and
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: it wound up being a really good fit for a
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: couple of years. It was a tremendous fit. And if
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: memory serves something like in the height of the election
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: the I'm sure I'm destroying the statistic, but you were
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: twenty or of the total New York Times web traffic.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: I think, you know a second, it's a little at
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: a peak. At a peak, yeah, um, you know, I
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: think on election week something like twenty percent of unique
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: and users at the Times went by and viewed eight Um.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: It was really nice, and it definitely got really crazy.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: I can imagine towards the end of I mean, it's
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: a little bit like this is really self agruandizing, right,
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: but it's a little bit like, um, I feel some
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: sympathy for like Olympic athletes, where you know that every
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: four years their life becomes like a total crazed swamp
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: of although the difference between you and an Olympic athlete,
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: um is that they're training the entire for you. They
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: train the entire for you. You have I need a
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: lot better than I do. But uh so let me
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: ask you about training. Food doesn't matter as much as so.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: You have an undergraduate degree from University of Chicago, great
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: school in economics. I would have assumed it was applied mathematics, statistics,
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: and probability. I know those can be concentrations within economics.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: How did you find your way into this form of
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: statistical analysis? I mean, you have c is a pretty
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: quantitative school in general, but it was really kind of
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: stuff I did outside of of school and outside of work.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: So sports in particular was kind of like a lot
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: of applied statistics. You want to win your fantasy baseball league,
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: you want to win your instate tournament, Brackett. And you know,
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: like I said earlier, the data and sports is so
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: good that it's a good way to train your hypothesis
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: testing skills and logical inference skills and stuff like that.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: But it's all, you know, it's all kind of a
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: passion jacked and also you know, I'm motivated by um
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: there's that cartoon about oh someone's wrong on the internet.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: You can't get to sleep right like I'm motivated by that. Yeah,
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: x K c D one of my favorite come to
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: bed somebody on the internet. But I'm a little bit
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: like the person in that cartoon, right, he's not going
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: to bed because I'm like, boy, you know, you go
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: and read the campaign coverage and in the mainstream press,
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: and it's blatantly wrong think that because somebody saw some
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: one signs and palm beach, that didn't determine who was No.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: I mean they rely on an anecdotal evidence or or
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: the you know what's funny, which to an article about
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: how how Hally Clinton's problems are at least as far
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: as the Democratic primary concerned, a little bit overrated. But
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: I went back and looked at the kind of coverage
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: of past campaigns like two thousand, Al Gore versus Bill
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: Bradley and theme for themes, sometimes almost word for a word.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: You can see the same stories written, and the fact
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: that people kind of forget that history, right. It's not
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: it's not forgetting right. I mean, they're really smart people
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: working on on campaign coverage, but there's an insane have
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: to to tell the story and to sell the story
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: in a narrative format, and a narrative format, and that's
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: kind of for me. Campaign journalism's original sin, right, UM
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: is it's like a baseball season where things play out
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: really slowly. It's a really long season. Not that much
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: happens from day to day. Maybe you'll have a few
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: genuine events that are um, upset the apple cart, but
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: not many. But it's hard to write every day of
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: the story. Like you know, today people campaign and nothing
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: of importance happened. Right. So, in the last minute we
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: have in this segment, how did you end up finding ESPN?
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: I'm going to assume your love of sports has made
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: that a really strong fit. Yeah. Well, there were a
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: couple of reasons. I mean, afterlve the contract with the
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: New York Times, UM expired and we again UM we
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: the Royal We meaning me and my lawyer and whatnot,
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: talked to six or seven different companies, um, you know,
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: but ESPN offered a couple of things that were unique.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: One is that they realize that I'm not just about
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: politics that to some extent, I want to hedge and
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: diversify what I'm doing because we did get lucky in um.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: Another thing is that you know, they have the resources
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: to invest in a company that can grow at a
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: sustainable rate and UM and evolve a little bit. Right.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: We have twenty five or thirty people now working for
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: us at at UM. You know it's sustainable. We we think,
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: we hope, I mean, you know, we say, hey, look,
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: our traffic is growing. Therefore can we hire this person
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: who will help us to keep that growing? Um. But
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: you know, that kind of more entrepreneurial attitude, I think
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: is is a good fit at ESPN. You're listening to
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. My special guest this
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: week is statistical wizard Nate Silver On, the man who
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: correctly forecast the O eight and twelve elections. Let's talk
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: a little bit about baseball. So here we are. This
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: is being recorded in middle August. What stands out this
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: year is statistically aberrant or interesting or unusual. I think
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: you actually look at the preseason predictions and thank I
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: don't have to make these anymore. They've had one of
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: the more inaccurate years in a long time. A lot
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: of the set systems said the Royals um were likely
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: to regress heavily to the mean not so much, and
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: they haven't. Right. Um. You know, the Nationals, I think
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: we're supposed to win nine games and they're struggling, uh
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: to break five d Right now, you've seen the Mets
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: to pretty well, which is um, maybe not that's shocking,
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: given how it is New York. You're waiting for the
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: late season collapse. But given how much talent they had
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: in their farm system, maybe not that shocking. But it's
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: come maybe maybe the first time that's look at all
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: this talent. Well, look, we'll see how it goes. And
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: you know, finally teams have learned how to manage their
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: young pictures a little bit better and a little bit
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: more cautiously. Maybe, and we'll see if this is sustainable
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: for the Mets or not. But that's a little bit different.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: You mean, not ruining them early on. It's not ruining uh,
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: not ruining them early on like the famous like Triple,
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: the van Popol years or the Jason if Ringhausen crop
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: and you know, um, so so far it's gone well
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: for the Mets with their with their young pictures famous
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: last words. I guess we'll we'll see how long that
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: that stands. Earlier, we were talking about Pakoda. Um. I
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: didn't realize that was just pictures. I thought that was players.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: Is so start out with pictures, the idea being that UM,
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: pictures are much harder to predict than hitters. UM. And
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: so I thought this is later more. Yeah, what why
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: is that? Uh? For a lot of reasons. One is
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: that kind of measures of pitching are more indirect, Right,
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: like if you look at wins and losses, well, it's
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: conditional on how many runs you give up and how
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: many runs give up? Is it conditional on how many
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: hits you give up and how many walks you give up?
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: So now we know a lot. But you would think
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: you would think pitch is thrown and strikes versus balls.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: And but ten years, ten years ago, this is not
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: where the state of the art of thinking was. And
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: also we didn't actually have data like now we can say, oh,
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: you know what, um, Jason Berlander, he's not the picture
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: he winch was. We can actually say, well, now he
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: doesn't throw as hard as he wins did write you
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: have data on every pitch and what the velocity is,
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: what the speed is, what a picture is doing on
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: different counts. Right. UM, So now the pitching UH, forecasts
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: have come a long way past Pakoda. But you know
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: the other thing too, is that pitching is kind of
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: an inherently unnatural act on a on a picture's arm. Right, Um, Okay,
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: I I pitched in high school, so i'll uh and
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: you know I have the torn real rotated to prove it.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: But I'm not gonna argue with you whipping a ball,
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: whipping your shoulder around that way for ninety or so
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: throws a game is is not what normal you could
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: You could throw a spear if you're out in the
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: on the savannah hunting mammoths, but you're not gonna throw
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: a spear nineties seven times. The pictures, Yeah, pictures. And
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: you know, even though now pitch counts are monitored more.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: Now every pitch, every at bat is contested so much, right,
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: and the strikeout rates are so high. There are a
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: lot of pitches per plate appearance. Obviously, there's a lot
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: of focus on taking walks and played discipline. Um. The
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: thing about pitching that people realize now, maybe not ten
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: years ago, is that a lot of what people think
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: of as pitching is really positional defense. And you've seen
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: phases evolved. Kind of in the early moneyball days, people
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: were like, well, it's hard to measure defense, Therefore, let's
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: just kind of ignore it and put a big lot
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: of big, clunky, chunky out fielders out there, and they'll
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: hit a lot of home runs, right, And then teams realized, um,
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: you know, actually a lot of this is positional defense,
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: Like really the impact of having a good center fielder,
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: a good tes not necessarily the slugging sort of batter
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: as they used to be, but the difference between a
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: hundred yard blooper over the UH over the second baseman's head,
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: depending on where it goes, is either an out or
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: a double. And the funny thing sasonally the same bad
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: contact with the ball. I mean, if you save uh,
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: you know, twenty hits a year with your defense, I mean,
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: you know, if you've got treen or hits a year
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: with your batting average, and that translates to what forty
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: points of betting average, right, So it's really pretty significant,
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: and the differences can be that large. But you know,
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: one one thing to remember here is that there's always
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: the peril that people think, oh, if you can't measure
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: something there, for it's not Wharton. And once we got
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: better locational data, we can actually say, oh, now we
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: can actually physically measure how much range uh Lorenzo Caine
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: covers or whatever. Right, we're no longer guessing, and it's like, boy,
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: those are some pretty big differences. Actually. So recently on
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: there was an article about tennis gets essentially the Moneyball treatment.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: What other sports will benefit from this sort of statistical
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: analysis that currently are are escaping its gaze? I mean
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: in terms of kind of what sports are on that
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: nice part of the learning curve. Um, the NBA is
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: one of them, certainly. I mean, you know, teams like
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: the US TO Rockets are run by Darryl Moore, isn't
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: m I T guy? Right? Um, you know, we're actually
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: introducing a kind of basketball version of pakoda um called Carmelo,
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: which will debut at some point the next Oh gosh,
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: it's a very clever acronym. It's like career arc regression
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: estimate something like that. But a lot of layers in
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: Carmelo were good with very geeky words. Um. You know,
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: soccer is a sport where there's been very little data collected.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: But now you see teams in the Premiership have their
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: their stet heads and whatnot. And obviously the magnitude of
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: the economy of soccer is so enormous right where um
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: where you know that might be the next frontier. You're
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. My special
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: guest this week is statistical wizard Nate Silver. And here
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: we are towards the end of the summer in and
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: we just had the Republican first debate, and we're looking
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: at Iowa and New Hampshire coming up. This is quite
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: a fascinating electoral season, isn't it. Yeah, we've never seen
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: so I know, Um, I'm being a little bit anecdotal here,
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: but the type of um traffic that we're getting on
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: our politics articles in August, which is historically this August
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: year before, Yeah, a year before this is historically about
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: the slowest time of the year for politics news or
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: hard news in general. Right. And it's it's kind of
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: like it's September of the election year, right, it's not
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: the November peak. But like you know, um, people are
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: fascinated by Donald Trump, by Bernie Sanders, um in a
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: way that's way ahead of where things were at twelve.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: So I kind of conflicted here. On the one hand,
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: it's probably good for business. On their hand, it's a
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: little maddening, right, And I think, you know, so much
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: of what we say at is slow down, right, this
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: is not gonna unfold today or next week or this month.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: It's gonna take a while. Slow down, take the long view,
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: don't hyperventilate about this stuff. And so they're conflicting impulses here.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: I say that about stock markets all the time. It
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: is it is people wanted, like the hairs on fly
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: Apple is down. Part of this that you have this
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: whole industry of commentators who are asked to say, weigh
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: in on what happened today, right, and are very close
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: to the subject matter. Um, and you know, so to
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: a first approximation, you might learn more about the campaign
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: if you went on vacation for for a month right now.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: We just love when reports. We'll get back on Twitter
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: and they say, oh my gosh, you know we're still
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: talking about Trump now. It's like, well, yeah, let's let's
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: talk about Trump for first. What does he do to
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: the calculate? Really, the first question is how unusual of
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: a candidate is he? So I'd say, right now, he's
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: not quite as unusual as people would say, at least
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: if you kind of made him a ciscal data point
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: right in the sense that first of all, we had
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: in UM four or five different Republican candidates from Michelle
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: Bachman to New ging Rich, who surged Herman Kaine in
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: the polls to about where Trump is UM and then
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: faded UM, sometimes rapidly sometimes slowly after that. But there's
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: also another tradition of kind of gadfly entire sufficient candidates
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: like Pat Buchanan which Trump belongs to, to UM, you know,
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: and some of them were able to hold on to
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: a segment of the Republican base UM through Iowa and
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: New Hampshire. So I don't discount the possibility that Trump
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: could be with us for for a long time. I
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: do discount the idea that he could ever become the nominee.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: Or you think it's highly unlikely that Donald Trump will
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: be the Republican nominee. Yeah, I mean I put the
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: chances recently at which is when you kind of go
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: through and say, well, they're basically six different hurdles that
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: he faces, and say he has shot of clearing a hurtle.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: Then you get to you know, one and sixty four chance,
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: which is, you know, right, that's that's pretty fascinating. So
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: what about on the other side, Bernie Sanders, what does
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: he do with this calculus? So socialist running for press,
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: socialis running first time in half a century. I mean,
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: the funny thing is, you have all the media hype
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: is about um a Democrat who's not even officially Democrat
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: and Republican who, let's be honest, it's not really even
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: a Republican, right, you know, I never thought that, but
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: that's absolutely true. Um, I think the Bernie Hillary race
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: is a lot more typical in some ways, where you
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: have someone to the far left of a Democratic candidate. Yeah,
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: and if you kind of mapped out and kind of
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: um actually mapped out in a very mathematical way, kind
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: of where our Democrats preferences, then you know about a
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: third of the electorate would say we're closer to Bernie Sanders.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: He's not quite there yet in the polls, but it
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: would not be surprising if he got a third of
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: the vote nationally. And the thing is, though, Um, Iowa,
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: New Hampshire, you have a lot of liberals, and you
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: had a lot of a lot of white liberals, and
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders is doing pretty well with white voters, not
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: so well with his manox African Americans. So um, so
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: it's entirely possible he could win, Um, New Hampshire, maybe
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: Iowa and a few other states could win, Wisconsin and
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: Oregon and states like that Massachusetts. Um, you know, but
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: there was a poll out recently in Alabama which is
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: where Hilly was beating him eighty one to twelve or
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: something like that, like an Alabama football score or something almost. Um,
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: you know. And um, look, what you don't get from
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: kind of reading the press coverage every day is that
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: by every metric she's doing as well as any non
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: incumbent has the stage of the primary. Ever, whether she's
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: beating Sanders by twenty points or thirty points nationally, she's
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: still a way ahead. He's already been endorsed by half
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: of the Democratic Congress, basically. But also that you know,
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: these things tend to tighten if you go back and
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: look at candidates like Clinton in the past. So al
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: Gore UM came within a couple of points of losing
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: to Bill Bradley, right. Um, you know, George Bush and
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: was a sitting vice president, which is kind of analogous
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: to Clinton's position. He finished third in Iowa, lost like
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: seven or eight states. Um, George W. Bush in two
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: thousand was as a much of a juggernaut as you
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: could be. But McCain caught him one a few states.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: So that kind of modal outcome was that is that
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: she does lose a few states, New Hampshire being one
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: of the better candidates, right um, and then by um
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: by February March of next year, we're like, you know,
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: what was all the what was all the fuss about it?
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: She's also out raising him monetarily and the money and
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: the money helps too. It might stay with Jeb. Right,
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: Jeb is the big winner on the Republicans. Jeb has
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: although on the GOP side, Uh, everyone has so much
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: access to capital that that's one of the things that is,
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: I think a little bit different now it used to
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: be that. So look at um Tim plenty uh in
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: two thousand and eleven, right, perfectly plausible Candy Midwestern governor
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: right um, kind of down the middle positions for Republican UM,
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: but he ran out of money, uh, you know, even
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: four years ago, and so he's like, well, I have
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: to put the plug. Um. You know. Now a candidate
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: like Rick Perry who's raised almost no public funds, like
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: a million dollars, which is Um, you know Donald Trumper
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: called that pathetic. I think, uh, you can, you can
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: tap into a superpack. The superpacks no longer are maintaining
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: any pretense of separating their operations from the campaigns. I
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: think there's no um enforceable legal risk there and so
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: his campaign can can continue. But that's why I think,
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: you know, we are a little bit in New Territory
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: with a goop slide, just because you have seventeen candidates running.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: And as much as Democrats might not want to admit it,
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: these are seventeen candidates, a lot of whom have some
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: really impressive credentials, right like governors and centers from big
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: large swing states as our typically pretty strong candidates. Um,
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: of course, like let's stall go Hio then yeah, uh well,
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: um Ka Sick is a candidate who maybe is a
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: little bit of a of a dark horse. Um, he's
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: done something interesting, which is he's invested a lot of
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: money in advertising in New Hampshire. Now, um, the reason
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: interesting forging Iowa and going straight to New Hampshire. Well,
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: I think the goal is actually to get some media buzz, right,
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: because the advertising says that hey, um or the empirical
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: literature says advertising has really short lived effects. Right, you
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: see an ad, you might remember it for a week
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: or two, So you should save your money towards the
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: end and then advertise. But I think he wants to say, look,
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: it's a field of seventeen candidates. I want to stay
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: on the first debate stage, so to speak, get some
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: positive attention, build some momentum. And so he's kind of
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: investing in trying to make a name for himself now.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: But yeah, he is a case and he can say, look,
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: I'm really popular in Ohio. Boy, that happens to be
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: a pretty important state in the general election. Um, And
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: I'll what it indicates that I can I can win
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: over abroad and diverse coalition of voters to um. So
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: you know, I mean there are questions about uh, you know,
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: so I'm skeptical about Trump's chances. There's no one Republican
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: you can point to though and say, boy, they've had
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: a great start to their campaign so far either right, Um,
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: Jeb has kind of faltered on the Iraq question a
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: few other things. I think people were generally unimpressed with
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: Walker's performance. Walker, although I would say, um, Rubio didn't
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: hurt himself yeah, Rubio is Rubio was in win candid
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: where you know I talked about on the Democratic side,
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: come March, we might be saying, yeah, that was kind
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: of obviously I was going to play out right. I
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: think we could say that March of next year. You know, boy,
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: it was clear that Rubio was a really smart consensus choice. Right.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: He's a little bit more relatable than Bush. He's a
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: little bit more electable than Walker. Um, you know, he
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: wasn't panicked about trying to boost his poll numbers in August.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: He waited till towards the end. Um you know, Ruby O,
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: I think I don't know. I mean, you know, Bush
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: has the money, he's a little bit ahead of Ruody
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: on the polls. And no, one can't have a Bush.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: You can't have a Bush Rubio ticket. You can't. Well,
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: there's some machinations about I guess there are some end
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: arounds maybe, but we you know, I don't know all
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: the constitution of details there. But basically the answer is
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: basically no, I think you would not have you could
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: have you know, Rubio and Walker, or Rubio and Kasick.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: You do have a lot of all the way around
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: Kasi Rubio, the senior potentially. So one thing that happened,
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: by the way, is that the GOP had UM a
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: very good election in and then another one in UM,
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: and they won lots of Senate and governor seats and
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: swing states. So you know, that's the benefit now as
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: they have a whole suite of caanics pick for them
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: that are are popular or at least somewhat popular in
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: in big swing states like Florida and Ohio and whatnot.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: Quite quite fascinating. So I just said, Kasi Rubio, how
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: important are the VP choices to the electability or the
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: polling note numbers of either candidate? So history really, VP
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: choices are are not all that important. UM. As best
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: as we can tell, you get about a two or
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: three percent boost in the state where the VP candidate
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: is from sometimes, so even that seems to be fading.
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: Paul Ryan didn't help hit Romney very much in Wisconsin apparently, UM.
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: But there's downside of the VP choice, you know, I
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: think UM, although she was heralded at first, Sarah Palin
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: probably UM wound up further injuring any chance, but came
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: muld have had in two thousand and eight. Uh, you know,
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: we go back to seventy two and Eagleton and Shriver
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: and that whole mess. Um, so you know, some extent
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: making the um the way Obama played it, where you
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: picked this boring, old, safe, safe white guy basically right, Um,
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: but I know there are different ways to do it.
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: We've been speaking with Nate Silver. If you enjoy this conversation,
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: be sure to check out our podcast, where the tapes
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: keep rolling and we keep recording until the guests pass
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: out from exhaustion. If you enjoy this conversation, be sure
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: and check out all of our other interviews. Follow my
• 32:04
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• 32:07
  Speaker 1: on Twitter at Ridhults. Your your Twitter handle is at
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: Nate Silver Silver, Nate Silver Fight. What did somebody else
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: grib Nates at Nate Silver? I think so, yeah, that's
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: that's a shame. I'm sure you're you have the blue checkmark,
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: so you've very got the blue check mark and um,
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: but you know so our website is actually five spells
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: spilled out, not the number. I'm Barry, Ridhults. You're listening
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. All right, welcome
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: to the podcast portion of our show. Nates, thank you
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: so much for doing this. I'm really I'm excited about
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: this and I've been looking forward to for a while
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: for having me my pleasure. So there's so many different
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: questions we we didn't get to that I really want
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: to talk to you. This is the big, big one
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: will save. So the one quiet Mike bat Nick in
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: my office is, uh said you have to ask him
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: this question, and it's how important are managers to team's
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: successful failure? And how do we measure that statistically? So
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: in in baseball in particular, I think you can talk
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: football also because that that that comes up quite often.
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: I think in baseball, First of all, the strategic choices
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: of manager makes are not very consequential, right. Really you
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: can debate like, oh, how MU should you sack bunt
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: or you know, um, some guys now have the picture
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: hitting a The impact of that stuff is probably not
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: more than a couple of wins a year over a
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: hundred two games season. Um. What I think is understudied is, uh,
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: how much influence a manager has on getting the best
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: out of his players? As simple as that sounds, right, Um,
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: you know there's been some studies done in the NBA.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: When you say take a preseason prediction about a guy's
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: ciscal line that doesn't know who the manager is. And
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: then how often does uh, Gregg Popovitch, for example, get
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: his players to outperform that prediction, either by by improving
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: their skills or I fit up feeling a all better
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: than the answer is, you know, routinely the Spurs and
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: way that's disically significant beat their kind of raw um
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: projections from name, not scars from Vegas. Vegas can account
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: for that um, but from like a naive algorithm. Right,
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: and so I've not seen that done for baseball, and
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: I'm sure someone has, but kind of saying, you know,
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: who really motivates their guys to do the best, that's
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: still kind of a black box a little bit. That's fascinating.
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: I have a mixed um relationship with sports books. Some
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: are better, some are worse. The one that I really liked,
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: which is right up your alley. Did you read Tom
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: Coughlin's book on the Right to Win? Former coach? I
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: did not know. So the one statistical thing that stayed
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: with me from that book that was so fascinating. I
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: don't remember which player was complaining about it, um, uh
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: center linebacker. That was you know, they would run a
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: whole bunch of numbers for every opponent on second and long.
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: Here's what they like to do on third and one,
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: here's what I like to do on in the red
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: zone late in the game. Here's what they like to do.
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: And they they would just bury these guys who just
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: weren't used to this sort of mathematical stuff. And he always,
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: I wish I can remember who it was, which giant
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: um that one a championship with him, and complained about
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: this constantly, and then gets traded somewhere else and it's
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: you know, third and one. He goes, all, right, what
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: are they gonna do? And I don't know? And it
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: dawns on him that, oh, this conkling cockling guy was fantastic,
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: that that data was really helpful to know what the
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: Certainly it's not a sure thing, but hey, they like
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: to do this at at third and one. And I
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: got to think that that how do you measure? Yeah?
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: I mean football is a different story, right. I think
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: everyone from stat heads to UM coaches themselves would say
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: that NFL coaches are pretty darn significant. Yeah, look at
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: get the Seattle UM the Super Bowl. This year. Yeah,
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: you know, well, so this is you know, we would
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: say that there was some very long announced we did
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: that the choice that Pete Carroll may was fine, you
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: defend that, right, I see, I looked at it as
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: he was playing a U a high risk, lower probability game. Consistently,
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: if you look at a lot of the choices that
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: were made, you start to veer into the anecdotal Well
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: what about this and why did they run here? And
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: why did they But you know, something like one percent
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: of passes get intercepted in this situation, so it's kind
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: of a a rounding error really, and there's a lot
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: of kind of you know, post facto sure analysis. Right,
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: no one would ever have complained about that play call
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: for a second, if he caught the past, if it
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: was if it wasn't intercepted, it's a whole different Well,
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: to the to the victors not only goes to spoils,
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: but the opportunity to write. Um, So we we mentioned intangibles,
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: how do you measure the intangibles of a player? And
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: and again mentorship, attitude, locker room behavior. Can you ignore
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: these things? What do they actually actually mean? So I've
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: been thinking about ways to kind of set up a
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: um uh verifiable experiment for this, and one might be
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: if people identify in advance, say twenty baseball players they
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: think have strong or weak leadership, and then see what
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: happens when they change teams and as there's some residual
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: value you can identify, but you know sort of that
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: can you really another ways unless you really run a
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: control group, it's pretty hard to. In baseball performance is
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: pretty individualized. Like the NBA is different the NBA. The
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: whole challenge the NBA is you have um you know,
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: one possession per possession, right, one shot per possession. You
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: have to get the guys to cooperate. They have selfish
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: incentives to each take the shot and boost their stats
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: or whatnot, right, And so that makes coaching important, It
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: makes um chemistry important, and you can to measure this.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: You can kind of say, uh, what residual value is
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: there when a guy is on the court or off
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: the court. And there's some better and better methods for
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: doing that. Now it's some of the guys who UM
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: who play twenty five minutes a game, they're like, oh,
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: they're defensive players. It might have been ten years ago
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: that the stats were like, oh, this guy can't shoot right,
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: you can't really do anything. And now we're seeing actually
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: they often do have a big impact on the game.
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: But baseball I'm a little bit more more skeptical, in
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: part because I think sometimes, um, sometimes the guys who
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: um have a rep for being good clubhouse guys are
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: just guys who are friendly to the media. And that's
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: a slightly different thing necessarily. Sure. So in basketball, you know,
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: I always as a nick fan who always felt thwarted
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: by the bulls under Michael Jordan's I always a picture
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: him as a guy who doesn't put up with any
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: nonsense in the locker room, and he demands top performance,
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: and he drives the rest of his team the way
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: that Patrick Ewing never did. It's arguable whether anybody since
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: Michael Um, since um, anybody in the Lakers ever did this,
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: since Magic Johnson. Um. You know, you don't really know,
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: you don't really see Kobe Bryant is that sort of player?
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: Is that just anecdote? And and after the fact, or
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: did he? Is he the sort of guy that really
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: had that impact? And is there any way after the
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: fact we can we can determine that. I mean, one
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: weird thing about and I grew up a Pistons fans, so, um,
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: you know, everyone hated Michael Jordan for reason or not.
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: I remember in the in the final Championship E one
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: was it I kind of involuntarily found myself rooting for him, right,
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, I can't root for Utah, come on, right, Um?
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: But those contents and letters to Nate Silver at ESPN
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: dot Com. One thing that I think helped Jordan's reputation,
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: apart from being maybe the best best player of all time,
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: that he didn't have a lot of near misses, right
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: you know, Uh, the Bulls were probably the favorites and
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: five out of the six UH championship seasons where they
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: won the championship, right, um, but they were blown up
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: in a hurry, right Um. The year before they won
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: their first one one, it was a really strong time
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: for Eastern Conference kind of sat out the year and
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: a half, right Um. So for some reason, it almost
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: feels to me like if Jordan had UH won five
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: championships and ten tries, he would look worse than six
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: out of six. But that's a pretty petty complaint. I mean,
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: you know, Jordan had an amazing career. One reason I
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: kind of like the NBA and contrast to other sports
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: where there's so much randomness, is that in the n
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: b A there are not very many undeserving NBA champions right,
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: we saw in the not a lucky call or a
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: bad bounce or something like that in tennis. Really, if
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: you want us opens coming right, um, but you have
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: to earn the NBA championship. We saw in the NBA
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: Finals last year the Calves playing the absolute best of
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: their ability and they can win. They can win two
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: close games, right, It's really hard to win a seven
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: game series against the team when you know your second
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: base player, best players j R. Smith or something more
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: power to j R. Smith. But but so in other words,
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: Lebron doesn't have the same supporting cast that Jordan's did,
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: and the Calves need to do some offseason. Well they've
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: done some stuff, they need to do some more. I
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: mean everyone's if everyone's healthy, they're a good team. I
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: mean it should be really fanned. That's a great era
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: for the NBA. By the way, between the Spurs and
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: the Warriers and the Calves, um, you're gonna have three
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: great teams are all very different, looks different stylistically, so
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: you know, Um, you know, my boss just signed this
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: big new NBA contract. Should have a great season coming ahead. Um,
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: and you said you mentioned tennis. Let's talk a little
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: bit about some of the the male players who I think.
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: It's been fascinating watching this go back and forth between
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: uh Na Doll and you know, go down the list
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: of the top five players. There's been this sort of
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: rotating how fast do the skills deteriorate? At age thirty?
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: It seems like these guys peak nine and then they start,
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: you know, just losing it a little bit. I think
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: twenty eight or twenty I might even be a little
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: bit early. Obviously, you have guys like Samprus that held
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: an agacy that held on for for longer, but maybe
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: more like like twenty five. I mean, I go to
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: the US Open every year. I'm not a huge tennis fan,
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: but I think people who are watching on TV don't
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: realize how physically demanding it is. A five set match,
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: right Um, in the heat in in New York in September,
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: or in Australia and in the you know what summer
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: down there, right Um, these guys are hitting at a
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: hundred thirty d and it's insane. And where that there
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: the guys now actually play a you know, really good
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: defensive game. Um, you know, very very challenging if you're
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: not absolutely in the top of shape. Right, And so
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: in general happens is that for you look at baseball
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: where the data is good or something, Um, you know
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: the average player peaks at twenty seven. What that really
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: is is at your fiscal attributes probably peak actually at
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: at age twenty three or something. Your mental attitudes keep growing. Um,
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: that makes up for the physics you have the best
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: overall combination for And if three of these guys peak
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: at twenty if you look at like an NFL running back,
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: and um, guys were just kind of purely about brute
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: strength and how beat up or not your body is. Right,
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: Very often in NFL running back is as best as
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: we'll ever be in his rookie season. Right. There's a
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: quarterback conversely, where obviously the arm streak matters, but the
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: mental parts important to a quarterback. Of course, those guys
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: can be perfectly good, sometimes even better in their thirties.
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: You could, you could deflate football's way into your thirties.
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: You can keep it. You could. I don't think there's
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: in any age limitation. But I love the stories about
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: Jerry Rice about how he used to train in San Francisco,
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: and you talk about the mental out of it. He
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: used to invite people from the opposing teams to train
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: with him, and he would just run up and down
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: the hills of San Francisco and he would destroy these guys.
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: They like could not keep up with him, and then
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: they seem on the field and they would be horrified.
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: Stop and think about that sort of head game. I
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: just find that, uh, fascinating. But he's a guy whose
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: career went you know, quite quite deep into his thirties.
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: That's um. Is that unusual for a receiver for receiver is? Yeah,
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: receivers are not quite as early peaked as running backs.
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: But um, but you know they're definitely mid to late
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: twenties for for the most part. Well, that that's amazing. Um.
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: So tennis we mentioned is the is one of the
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: next things. And soccer, how are they going to change?
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: How are you going to change the statistical analysis of
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: of World Cup football, of of soccer? Well, how do
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: you how do you look at that? Um? I mean
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: historically the only data that was collected, we're just goals
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: and bookings and yellow cards and and red cards. Right,
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: that's it. That's changing now though, Right So now, um,
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: you know in the big four or five leagues in Europe,
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: paying what you think of the French League? Um, you
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: know you have lots of real time data collectives. And
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: now we ran a big article and we know Messy
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: I remember that where it's like he actually is saying, now, okay,
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: now we can actually measure all these things that we
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: thought of as intangibles before, right, like how well does
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: he set up his teammates, how much space does he cover?
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: Some things are actually a little bit kinter intuitive, like
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: I think Messi doesn't cover that much territory. He's very
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: much kind of thinking about how can I have the
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: most impact and being in the center of of the
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: pitch more or less to kind of be the focal
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: point for for the offense. Um. But yeah, I didn't
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: play in the World today Messi for sure. Yeah. I mean,
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: and people people don't realize how good he's amazing he is. Yeah.
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: I'm a World Cup fan for a long time and
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: I find it fascinating and I wish we had the
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: World Cup every uh every two years. I actually went
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: uh to the Women's World Cup and in Canada, which
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: was a ton of fun. Right, Um, to see Americans
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: actually win something at soccer was spectacular. So, UM, all right,
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: so let's see what else we've forgotten or I skipped
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: over in the prior segment. Um, So we'll save the
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: election stuff for a little later. And I'm gonna I'm
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: gonna touch that. We did that, we did this. Wow,
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: there's so much stuff I could I could stay on
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: sports for a long time, but I want to. I
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: want to bring it back to um, bring it back
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: to to what you're doing with five thirty eight now
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: and a little bit of the history with that. So
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: your name to one of Time magazines most influential people
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: in two thousand and nine. Then comes the Times, then
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: comes the the election. Personally, what's it like blowing up
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: like that? I mean, I used to be disorienting and
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: kind of like what's going on? So one thing is that,
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: um two twelve, you're so busy that you kind of
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: don't have time to process it almost all really, so
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: he doesn't, Well, my book came out in September two
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: thousand twelve. Um, and so you know the combination of that,
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: and of course the you know Penguin. My PR people
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: had me doing shows like this like like every day
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: pretty much, right, and then there was random stuff. Hurricane
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: Uh Sandy hit at that time, so also's going on.
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: I was like kind of commuting in the dark from
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: my uh apartment then in Brooklyn to to the New
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: York Times office sort of do a media hit or whatnot.
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: It was just kind of crazy time and then you
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: emerge from it. And I was like at some conference
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: in Chicago the weekend after the election, and it was
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: like like every time I got the elevator, someone would
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: like recognize me and be like, hey, are you Nate Silver? Right?
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: And that was that was that's pretty weird. Yeah, so
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: I do less TV than I used to. But the
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: one place that I got to ask, if you have
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: this experience, if you ever check a bag when you
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: fly and you're waiting by the carousel, you're just fair game.
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: You're you're fair game. For some reason, it happens a
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: lot in airports. I think a lot of people watch
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: serious quote unquote TV and and airfats on the planes.
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: But um, but it definitely there's a half life based
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: on how recently you've been on TV. It probably happens,
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: you know, a couple of times a month still, but
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: not daily it used to be used to be. Yeah, yeah,
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: and certainly we may we may see that pick up
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: again towards next year, towards we'll see that although I'm
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: trying not to be uh, I don't know, I'm trying
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: not to overexpose myself too much. That makes sense, And
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: part of it is that you know, you've probably learned
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: this too. But if um, if you have your own
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: platform right and we have the opportunity to reach a
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: very large audience at five eight every day with the
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: writing and the stuff we produce in house podcasts and videos, um,
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: you get very finicky about how you're presented. You know.
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: It's really easy to kind of come across as oh,
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: here's this kind of you know, NERD is a know
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: it all and you know, and we trying to have
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: a little bit more subtlety and how we're presenting our
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: view of how campaigns and elections work and so you know, um,
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: so I'm trying not to uh go to overboard with
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: the with the media stuff. So what I certainly wouldn't
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: argue with Nerd. However, you never struck me as someone
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: who presents himself as a know it all. In fact,
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: your whole approaches. We don't know what the future can bring.
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: We don't understand which of these polls is gonna actually
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: be right. However, we can look at statistically taking the
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: average of all. Do you see how that didn't did
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: in the best adjusted for some minor modifications, and come
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: fairly close to the actual outcome. That's a humble approach,
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: not an arrogant. Appreciate that, thank you, But right, was
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: that part of the plan? So I think it's you know,
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: it's kind of how do you wait, what's your baseline?
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: Prior's right? Um? You know in a general election, the
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: prior in a campaign where the incumbents running is that
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: the incumbent will probably win unless things are pretty bad.
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: In an election with the incumbent, it's probably this is
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: going to be really close, right, Um. You know in
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: a primary it's maybe a little bit more difficult, but
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: you know, the history is that the establishment usually wins
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: the primary. In the primary, Um, you know, the candid
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: who it's a consensus building process, a nomination process. Literally,
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: it is a democratic party's nomination and the gops to
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: bestow they kind of set the rules for how delicates
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: are allegated and what happens. Right, So they have a
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: lot of influence on the a lot of influence, right.
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: You know, if the GOP doesn't want to nominate Donald Trump,
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: it's actually not a popularity contest, Right, they can make
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: it very difficult for Now and Crump to do it.
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: And there are maybe one or two cases. So McGovern
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: in seventy two, UM was very smart about getting UM
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: a lot of grassroots support from people who would be
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: delegate at the Democratic National Convention and kind of UM
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: he had designed the system for how delicates re alligated
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: and so he really knew allocated, so he knew how
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: to UM how to work that system really well. But
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: seventy two is kind of the only example of where, uh,
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: the inmates started burning the asylum. What about oh eight, Um,
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: wasn't Hillary sort of ordained in advance and sort of that?
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: So I'm upset the apple card a little bit. So
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: Clinton in two thousand and eight had ah, you know,
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: at this point in the race, like a ten or
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: fifteen point lead over Obama. This year it's kind of
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: a thirty point lead over Bernie Sanders. But it has
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: more let's do with Hillary and more to do with
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: uh with Barack Obama versus versus Bernie senators where Barack
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: Obama represented a whole, huge, kind of mainstream part of
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: the Democratic coalition. Um, obviously he did very well with
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: African American voters, which is a huge voting block in
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: the coalition. So you know, um, you can basically split
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: the Democratic Coalition into the third so you can have uh,
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: white liberals, white moderates, and non white voters. Actually it's
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: more of it really, right, and um, you know he
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: had better support across coalitions. But also he about the
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: support from Harry Reid and whatnot. Right, lots of influential
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: people in the dipretic party said said, we have an
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: amazing cadate in Obama, right, and we want to make
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: it a fair fight. Whereas this year there is not
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: a single sitting Democratic legislator excuse me, senator or representative
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: or governor who has endorsed Bernie Sanders, in part because
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: you know, he's not a Democrat. Um, he's seventy four
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: years old. He probably lose general election by by ten points. Right, Um,
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: you know, uh, what about Buden, what about al Gore.
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: Is anybody else got a credible gonna throw that hat
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: in the ring? Or is that just early chatter? I
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: mean I think, you know, let's say that Hillary Clinton,
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: I think it's not likely. Maybe it's a ten percent chance. Right,
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: Let's say these scandals are more serious than they appear
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: to be the email or something else, maybe something else.
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not totally persuaded. So you know, baseball,
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: there's just set value over replacement player. Right, It's like
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: for me, it's like valuable replacement scandal. Right, We're gonna
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: you see over the Clinton's that there's something like slightly
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: funny going on, Right, So maybe something that's a given
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: in Otherwise, Yeah, the placement scandal, I'm not sure that
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: this is that remarkable proved to be, you know, the
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: Republican Control Committee. But I have Republican friends who are
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: in d C who insist the email scandal is totally
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: different than it's. Sorry, this is more serious. You've seen
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: a long decline in Clinton favorability ratings. It's really hard
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: to determine cause and effect and say has that been
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: accelerated by the email scandal or it certainly isn't helping
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: um but overall, you look at markets and their betting markets,
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: their perception of where Hilly Clinton stands hasn't changed. They've
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: had her with about an eight chance of winning the
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: nomination for a long time. It's not been affected except
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: at the margin by by Bernie or by the scandals. UM.
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: You know, Biden, UM or someone like Biden would at
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: least be a little bit different in that UM in
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: that let's say that Clinton is not doing well, Democrats
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: would still, i think, want to intervene to not nominate
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders. Whether they could say, well, Biden, he's fine, right,
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: you know, Biden will give us a shot at least,
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: and so you know, that would be one of the
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: more significant developments so far. From what I've read, it
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: all seems pretty speculative. I think part of what Biden
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: wants to do is say, you know what, UM, it's
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: tricky because it's August right now. It takes a long
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: time to mount presentational campaign. What happens if there is
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: maybe it's the email thing, maybe something new, maybe it's
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: a health problem. What happens if Hiller Clinton, if that
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: happens in November, and then UM and then only Bernie
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: Sanders is on on the ballot, right, then you have
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: a deeply damaged Democratic nominee in Clinton, or someone who
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: the party will not want to nominate in Sanders. That's
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: where you have the kind of break glass for emergency Biden, Gore,
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: John Kerry uh type candidates. Right. Um, And so I
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: think part of what Briden's trying to signal is to say, look,
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: I'm here, I'm around if everything else is going wrong.
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm at least thinking about this. I have
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: a few people who are loyal to me. I can
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: mount a campaign on the fly that's very different from
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: actually run. And the way he sends signals it's very
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: much like kind of his inside baseball you know, Marine
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: Dowds Sunday column Right, those are kind of dog whistles too.
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: I think other Democrats, more than to like mainstream voters, like, hey,
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: if something really goes wrong with Clinton campaign, then then
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: I'm here. But I would say, you know, um, we
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: are speculative or dismissive. A lot of speculation about Clinton
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: is struggling. If Biden ran, that would at least be
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: a more tangible sign that that some influential Democrats are
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: worried about Clinton. So right now. Statistically, if we had
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: a guess, you're guessing Hillary Clinton is the Democratic Yeah,
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: and you know, like I said, betting markets put the
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: chances at eight percent, I put them marginally higher. I think,
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: um you know, and I think of the of the percent,
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: most of it's not Bernie Sanders. Most of it is
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: that um Al Gore, Biden, Biden carry Gore right are
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: the kind of the three people who could step in
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: and in an emergency. So it's fascinating that you say
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: that when we were looking at the O eight election,
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: And I'm curious that you of your perspective. My thesis
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: was at the time, so the Iraq War by then
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: had turned sour, the economy was in a free fall,
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: we were in the midst of a financial crisis. The
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: running on the incumbents track record, I said, no matter
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: who the GOP put up, they're willing to get destroyed
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: by whoever the Democrats put up. But people have argued
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: with me, well, if they would have nominated somebody instead
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: of McCain, and someone less charismatic than Obama, perhaps it
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: would have been a very different outcome. But I mean
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: it was about the most difficult imaginable set of circumstances
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: for the Republicans to win. I mean not that I
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: feel sympathetic for them, because you know, they had a
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: president who made some mistakes, shall we say, but you know,
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: you had the economy collapsing, a very unpopular war, the
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: sitting president had approval rating. Right, it wasn't a hugely
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: low number for a sitting president. You can you know,
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: one could argue about my ship won by twelve points
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: instead of seven or something like that. Right, But that
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: was about you know, there are some years that political
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: scientists debate and say, you know, uh, he kind of
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: was perceived to be kind of still in recession if
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: you look back on revised cistics. Now it was actually doing.
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: The recession was over before anybody realized. But oh way,
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: it's one of those years where I don't know, Democrats
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: would have had to make a huge error. Uh. And
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: in some ways McCain wasn't a bad candidate. He was premoderate.
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: He broke from the GOP in a lot of ways
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: of the the time when that party was really unpopular. Right.
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: You know, um, I thought he was a better candidate
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: in two thousand. He seemed to be less captured and
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: therefore less well, that's part of people are are kind
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: of concerned about which of these seventeen Republicans will get
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: nominated to some except that all kind of get except
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: if it is a Trump or something. Right, Um, they're
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: all going to kind of have the stamp of the
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: party on them anyway, Right, And the ones who are
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: more moderate Jeb Bush at least by the times you
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: gets nominate, would be pulled more toward UM, toward the right.
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: Scott Walker might be pulled more towards not the absolute left,
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: but you know, become a little bit less conservative on
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: some issues, and then they'll kind of go and do
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: what they need to do for the general election. But um,
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: but to some extent um, you know, it is a
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: party driven process, and the candiates own policy positions might
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: be swamped by what the consensus is among Is it
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: still true you you um run the primary to the
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: right and then um run the main election to the center,
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: or for the Democrats, run the primary to the left
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: and then tack to the center. For this, I mean
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: that's the default, right, I mean I think, uh, you know,
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: I think some partisans would say, well, it's all about
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: turnout now, so you want to motivate your base, right.
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: I'm always a little bit suspicious of that kind of
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: the notion that where you can kind of have your
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: cake and eat it too. Right. Um, you know, it
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: maybe works a little bit better for Democrats in the
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: sense that there are just a few more Democrats and
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: the electorate and Republicans, so if everyone turns out, Um,
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: they might have an edge out of those numbers. Different
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: what what's the GOP percentage? And how accurate is is
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: that about independence? I always thought people just angry at
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: their party. A lot of people say their independence aren't
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: really independence, right, but you know Democrats have right now
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: about it five or six point edge and party identification,
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: but it doesn't give them any well, els would be
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: a whole another hour long segment right that time. Um,
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: you know, but there are a lot of qualifications to that,
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: one being that they Democrats get a lot of people
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: who are only marginally likely to vote. Um. You know,
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: if if we had mandatory voting in this country, a
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: lot of things would be different. That's weird hypothetical, right, Um.
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: Without mandatory voting benefit who would benefit Democrats? The Republicans
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: on the other hand, you know a lot of times um,
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: people won't turn out necessarily. Also, one thing that's a
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: little bit tricky is that, um, because the GOP has
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: been unpopular, Um, a lot of people that formally would say,
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm a Republican, now they'll say I'm an independent,
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: but I lean Republicans look at leaners and it gets
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: a little bit closer still. Um. So I couldn't completely
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: relate to that because we were talking before the show.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: I grew up. Jacob Javits was our senator, and that
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: sort of center right republican you Kasik is probably the
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: closest thing we mentioned. You know, Bush has actually surprised
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: me to the extent that, um, he has run pretty
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: explicitly as as a moderate right, which is an interesting approach.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: I think maybe he figures that, look, I have a
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: very long track record in public life, right, Um, I'm
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: not going to fool anyone like Romney tried to do
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: in two thousand and twelve, right, Um, and then looked
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: like a flip flopper in the general election. You know,
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: they're always cases like The one thing that amazed me
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: is that in two thousand and eight, all three of
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: the major Democratic candidates were against gay marriage. Right officially
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: even though Obama had said, like in two thousand two
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: that he was pro gay marriage. Right. So I'm like,
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: you know, are you really fooling anyone? I'm not. I'm
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: not totally sure. And so I think Bush is saying,
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: you know what I am? Who I am? I'm a
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: moderate conservative, right, Um, you know, I'd be very electable.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: Although this is the thing that's tricky for him is
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: usually you'd have a candidate like that, um, like the
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: McCain type candid who's a moderate conservative and they have
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: good UM electability numbers, and Bush because the Bush family
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: name is still not that popular, maybe he's not seen
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: as that relatable. You know, He's head to head numbers
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: are not any better than like the more conservative candidates
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: against Clinton. Right, So let's talk about the head to
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: head numbers. So when we look at Clinton versus fill
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: in the blank, Hillary versus Jeb Hillary versus Rubio, Hillary
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: versus Kasik, who stands the best shot at at winning? Well,
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: this is what we talked about. You know, I probably
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: would not look at those head to head numbers very
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: much right now. They're almost meaningless. Yeah, if you're gonna
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: look at them, you know, candidates who have comfortable name
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: recognition to Hillary, which is kind of almost no one.
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: But you know, for that reason, the Bush number, you know,
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: I would discount almost all of it instead of literally
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: all of it as I might for like Hillary versus
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: Rubio or whatnot. Um, but usually there's correlation between how
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: moderate a guy is and how well he does among independents. Um.
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: You know, because Bush isn't personally seeing that favorably, he
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: might not have that edge this year, which is kind
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: of why I say, if you're Republican, you might say, well, um,
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: you know what, if we look at Rubio versus Bush,
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: then we get a guy number one who's more conservative, right,
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: number two who is actually a little bit more popular
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: with independence, and number three avoids this whole voice versus
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: Clinton dynasty angle. Again, it's not my job to advise parties,
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: but that's what Rubio is one candidate where that you
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: could kind of go back and say, I totally get
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: why they nominated him and what we're all discounting somebody.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: I guess I'm you know, I'm bullish on Rubio's You know,
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: here's the thing that I find fascinating. Bright, Hispanic articulate,
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: like a really like and you know, has almost a
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: Kennedy esk photo genetic photogenic sort of thing. But when
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: you look at his policies and I know the Republicans
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: are I don't remember was you or wrote about the
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: gender gap on the GOP versus Democrats, he is surprisingly
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: hard right. If he was a more centrist, moderate conservative,
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: I would think that he would be the front runner
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: for for getting elected in the general election. Well, and
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: we'll and we'll see, right. You know, one way this
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: could play out, um, is that people sour on Bush
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: and then you'll see Rubio maybe move a little bit
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: to the the center. Despite what he said recently about abortion,
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: no exceptions for rape, incest, life of the mother, Like
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: you don't hear that from mainstream candidates the past twenty years.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: When he is pretty and there are fiscal systems to
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: the try and quantify how conservative people are, and Rubio
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: is very conservative. I mean, the GOP is a very
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: conservative party. So relative to the other seventeen people, he's
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: about in the middle of the GOP field. But he
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: would be, you know, twenty years ago considered very conservative. Um.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: But you know, um who's more to the right of Rubio,
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: So Walker probably, Um, you know Walker is UM far
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: enough to the right where he might kind of compete
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: for votes with UM with Ted Cruz a right and
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: Carson for that matter, right, UM, which you know, maybe
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: isn't a good place to be. There is gonna be
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: some support for candidates like those, I think throughout the race.
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: What's interesting about Trump is that, UM, he's really difficult
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: to peg Ideologically, He's kind of all over the place.
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: And his support too, was all over the place. Right,
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: people with somoa's capturing Tea Party voters not true? Right.
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: That coalition he has is drawn from all different kind
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: of ideological parts the GOP in. What's one reason I'm
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: scipticle by him is that it's also drawn from people
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: who don't traditionally turn out and vote in primaries. Right.
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: It's a lot of people would say, you know, I
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: like that kind of six it to the establishment and
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: six it to the media. Right, they're fascinated by him.
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: You know, does that translate into driving to the Iowa
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: caucus in the snow when you've never voted before. You know,
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: we don't know, there's some reason to be skeptical of that. UM,
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: but Trump is you know, if you kind of if
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: you average out his policy positions, then they're kind of,
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: you know, fairly typical right of center. But that means
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: you have some things that are like radical Tea Party
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: and some things that are like practically like socialists. Yeah,
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: and it kind of averages out um and that is interesting.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, there were some article right today
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: about how um so that was smart, uh, about how
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: usually a candidate is so constrained right, and these disagreements
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: remember in tuth as an eight the Democrats on on
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: healthcare right, Democrats had huge fights about you know, did
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: Obama have a employee mandate in his healthcare bill or
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: a mandate and Hillary didn't. I mean, these are you know,
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: pretty minor differences, whereas Trump is saying, I'm not going
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: to play by those constraints where you can be you know,
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: an eight point two or an eight point five on
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: something right, I'm just gonna be all over the place.
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: And that's how a lot of real people I think
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: to write, um right there, their views aren't necessarily in
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: tonally consistent, So so I would I would dispute that,
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: like I think, you know, I don't think the party's
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: views are that internally consistent either, Like I'm not sure why,
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: you know, policy your views on taxation and gay marriage
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: and um and uber and the war and Iraq should
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: be correlate with one another that much. But you know, certainly, um,
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: you know, these views coalescent to parties and people often. Um,
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: you know, our Democrats are Helbicans for like one or
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: two big issues, and they kind of say, you know what,
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: it's a lot easier to kind of agree with the
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: party on everything. Right, So I kind of disagree with
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: the idea that, oh, um, trumps use are more incoherent,
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: because I don't think anyone's views are all that coherent
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: necessarily right, but definitely it's it's maps differently than any
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: other candidates would. So at this point, given all the changes,
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: well let's let's use gay marriage as an example. Yeah,
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: the Supreme Court has ruled. I thought Case six. Answer was,
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: and by the way, this is a kiss of death
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: if I like you when a Republican primary, you're done
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: last year. I thought, last last election, I'm like this
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: huntsman guy seems pretty yeah, toast, that's the kisses I
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: thought Case six answer was, Oh, that's who the responsible
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: adults on the stages. It's him, So you know, he's not.
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: And a lot of people who are running cases campaign
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: ran Huntsman's campaign. Um, same people. It's a lot of
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: same people. And their strategy is, you know, you want
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: to kind of appealed to to the media. So the
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: first debate was interesting in that, um, you know, the
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: media spam was that case that had done really well, right,
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: And I thought he did pretty well. I personally liked him,
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: But I'm somewhere probably near you want to play the spectrum,
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: and I know, right, um, socially progressive, a little, a
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: little fiscally conservative and and to me, I I've assumed
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: the abortion issue has been settled. I can't believe that's
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: still ongoing. And and now it looks like the question
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: of of nwage equality is settled. And the only one
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: on the stage who seemed willing to say that was Casing.
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: But if you looked at Google searches, which they now
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: releas stayed in real time, Ben Carson was doing really well.
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: People were interested in him. Cross is much less crazy
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: than I expected, not that that's saying any He was
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: pretty he was pretty down, toned down and mellow, and
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: I know I thought that were okay, right, Um, yeah,
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: for sure, when he's gaining the polls a little bit.
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about Carly Fianna, who did really well
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: at the children's tables. People have derisively called it, but
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: I know her as a horrible CEO oversaw one of
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: the worst mergers in technology history, you know, HP and
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: Compact is described like a O L Time Warner. It
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: was just a disaster, and she's laid off. I don't
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: remember the number, a hundred thousand, some huge number. Can
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: she really be a credible candidate given that background, she
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: she's managed to fail And again send your hate email
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: to Nate Silvertie, but I think she's failed upwards and
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: I'm wholly unimpressed with her as a candidate UM or
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: as a as a CEO, as a corporate I thought
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: she did well in UM in the debate and the
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: JV debate. It was very self possessed and kind of
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: right understood the balance between you don't want to sound
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: like a wing nut, but you want to make sure
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: that you're memorable on that stage. People are kind of
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: hap paying attention, you know. I know, I think it's
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: a little bit premature. I think she's um she's not
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: quite yet at the point where you're gonna see a
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: lot of scrutiny. Um. But yeah, there's uh, you know,
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: this is one of the things about comparing like Hillary
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: and Bernie Sanders, right. You know, if you compare a
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: candid who has um received a lot of scrutiny from
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: the media, from other members of their party, from the
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: other party, versus one who hasn't, it's a really apples
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: to or or just comparison. Right. Um. You know, Sofia
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: a Mina has not yet been through that scrutiny phase. Right. Um.
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: If she keeps doing well, then her reward is that
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: she'll she'll then endure that, right Um. But you know
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: it's not I don't know. I would think she would
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: have more chance me the nominee than Trump. Maybe you'd
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: have to think about what about her is the vice
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: presidential candidate. If Hillary is the nominee, put a woman
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: on the ticket, I would imagine that would offset, um,
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: some of the gender gap that is inherent with Hillary running. Sure,
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: although women don't necessarily um support women who aren't good
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: on on quote unquote women's issues, right, I mean, certainly
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: not every woman is pro choice, right, but you know
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: what many are but but many are, right, Um, and
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: so you know, Republican women might have a more difficult
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: time of it than than Democratic women. And what since,
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: uh we're talking about Carly she kind of um caught
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: some positive attention for her comments about the whole Megan
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: Kelly Fox thing. Yea, how does that play into this? Uh?
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: This is one thing that I, uh, one bad prediction
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: we've made, right, I kind of thought that, boy when um,
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: when Fox News started taking on Trump, that Fox were
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: hammering and that Fox News wouldn't back down, and they
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: did back down really really quickly to I mean, so
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: you sound as surprised as I was. Yeah, I was
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: surprised because I kind of thought that. But look, Fox News,
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: like any major media organizations, a complicated place, right. Um.
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: You know, they want ratings and attention. On the one hand,
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: the their hand, you know, um have some influence in
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: Republican politics, so on the some Yeah, on the third hand,
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: you know, you have lots of individual producers, some of
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: whom are awesome journalists and some of them are not.
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: And you know it's a complicated place. But um, but
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: you know, it was funny how explicit Trump was about
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: the quid pro quel like, I got you terrific ratings
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: right and made you all this money, and you're giving
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: me this right and I'm like, yeah, you have a point,
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: you know, And um, you know, it was amazing. I
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: thought Fox did a great job on the on the debate.
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: I watched about an hour of it, maybe a little more,
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: and at that point, you know it started. You know,
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: it's when you're watching a game and it looks like
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: a blowout and all right, I don't need to watch
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: the stay for the fourth quarter. That's kind of but
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: it seemed really interesting. The one name we didn't mention,
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: um who I could give you a whole laundry list
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: of reasons why he's terrible and I don't like him.
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: But I thought Chris Christie did a really good job
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: at the debate. So the Christie story is kind of fascinating.
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: We've been on um on the Chris Christie's toast man wagon,
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: I recall, for a long time before it was cool, um,
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: you know, in part because he's a guy who the
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: party wants, Kenny, who's conservative but also reliable, right, And
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: I think Christie is he is a guy who's not
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: that reliable. He's no longer very popular with independent voters.
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: But but who knows. I I almost think everyone at
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: the office dis agrees with this, right. I think it
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: would almost help Christie if um if he dropped out
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: of the top ten and then had the stage to
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: himself at the next JV debate, right, and could be
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: alpha male and totally dominant. I don't think Christy has
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: is very likely at all to win the nomination, but
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: he's a guy who could have a surge right in
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: the media. The media is fascinated by Christie. He's a
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: fascinating guy. He's great on his feet. I thought he
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: I thought he hurt Ran Paul. I mean, he really
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: came at him hard. And then so there's guys who
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: you know, there's Christie, Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, the three season.
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: You know, they're all in the category of candidates I
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: think could be the next candidate who searches but probably
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: couldn't win the nomination, whereas Rubio Kik kind of slower
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: and steadier. I think Rubio is a one candidate where
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: you get the sense that he's not trying to win
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: the nomination in August, which is probably a really smart
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: thing to do. But my general impression of him is
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: that he's a little young, he's a little green. Some
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: of the other candidates that compared him to some guy
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: at this term in his first Senate term named Barack Obama,
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: which I find am using. But you could see there's
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: a political um uh, there's a wind at his back
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: that that could help him. If not this, uh not,
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: then certainly. Yeah. Though I think one thing a lot
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: of UM Republicans have learned is that UM and a
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: lot of cands have learned is that you know, there's
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: no time like today, right, you know, I'm sure are
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: a lot of candidates this year, UM where you know
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: Rick Perry, who was someone who had one of the
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: better chances to beat Romney until he kind of imploded, right,
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: you know, he was not in the top ten. Rick Santorum,
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: who kind of sensibly finished in second place, was not
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: in the top ten. So there has to be a
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: lot of these candidates now we're kicking themselves and saying,
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: you know what, Um, Romney a little bit underrated as
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: candidate maybe, but boy, you know it was a much
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: easier nomination to win in twelve and probably kicking themselves
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: for not having run four years. Why do you say
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: undernominated as a candidate. I'm curious about that because in
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: the end, it's hard to beat an incumbent president. Um,
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: the economy improved to the point where it was okay.
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: I would take the other start of the arguments, say,
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: when Romney was running against Obama, you had a very
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: unpopular or at least it appeared to be unpopular. Um, Obamacare.
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: It's since turned out to be quite successful. But here
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: was a guy who put Obamacare only was Romney care
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: in his state and the weakest economy, the weakest recovery
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: you've seen in half a century. Certain, it was a gimme,
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: but like like the average elected in president wins the
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: second term by by eight percentage points in the popular vote,
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: No Ababa went by four three point eight or something. Right,
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: So Obama kind of did underperform, But it was a
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: huge electoral college blowout. It was so the electoral college
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: can make It's kind of designed that way to make
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: a relatively small edge and the popular vote be bigger.
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: UM in the electoral college, right, Um, And probably I
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: think his campaign helped at the margin and some of
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: the swing states to UM. But I don't know, I mean, UM,
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: you know, I don't think Romney ran a terrific campaign.
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: I think he was not a disaster though, either. And
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: I think people, um, you know, again, you go back
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: to the fact that historically incumbent presidents are re elected
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: seventy percent of time UM and this was just one
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: of those. And a lot of subtle ways, like going
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 1: into like UM a college football stadium or something, right,
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: UM Michigan Stadium where UM US, at least it used
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: to be University Michigan was tough to to beat there,
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: and it kind of manifests self in all sorts of
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: subtle way us to get better officiating, you know, the
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: playing surface a little bit better, a little bit better
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: under pressure. It's tough to beat an incumbent president. And
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying Romney was the most horrific nominee, but
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: these guys get kind of tarnished with the loser brush
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: or John Kerry is another one where he lost by
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: by two points. You know, people are right in the
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: middle of an active war, which at the time UM
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: that war was somewhat popular, right where the plurality of
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: Americans in the four right six months later, different six
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: months later, I think um Bush might have lost that
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: election was really close. But um, but you know, at
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: the time, the economy was had recovered from a mild recession,
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: um and looked not bad, right, um, you know, and
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: you had a war that was becoming less and less popular.
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: But um it it's easy to have hindsight bias now right.
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 1: And their models part of the two their models that
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: look at factors like the economy measured in various ways,
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: you know, war measured in various ways. Incumbent see and
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: most of them said, oh, you know, Carrie should lose
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: by by several points, and you know he did about
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: as well. I didn't realize it was that close. I
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: thought carry had lost much more substantially Democrats, because you
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 1: do have this kind of tied shifting in how Iraq
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: was perceived and the Bush presidency was perceived, right, um,
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: And I think you had Democrats kind of saying, boy,
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: how can we not win this election? And that's kind
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: of parallel to two thousand. I didn't hear a lot
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: of Democrats saying that to me. I thought it was
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: sitting President nine eleven, still very fresh in memory. You're
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: you're the old expression I kept hearing was you don't
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: change horses mid stream. You're in the middle of an
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: active war, and the tendency is to reelect the income
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: in in the middle of an active war. Is that
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: is that overstating the circumstances. Well, war, it depends on
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: it's a popular war and an unpopular war. Right in
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: Iraq was going from a war that was initially very popular, uh,
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: to one that wasn't And as easy as amazing as
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: it sounds like, it's easy to forget the impact of
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: September eleven, um, you know, and that still cast a
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: real shadow on the way the race was contested to
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: so things about Vietnam and seventy two and next we
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: got reelected. That was a terribly unpopular war by seventy two,
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: by the late sixties it was unpopular. But it just
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: seems to be a sense that's not well. S two
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 1: is one of those cases where the kindo was actually
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: not so bad and seventy to um. But that is
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 1: a case where the Democrats blew any chance they had
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: by nominating McGovern And in this convention where it went
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: until three in the morning that the world gave his
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: speech and they picked a VP who they had to
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: then veto. Right, I mean that was you know. So, um,
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: so people should remember that SENTI Too campaign because it
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: means like you know, this app doesn't always win, right. Um,
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: there is this kind of you know five chance empirically
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: that um that they don't um. But the odds are
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: are you know, certainly in Hillary Clinton's favor uh, certainly
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: against someone like like Donald Trump right where you know,
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: and maybe at the party the GOP is weaker than
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: it once was, but they're going to fight until they're
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 1: dying embers to not nominate Donald Trump. He's kind of
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: a trifecta of things that um that they wouldn't like.
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: Number one, he's not very popular with independent voters. Um.
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: People talk about how you know kind of Trump is
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: extremely he's a new populism take of the country. Well,
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: you know he is really awful. Favorability ratings with the
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 1: electorate as a whole about negative positive right um. Number
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: two he's now that conservative. And number three, you don't
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: know we're gonna get with him, right. Um. So you
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: know there's kind of the three criteria that the party
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: would say, boy, you know it could this could be
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: a real disaster. And and yeah, so gun to the
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: head today you're are you looking at Hillary Bush or
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: Clinton Bush or is it Clinton somebody else? I mean,
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: you know, I kind of think, um, on the GP side,
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: it's about Rubio Walker and other Right, Really, that's fascinating.
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't have thought maybe I'd diminished Walker's chances a bit.
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: He struggled in the polls after the debate somewhat unless
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: he really comes back in the next debate. He seemed
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: kind of soften, not ready for prime And that was
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: some reputation he had, is that this guy is does
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: find one on one but maybe his trouble standing out
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: a little bit. At the same time, you know, um,
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: he's leading the Iowa polls or at least as a
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: leading non Trump candidate, depending on what poll you look at, right,
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: and he kind of is that's a new category. Leading
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: non Trump can today. But you do almost have to
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: pull Trump. It's a little bit how uh, in a
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: weird way with um Ron Paul in two thousand twelves
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: where Ron Paul was going to get of the vote
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: and if the vote were divided evenly enough among other candidates,
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: then um, then that my have been enough to win.
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: He came pretty close, right, you know. You know, but
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: being the leading non Trump Candida. I mean the term
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: front runners used um sometimes in horse racing for a
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: horse that uh jumps out to really quickly, but it's
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: not going to have the stamina stamina to go the distance. Right.
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: And so you know, if you call Trump for front runner,
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: I kind of think in that more ibronic sense, it
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: might be more worthwhile. But you could also hold on
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: to and then not really grow from there. There are
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: a lot of guys that, um, you know again, Pat Robertson,
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: Pat Buchanan, Paul Huckabee, Santaurum. Right, Um, you know you
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: can win Iowa in a field with seventeen candidates, with
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: twenty doesn't mean a lot, you know. One poster recently said, Um, okay,
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: let's just take this down to three candidates. Um, you know, Trump, Walker,
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: and Bush. I think it was and Trump barely gained anything,
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: whereas Walker and Rubio pick up support from the sense
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: Christie's and and the fi Arenas and the whatnot right. Um,
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: And so as that field consolidates, right, then Trump will
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: have trouble or maybe it won't consolidate, but then you're
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: gonna have like know him with a plurality of delegates. Um,
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: this is a scenario that journalists dream of, um, brokered convention, madness,
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 1: brookered convention or at least, you know, maybe resolved before
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: the convention. But and there's a lot of backroom dealing.
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 1: Trump is not going to benefit from that because the
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: Party of Salesman faciates his guts. Right. So, um, you know.
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: But the one thing that would make me more bullish
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 1: about Trump's chances. You hear he's actually investing in staff
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: in Iowa, right, is he or is he not? You
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: never know. It's there's a lot of smoke mirrors with
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: any candy at the stage the race. Um. And also
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: you can invest in something and not do a good
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 1: job of it. Right. But you know, um, you know
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: again the one candidate who defied the establishment and one
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: was McGovern seventy two a long time ago. Very different
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 1: cannate than Trump, very different. Um. But you know it
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: wasn't just uh he got lucky. He had lots of
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 1: grass roots support. He understood how to in caucuses, He
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: understood the delegate rules. He understood you know, party conventions
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: and how the delegates are allocated that the caucus can
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: change later on. Right. Um, you know, so if he
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: if Trump has that side of the operation, really good logistics,
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: and understands the rules and has had a lot has
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 1: a lot of lawyers willing to litigate when the GOP
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 1: tries to change the rules. Then then you know, maybe
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: i'd make his odds six percent instead of two percent.
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: But still, yeah, I think so, Because I was the
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 1: last political question I wanted to ask you was what
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: happens in the head to head between Trump and Clinton? UM,
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 1: I think Clinton wins thirty eight states or something. It's
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: that so so Trump's core audience is his core audience.
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: He's got those folks, but as other candidates drop out
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: of the race, he's not gonna necessarily attract those those voters.
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: Now he's not that popular, right, I mean, you know,
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: again his kind of unfavorable reading ORG about Hillary because
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: she's now like five points it's like, you know, forty
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: to forty two or something. Now right with Trump, it's
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 1: like sixty five to thirty. He is not very popular
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: apart from UM, apart from you know, a certain number
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: of Republicans. Um, of course you could also run as
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: an independent. Is that likely to happen or is that
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: a lot of noise? I mean, ordinarily you'd say no,
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 1: but I think Donald Trump doesn't like to hear no
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: for an answer, right, And you can certainly decide. Um,
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm having too much fun, right, right, And
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: it's gonna be grateful whatever my next show is, when
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 1: it's gonna be great. Right. And he seems like he's
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: a guy he wouldn't mind spying people. You know, It's again,
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: it's not clearly he's really a Republican. Rights Like, Ordinarily
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: a Republican would say, you know, at the end of
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 1: the day, I owe an oath of loyalty to my party. Right,
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 1: Trump might say, you know, I don't care if it's
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: Jeff Bush or Clinton, right, or Rubio or Clinton. You know,
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: it's all the same difference to me. Right, I'm so
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: all over the place, So so I don't know. You know, Um,
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 1: there was a story out some time ago that last
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: year Trump spoke to Clinton and um, yeah, he was
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: encouraged to run or or he wasn't discharged from running
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: or something like that, and the conspiracy nuts all uncrazy
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: about it. Yeah, I think it's quite a conspiracy. But
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: you you clearly you have a guy who's running as
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: a Republican who does not care about the long term
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: misinterest of the Republican Party at all. Right, Um, you
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: know he's a potential spoiler. That's very different. And and
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: even though I think he's very unluckly to win the nomination,
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: the chance that can make it difficult for the GEOP
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 1: to nominate to candidate, difficult for them to coordinate a message.
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: And the chance I still think is low but not
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: negligible that he would run as independent. Right, So I
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: think he's um mostly bad news for the GP. I
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 1: was trying to make. I always want to make my
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: own contrarian case, gendering a lot of enthusiasm where to
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: look reasonable as compared to him. But you know, he
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 1: certainly brought a lot of excitement so race that probably
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 1: wouldn't be here August. But what I say is Trump
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: can be a problem for the GOP, even if he's
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: very unluckly to win. Right. Quite fascinating. So let me
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: shift gears on you and talk a little bit about
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: you and some other aspects. You know. We we quickly
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 1: went over your background on the on the radio portion. Um,
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 1: prior to Pakoda, there was a quote of yours that
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 1: I really liked. You. You were working at KPMG in Chicago,
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: and someone had once asked you what's your biggest regret
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 1: in life? And you said, spending four years of my
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 1: life in a job I didn't like? Yeah? Is that accurate?
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: Is that a true? Uh? I've been true, true quote.
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: I've been lucky enough. And so whether you work, it's
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 1: been half your time working or you know, man with
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: onum work and I we bet listeners of the show
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 1: are somewhere higher on the spectrum of how much energy
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 1: they to vote to work. Um, you know it's time.
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 1: You can't get back really, and even though the day
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: to day can be a grind any job, just to
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 1: have a job where you fundamentally our challenged intellectually, were you? Uh,
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: where you enjoy yourself, where you have ownership of the work,
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: where you like the people I work, you work with?
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 1: I did like my colleagues ATKPMG. That was not the
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: issue at all, right, But um, but a really great
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 1: team I work with now, I mean that's you know,
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: that's really important to say the least. And then and
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 1: then you quit KPMG and you start playing poker. Yeah,
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 1: how did how did that work out? Um? So there
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 1: was kind of a poker boom, which I would call
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: more of a poker bubble really in the mid two thousands. So,
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: uh so my buddy at KPMG is like, Hey, we're
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: gonna get a game going. I'm like, I'm really competitive.
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 1: So I started practicing online at like Yahoo where you
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: play for free, and I'm like, you can't really play
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 1: for poker without without real money, right, So some online
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 1: site was like deposit Bucks and you can withdraw it
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 1: and it's like basically free money. Right. Of course, I
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 1: got kind of hooked and started staying up all night
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 1: and playing poker. And at the time, you know, I
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: played a little bit, and Kyle just a couple of
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: years out of colle at that point, and you know,
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 1: the quality of play was really poor and just kind
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: of using a very basic ABC strategy. You can make
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 1: a little bit of money if you started to, you know,
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: um bluff a little bit and be a little more aggressive.
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: Could do even better than that. So but yeah, I
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 1: kind of made my living mostly playing poker for a
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 1: couple of years, so you did pretty well and otherwise
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: I made a couple hundred thousand and then lost some
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 1: of it, but enough that, you know, it was a
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 1: very cool experience. But ultimately it was like, you know,
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 1: it's kind of like the proverbial hundred dollar bills sitting
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: on the ground. It kind of dried up once people
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 1: realize that that's money to be made. It got arbitraged away.
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: That's the famous quote, if if there ever was a
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 1: magic formula, it would eventually be whittled away as everybody
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 1: started using the formula, at least in the stock market.
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 1: That's uh, that's that's how it works. Let's talk a
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 1: little bit about hunches, right, And I don't know if
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 1: if Malcolm Gladwell is the best person to use as
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: an example for that, and I think he's sort of
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 1: backtracked on on some of his early earlier statements. But
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 1: when you look at the work he's done with outliers
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 1: that after you've done something for ten thousand hours or
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 1: some ungodly decade amount of time, you know enough of
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 1: your you subconsciously recognize the statistical spread at the the
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 1: probable outcomes that you could select the best just out
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: of out of habit. How do you, um, how do
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 1: you look at that sort of approach of intuition or
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 1: haunches or what have you. I mean, I'm suspicious of
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 1: the ten hour hypothesis. Right. Um, you know, but one
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 1: experience is pretty new for me now is that now
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 1: we have a whole bunch of employees, a whole bunch,
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: but um, you know, two dozen at five thirty eight,
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 1: and I often work with our our younger writers and
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 1: analysts son on the problem. And um, you do see
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 1: the benefit of experience there, right, where you're developing some
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 1: little model or formulate to address like a question in baseball. Right,
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: And even though the younger writer I might work with
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 1: is like super smart, as smart as me. Um, I've
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 1: just been doing this now for for ten or fifteen years, right,
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 1: so I can say, you know what, you're unnecessarily complicating
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 1: the problem. They're right, And that's just gonna make it
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 1: hard to explain and make the model. Overfit is technical
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 1: term or you know what oh here in other words,
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 1: overfit meaning it's geared towards what happened previously, and you're
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 1: making it. Yeah, it's like too rigid mask right or
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 1: commercially like, you know what, you're making an approximation here
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: that's just way too clumsy, right, and you're missing the
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 1: whole gist of the problem. We're trying to solve here, right,
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 1: Like that intuition for kind of which method works. Um,
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: you know that's built from experience, I think, but you
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 1: know what I mean, it's you know again, intuition kind
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 1: of makes it seem like you're not spending much time
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 1: thinking about the problem. It's kinda like you've invested that
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 1: time before and developing some some expertise. Right. Um, So
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 1: I softened on that a little bit. Um. But the
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 1: problem is that you know, um, they're very any systems
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 1: like politics, for example, where kind of it's are all
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 1: the Daniel Kneman system one versus system two type of thinking,
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 1: where the instinctual reaction is to overreact to things, right,
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: and to say, oh, here's a new poll that came
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: out that shows um, Bernie Sanders ahead of Hiller Clinton
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: in New Hampshire. This is really dramatic, and all my
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: friends are talking about this poll, right, and you kind
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 1: of ignore the fact that there have been file other
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 1: polls of New Hampshire in the past two weeks that
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 1: show Clinton ahead, and also that New Hampshire is one
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 1: state and pulls every other states so show Clinton ahead, right,
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 1: And that this happens kind of in every election. Cycle. Um,
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: so it's very useful to kind of, I think, slow
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 1: down and and not overreacting in the market. We call
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 1: that the recency effect, where you have this long series
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 1: of of of long data series and a trend supporting it,
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 1: and then you'll get something within a statistical range of possibilities.
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 1: But that's off trends, and that's so much of you know,
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 1: we aren't trying to predict what the polls will say tomorrow, right.
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 1: You know, there's a lot of people who want to
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 1: know kind of what's the mark are gonna do today? Right,
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 1: We're kind of like, well, you know, here's your kind
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 1: of not ten year time horizon, right, but here's your
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 1: six month time horizon. Right. That we still think Hillary
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 1: Clinton is very likely to be the Democratic nominee. That
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 1: we're not sure who the GOP nominee will be, but
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 1: we'd be short Trump stock as it were, right. Um.
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 1: It also helps to quantify these things to some extent too.
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 1: So in some sense it's kind of like, um, if
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 1: you ask me what's your chance of Trump winning? We
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 1: don't have a model yet, we probably will at some point, right,
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 1: but you know the nomination I say it's two percent.
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's kind of a spit balled estimate, but
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 1: it's useful to have to put at least the order
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: of magnitude on the table, you know, a small, non
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 1: zero chance, because there are journalists who will say, you know, right,
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 1: an article and say, oh, of course Trump is unluckily
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 1: to win, but here are all the reasons he has
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 1: momentum blah blah blah. Right, you know, and if you
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 1: read that article, the sense you might get is that,
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 1: you know, kind a pretty decent shot, right, you know.
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 1: But if you actually kind of actually had them say
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 1: we think the chances about two percent or say zero
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 1: to five percent, at least the order of magnitude, right,
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 1: and that would be useful, right, you know, because in
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 1: some sense, if we say a lot of our calls
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 1: that are like, oh, you know, no one gives Bernie
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 1: a chance, but but he could win. It's like I
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 1: give a chance, you know, five percent or whatever. But
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 1: the journalists or Pundy who writes a column saying, you know,
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 1: Hillary is not inevitable. I mean, in a literal sense,
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 1: I agree with that. It's not a percent. It's not
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 1: quite close to say it's a rounding error, right, But
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 1: you know, it's pretty low and to actually say is
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 1: there a real beef here or not? You know, my
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 1: view is at five eight, if we think a candidate
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 1: has a chance of winning, then most of our coverage
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 1: should reflect the reasons why she probably will win, and
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 1: occasionally we would have a piece saying that here's something
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 1: of her to be really worried about. Right. The ratio
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 1: in the mainstream media is like almost the reverse, right,
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 1: where it's like they're so many reasons why the percent
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 1: might come through and there's very little, just a perfunctory
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 1: reminder that, oh, by the way, she's leading in the
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 1: national polls by thirty points and no kind has ever
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 1: done that before, right, you know, without being nominated. Right,
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 1: you know, so the ratio is a little bit askew,
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 1: even though I'm not sure there would really be a beef.
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 1: If I if I, you know, sat down with the
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 1: calumnists that I read a sarchastic tweet about, right, you know,
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 1: he or she might agree that, yeah, Bernie Sander's chances
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 1: are you know, five percent or ten percent just kind
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 1: of in you know, I want the thrust and the
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 1: kind of tone of the articles, you're right to kind
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 1: of reflect that reality, not just as a caveat in
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 1: the fifth paragraph that the that's the problem with narrative
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 1: and the problem with human speech, which developed around a
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 1: time when there was no written language, that narratives are
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 1: more memorable, the more exciting, and the greater the horse race.
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 1: What you give up in accuracy, you gain in page views.
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 1: And that seems to be my gross It seems like
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 1: there's some reduction that can occur. You know, we're lucky
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 1: in the sense that kind of because everyone else is
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 1: saying one thing that we can get a lot of
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 1: attention by kind of saying no, this is probably pretty wrong,
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 1: you know. But you know, I think there's also something
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 1: mathematically accurate, right, um, But I think there is also
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 1: there is also a group think that sets in apart
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 1: from just a page viewing everybody on the same bus
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 1: here in the same nonsense and having that's and that's
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 1: somewhat literally true. So I went to literally Yeah, So
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 1: I went to New Hampshire for a week or so
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 1: in two thousand and twelve, right, and for the first
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 1: time in my life, I went to um a presidential debate,
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 1: one of the primary debates, right, And I kind of thought,
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 1: you go to the debate, and you have credential and
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 1: you're in the debating hall, you kind of see how
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 1: things play in the room. No, it says you're heard
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 1: it in this giant gymnasium with two thousand other journalists
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 1: all checking one other Twitter feeds in real time. It's
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 1: like the literal definition of group think being being manufactured. UM,
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 1: And so I want to emphasize that line, the literal
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 1: definition of group think being manual. And so we're talking
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: about kind of the conventional wisdom. You know, sometimes in
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 1: markets you embody the convention wisdom with what the market prices, right,
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 1: but there's some separation. You know, if you look at UM,
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 1: I mention there are betting markets where you can go
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 1: and UM by Stock so to speaking Bernie Sanders Hiller Clinton,
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 1: and they have not seen Clinton's odds changed very much, right,
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 1: whereas the tenor of the news coverage has changed quite
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 1: a bit. That that's fascinating. I'm gonna shift gears on
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 1: you again. UM. So, who are your early mentors that
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 1: you kind of come out of Chicago and you create
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 1: or at least amplify a form of statistical analysis. Apply
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 1: it to baseball, Apply it to UM campaigns, and elections.
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 1: Who who motivated this? I mean, you know, Bill James,
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 1: kind of the guyfathers stuff and in terms of not
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 1: just having the satistical child to being able to communicate
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 1: it to white all agins and kind of ask essential
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 1: questions about about baseball. Um, you know, I looked up
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 1: to some of the guys that work with a baseball perspectives,
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 1: but I'm pretty self motivated on the whole. You found
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 1: your way into this basically, Hey, here's something that's not
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 1: being done right, and here's a bit of way to
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 1: do Yeah. Like, boy, I think, you know, I think
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 1: the coverage I watched on TV during two thousand and
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 1: seven is very frustrating and so um so boy, I'm
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 1: gonna have to do it myself, right, you know I
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 1: kind of if no one else is gonna do it right,
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 1: you might as well step up. That's challenge me now,
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 1: right where I have a bunch of great people I'm
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 1: working with, right, and it's kind of like, you know,
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 1: how can I figure out not to do everything well?
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 1: It's a challenge learning how to delegate that stuff. Let's
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 1: let's you mentioned, um, Bill James, Let's talk about books.
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 1: So obviously Kamon's book very influential to thinking about thinking.
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 1: What other books have really uh, either inspired you or
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 1: you've really enjoyed fiction non fiction that doesn't matter. I mean,
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 1: there's a very wonky book called UH by Phil Tetlock
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 1: was press new book coming out and new becoming out soon, right.
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 1: It was called Expert Political Judgment explic Forecast. So that's
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 1: a good kind of te temic book about about forecasting.
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 1: But um, and how the experts are indistinguishable from a
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 1: random person in public when it comes to making these
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 1: predictions and forecasts a year out. Um, they're like barely
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 1: even better than undergraduates. I think was the most amazing Um,
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 1: you know, I mean, I don't know. In terms of
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 1: UH storytelling, I think Michael Lewis is a terrific storyteller.
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 1: I guess my answers are quite conventional and boring. Here.
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 1: Did you ever read James Glick's The Information? I've read
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 1: parts of it? Yeah, dude, that is so up your alley.
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 1: I will check. I you know, I love his stuff.
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 1: Do you want to talk wonky? So my undergraduate was
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 1: applied math and physics before I switched to Polly say
• 1:39:52
  Speaker 1: and so his book. I found him because of the
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 1: book Chaos Making of a Science, and it's you know,
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 1: way into the weeds on physics. But few people can
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 1: take hard science and make it a narrative. That's interesting.
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 1: I read that on a beach one summer and found
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 1: it absolutely information just absolute fascinating. Diet Tribe on the
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 1: history of of information science. Yeah, I mean, I think
• 1:40:18
  Speaker 1: all these things are you know, kind of history of
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 1: nala tripe. But I know, you know, to be honest,
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 1: I traveled quite a bit and I used to catch
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 1: up reading on planes, and now that I have people
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 1: to manage and there's Internet connections on the planes and
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 1: stuff like that, reading for pleasure has has declined. Unfortunately.
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 1: Um so the net. A related question, what other mathematicians
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 1: or statisticians either influenced you or influenced your approach to
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 1: looking at at what you do? You mentioned Tetlock. Anybody
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 1: who's really a political scientist, anybody else really leap out.
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 1: I mean, there a couple of guys like Colombia whose
• 1:40:59
  Speaker 1: name is and be familiar, but you know, Andrew Gelman
• 1:41:02
  Speaker 1: is a guy there, Bob Arricks, and who are political scientists,
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 1: um who have still at elections for a long time,
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 1: and and we're helpful. But you know, um, you know, I,
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 1: like I said, I'm pretty self taught for for the
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 1: most part. I picture you as a lonely mathematician, light
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 1: burning in the window, and uh, working by yourself. Is
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 1: that kind of how this all came about? Sort of?
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 1: It's different. I mean, I live with a partner and
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 1: I manage people at work, right, so I don't have
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 1: as much, um much alone time as as the old days. Right. Um,
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm one of those people who's kind of
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 1: very much in the middle of the extroversion introversion curd.
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 1: I can go, I can go crazy on either extreme. Um,
• 1:41:45
  Speaker 1: but um, but you know, yeah, some of this pursuit
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 1: is pretty pretty solitary inherently, I think, right, uh, sure,
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 1: you're thinking about what the status quo is doing wrong, right,
• 1:41:59
  Speaker 1: and trying to come up with ways of thinking about
• 1:42:02
  Speaker 1: it that makes more sense and as more probitive value,
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 1: more statistics. It seems like if you kind of start,
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 1: you know, so I think about this Clinton versus Sanders thing, right, Um,
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 1: you know, before the campaign began, if you kind of
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 1: had told yourself, well, you know what, no matter what happens,
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 1: there's gonna be a strong incentive for for the media
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 1: to make it seem like the race is really competitive
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 1: and it will be exceptionally clever in UM. In ways,
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 1: almost all this is unconscious, by the way, Right, I'm
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 1: not saying they're deliberately putting their finger on scale. Right. Well,
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 1: you're boards are doing the same thing every day. You're boring.
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 1: There's so many polls, so many indicators to look at,
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 1: so many ways you can Um, it's a very large
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 1: constellation of information, right, so many ways you can draw
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 1: threads together that inevertly. You'll see some stories written about
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 1: how quote unquote unexpectedly you know, Bernie Sanders is doing
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 1: is doing well, right, and you can kind of brace
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 1: yourself for that in in the abstract, UM, but it's
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 1: kind of hard to do that when you're confronted with it.
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 1: Another example is that almost every year, there are some exceptions. UM,
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 1: a candidate gets a boost in the polls after the convention. Right,
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 1: so the bump Rubio, Bush Walker, whomever, Trump, Um, we'll
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 1: have his convention, Uh, get a five point bump in
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 1: the polls and it'll fade, right, And this is you know,
• 1:43:27
  Speaker 1: pretty predictable. Um, it's gonna be really hard when a
• 1:43:31
  Speaker 1: Democrats experiencing that not to think it's something new and
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 1: different this time, and the press will event all types
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 1: of reasons why you know this time is different and
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 1: it it probably won't be. You know, debates can produce
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 1: little bumps too, but it's kind of like you're about
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 1: to go on on a roller coaster. You can kind of, um,
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 1: you can say, well, I know we're gonna go up
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 1: this hill and then come down it really fast, right,
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 1: and there's and I'd relate to it, but you know,
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 1: it doesn't. You can still kind of suspend your disbelief,
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 1: and of course, if you're an roller coaster, you want
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 1: to suspend your disbelief and have a lot of fun
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 1: with it. Right. But you know, my job as someone
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 1: who covers campaigns, someone who's more empirical but also critical,
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 1: is to kind of stay at a distance and say,
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 1: you know what, I know, you guys think that this
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 1: Trump thing is new and different, and by the way,
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 1: it probably won't evaporate tomorrow. Right, it might take some time,
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 1: but um, the odds of a guy who basically isn't
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 1: a Republican being dominated by the Frolican party is pretty
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 1: darned low. So on a related note, I have to
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 1: share a funny story with you. So we just this
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 1: past weekend. We we had family members in from Chicago
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 1: and I remember No. Eight them saying, I know you
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 1: think Hillary is going to be coronated, but this Barack guy,
• 1:44:45
  Speaker 1: who we've seen in town for years, don't underestimate him.
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 1: He's he's got something and he surprises Hillary. He gets
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 1: the nomination and then Lader in the year. As as
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 1: the election move forward, I want to say August September,
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 1: October of eight. Um, my sister in law, we we
• 1:45:08
  Speaker 1: just had this conversation this weekend. I mentioned I'm gonna
• 1:45:11
  Speaker 1: be seeing Nate Silver on Monday. She goes, oh, he
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 1: made my oh eight so much better? Why she goes, well,
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 1: I really thought there were big Obama supporters. I really
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 1: thought he was gonna lose. But every time I'm sorry,
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 1: in every time they went to they said, you were
• 1:45:31
  Speaker 1: reassuring that here's what we are statistically, and while it's
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 1: not impossible for him to lose, you know, the electoral
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 1: College makes it really hard for Mitt Romney to garner
• 1:45:43
  Speaker 1: two seventy votes and and here's the likely and she
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 1: said it was a despite the media drumbeat despite how
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 1: how close this was. So so she credits you for
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 1: making her two thousand twelve much better, and I get
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 1: that coming a lot. Yeah, that exact kind of sentiment.
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 1: That because you can kind of lose yourself in the
• 1:46:03
  Speaker 1: media coverage and because yeah it's weird, like I, um,
• 1:46:09
  Speaker 1: in our election coverage, we kind of always wind up um.
• 1:46:13
  Speaker 1: Incentive wise, We're always kind of rooting for the favorite,
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 1: which is I'm not that kind of guy, right, I'm
• 1:46:18
  Speaker 1: like an underdog, unpredictable kind of guy. Um. But you know,
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 1: the media will take a race where one can it
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 1: kind of objectively quote unquote has a nine chance of
• 1:46:30
  Speaker 1: winning and really really sell the case that it's neck
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 1: and neck. Right. Um. Papers, Yeah, it's how you sell papers.
• 1:46:37
  Speaker 1: And so I kind of always wind up um, you know,
• 1:46:41
  Speaker 1: being the person who says, you know what, this is
• 1:46:44
  Speaker 1: not that schucking and prediction. But Donald Trump probably not
• 1:46:47
  Speaker 1: going to be Republican nominee, Bernie Sanders probably will not
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 1: be the Democratic nominee. And we will, believe me, one year,
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 1: we'll get one of those things wrong. I mean we've
• 1:46:54
  Speaker 1: had cases where um, where another context sports and whatnot,
• 1:46:58
  Speaker 1: where you know, unluckily things have happened. But um, but
• 1:47:03
  Speaker 1: you know, it can really throw people for for a loop.
• 1:47:06
  Speaker 1: Um but you know, the fact is also in fourteen
• 1:47:10
  Speaker 1: we had from the very first time a couple shift
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 1: forecast the GOPS favorites to pick up the Senate from
• 1:47:16
  Speaker 1: from Democrats, and a lot of people were not remotely
• 1:47:20
  Speaker 1: close to seeing that. No. No, it really depends on
• 1:47:22
  Speaker 1: the presidential coattails, and it depends on this Yeah, and
• 1:47:25
  Speaker 1: people you know, and you saw it quite a bit
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 1: of it in in reverse. I think like Harry Reid,
• 1:47:30
  Speaker 1: you know, he's like, this guy's an idiot. He always
• 1:47:33
  Speaker 1: under said, well democrats would do see, you do get
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 1: it from from both from both sides a little bit, right.
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying this is you know, we're not going
• 1:47:41
  Speaker 1: to burn another hour here. I'm not saying the parties
• 1:47:43
  Speaker 1: are exactly identical. But um but you know you would
• 1:47:47
  Speaker 1: get comments like how did Nate Silver turn into a Republican? Right,
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 1: It's like my views haven't really changed that much, right,
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 1: just like I think, you know, here's where the polls
• 1:47:57
  Speaker 1: and the fundamentals point is that you have, you know,
• 1:47:59
  Speaker 1: last year's mid terms, howquckly we forget right that, you know,
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 1: with this big blowout for the GOP just last year. Right, Um,
• 1:48:07
  Speaker 1: but you know, all these states are being fought for
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 1: in red states, and Obama's unpopular and democratic turnout looks
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 1: like it might be bad. Right, It's not that complicated necessarily,
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 1: So I would be remiss if I didn't mention unskewed
• 1:48:19
  Speaker 1: polls dot com. Yeah, I found that horribly, horribly amusing. Basically,
• 1:48:26
  Speaker 1: the media is biased. Nate Silver doesn't know what he's
• 1:48:29
  Speaker 1: talking about. We're gonna skew the polls or we're gonna
• 1:48:33
  Speaker 1: unskew the polls, and Romney's gonna you know, he's gonna
• 1:48:36
  Speaker 1: run the table. How often does something that blatant obvious
• 1:48:43
  Speaker 1: concerted that was really like a How often does that
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 1: sort of stuff pop up? Oh? No, I mean it'll
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 1: be there'll be versions of that, probably on both sides
• 1:48:54
  Speaker 1: by the time we get to next year, Right, and
• 1:48:56
  Speaker 1: the more dangerous versions of versions where like, you know
• 1:49:01
  Speaker 1: that guy, I've never met him personally, Maybe he's a
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 1: nice guy to have a beer with, right, he seemed
• 1:49:04
  Speaker 1: a little bit kind of screwy in the head, right,
• 1:49:07
  Speaker 1: just just enumeroate, But it will not be that guy.
• 1:49:12
  Speaker 1: It'll be someone who, um has sort of a sophomore
• 1:49:17
  Speaker 1: acknowledge of statistics, right, who can actually kind of make
• 1:49:22
  Speaker 1: superficially persuasive arguments for why, um, why my hypothesis is true,
• 1:49:29
  Speaker 1: and you absolutely will see that, and I know there's
• 1:49:31
  Speaker 1: a market for you know, one of people I'm realized
• 1:49:34
  Speaker 1: about five thirty eight is there are now six or
• 1:49:36
  Speaker 1: seven websites that do a forecast similar to rors, right,
• 1:49:40
  Speaker 1: and we're always kind of somewhere in the middle of
• 1:49:42
  Speaker 1: the consensus, which I think is usually a good place
• 1:49:44
  Speaker 1: to be consensus of consensus analysis. Yeah right, Um, but
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 1: there will be someone let's say we have Rubia with
• 1:49:52
  Speaker 1: a seventy chance to win the GP nomination, and that's
• 1:49:56
  Speaker 1: where the average is, right roughly, I can guarantee you
• 1:49:58
  Speaker 1: le'll be someone who says, no, it's s Hillary, Um, no,
• 1:50:03
  Speaker 1: it's Rubio right, right, Um, so they look like a
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 1: genius even though statistically their their work is so that
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 1: be someone who looks like yeah, right. And if there's
• 1:50:14
  Speaker 1: someone who um, you know, it's the same problem with
• 1:50:18
  Speaker 1: with Wall Street analysts, I guess right, you know, on average,
• 1:50:22
  Speaker 1: the person someone who makes an outlandish forecast will be
• 1:50:24
  Speaker 1: in first place, even if their meetian outcome is worse
• 1:50:28
  Speaker 1: than the person who makes like a more kind of
• 1:50:31
  Speaker 1: lower case could see conservative going back to Tetlock and others,
• 1:50:34
  Speaker 1: when you look at punditry and people go on TV.
• 1:50:38
  Speaker 1: Someone who goes on television and says, you know, the
• 1:50:41
  Speaker 1: future is inherently unknowable. I don't. I can't tell you
• 1:50:44
  Speaker 1: whether dow will be in one year and someone else
• 1:50:47
  Speaker 1: says it will be at nineteen thousand seven fifty. Not
• 1:50:50
  Speaker 1: only is that person less likely to be accurate, but
• 1:50:54
  Speaker 1: they're more likely to be believed and and so that's
• 1:50:57
  Speaker 1: the enhancement I did. I did a program for the
• 1:51:00
  Speaker 1: BBC on the UK election and we had some guys
• 1:51:03
  Speaker 1: we hire really smart guys and like everyone, they way underestimated,
• 1:51:07
  Speaker 1: uh how well Tories would do. Right, But this BBC
• 1:51:11
  Speaker 1: program was there for a week and my personal take
• 1:51:14
  Speaker 1: was like, you know what, this is a really weird election.
• 1:51:16
  Speaker 1: There are four parties or five parties that are assailiant
• 1:51:20
  Speaker 1: and and um, there's not a lot of agreement in
• 1:51:22
  Speaker 1: the polls, and like so I was fighting so hard
• 1:51:25
  Speaker 1: to avoid how we go to commit to anything, And
• 1:51:28
  Speaker 1: of course their whole stick was brilliant genius stistition comes
• 1:51:32
  Speaker 1: from the United States, and was your you know, like
• 1:51:35
  Speaker 1: tells us exactly what's gonna happen the elections. There was
• 1:51:37
  Speaker 1: there was tension there, I think, right, it was like
• 1:51:39
  Speaker 1: a week of trying not to answer this question. Um, well,
• 1:51:42
  Speaker 1: the data is uncertain. Using a methodology, that data is certain.
• 1:51:45
  Speaker 1: But in the end we published a model on five
• 1:51:47
  Speaker 1: thirty eight and like everyone else, it blew it. So
• 1:51:50
  Speaker 1: but you know, um, but yeah, it's a tricky thing
• 1:51:53
  Speaker 1: to do. And that's a much shorter election, and that's
• 1:51:56
  Speaker 1: a a very different process than in the United States.
• 1:52:00
  Speaker 1: It's a much shorter election. It's only it's only six weeks,
• 1:52:02
  Speaker 1: but when you add multiple parties to the race, it
• 1:52:06
  Speaker 1: gets much more complex, like really fast. Um. But you know,
• 1:52:09
  Speaker 1: we haven't talked about this. I know, we don't have
• 1:52:11
  Speaker 1: too much more time. But the fact that, you know,
• 1:52:13
  Speaker 1: the polls aren't as reliable as they used to be,
• 1:52:16
  Speaker 1: at least in some non US context. So more cell phones,
• 1:52:20
  Speaker 1: less reliable polls. Yeah, you know, Israel and in Greece
• 1:52:24
  Speaker 1: and whatnot. We have a Canadian election. We'll see how
• 1:52:26
  Speaker 1: the polls do there. They've had trouble in some Canadian
• 1:52:28
  Speaker 1: parliamentary elections and whatnot, or provincial elections. Um. But you know, UM,
• 1:52:35
  Speaker 1: polling is not fool proof either, and that's why it's like,
• 1:52:39
  Speaker 1: you know, that's why I say we got lucky in
• 1:52:42
  Speaker 1: part in two thousand and eight. The polls in two
• 1:52:45
  Speaker 1: thousand twelve were okay but not great. Actually, Obama beat
• 1:52:50
  Speaker 1: his polls by an average of three points? Is that
• 1:52:53
  Speaker 1: unusual for the victors who have won by that? It's
• 1:52:55
  Speaker 1: about It's about average. You know, a three point miss
• 1:52:58
  Speaker 1: is about average. The thing is, if you'd had that
• 1:53:00
  Speaker 1: three point miss any other direction, then Romney would have
• 1:53:04
  Speaker 1: won the election, or at least made it really really close.
• 1:53:08
  Speaker 1: All Right, I know we only have you for a
• 1:53:09
  Speaker 1: few more minutes, so let me get to my last
• 1:53:12
  Speaker 1: two questions. Um. This is the millennial question that that
• 1:53:16
  Speaker 1: I we talked about earlier. So you've carved out your
• 1:53:20
  Speaker 1: own kind of unique career by taking a couple of
• 1:53:24
  Speaker 1: subjects you really liked and applying it in a in
• 1:53:27
  Speaker 1: a unique and useful way. What would you what sort
• 1:53:31
  Speaker 1: of advice would you give to millennials who are just
• 1:53:35
  Speaker 1: coming out of school now or whatever we want to
• 1:53:38
  Speaker 1: call this generation? What sort of career advice would you
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 1: give the recent graduating class. I mean, you know, learn
• 1:53:45
  Speaker 1: how to code if you want to become a journalist. Right,
• 1:53:48
  Speaker 1: that's pretty more more important. Um. But you know, I mean, uh,
• 1:53:54
  Speaker 1: it's a combination I think of of working really hard,
• 1:53:57
  Speaker 1: but um, but not tolerating yourself being bored at work. Right,
• 1:54:03
  Speaker 1: I think that's pretty that's pretty important. Um, it makes
• 1:54:08
  Speaker 1: a lot of sense. Um, I mean, you know, uh,
• 1:54:14
  Speaker 1: learning to critique the conventional wisdom, including the wisdom that
• 1:54:18
  Speaker 1: your friends might have. Right. Um, did you get a
• 1:54:22
  Speaker 1: lot of pushback on on what you were doing from
• 1:54:24
  Speaker 1: from friends and colleagues. No, I mean they always know
• 1:54:26
  Speaker 1: me as someone who did different things, so I don't
• 1:54:28
  Speaker 1: think there was ever that much pushed back from it, exactly.
• 1:54:32
  Speaker 1: But I do worry that we kind of enter a
• 1:54:33
  Speaker 1: universe now where, um, where it's kind of so easy
• 1:54:37
  Speaker 1: for an opinion to form on social media or whatnot.
• 1:54:40
  Speaker 1: There's so much kind of communication and sharing that I
• 1:54:43
  Speaker 1: think that can be a little bit dangerous, right. You know,
• 1:54:47
  Speaker 1: I don't think I'm thirty seven. I don't think any
• 1:54:50
  Speaker 1: thirty seven year old should say I have the whole
• 1:54:53
  Speaker 1: world figure out, you know, certainly not any twenty seven
• 1:54:55
  Speaker 1: year old or seventeen year old should say, you know, um,
• 1:54:59
  Speaker 1: you know, my beliefs about the world are just the
• 1:55:02
  Speaker 1: way things are, you know. I think I think there's
• 1:55:05
  Speaker 1: there's that tendency a little bit um, not just with millennials,
• 1:55:09
  Speaker 1: but with everyone now kind of the age of of
• 1:55:11
  Speaker 1: social media. You can kind of feel for rocket bear
• 1:55:15
  Speaker 1: term kind of smug about your view in the world. Um,
• 1:55:18
  Speaker 1: and that can be a dangerous thing. Enough people, there's
• 1:55:20
  Speaker 1: enough selective perception and enough things around that reinforces your views,
• 1:55:25
  Speaker 1: especially with the Balkanization of the Internet that yeah, you
• 1:55:29
  Speaker 1: could you could find applause for just about any opinion
• 1:55:32
  Speaker 1: on the spectrum. Yeah, it's really easy to you know,
• 1:55:34
  Speaker 1: it's part of part of what Trump's doing is you know,
• 1:55:37
  Speaker 1: I sold Julier. He's not actually that popular, but the
• 1:55:39
  Speaker 1: twenty five or the country that really likes him, he
• 1:55:42
  Speaker 1: can kind of wallow in their world, right, I Mean,
• 1:55:44
  Speaker 1: Trump is I'm kind of going on attention here. He
• 1:55:47
  Speaker 1: is incredibly entertaining for sure to write like so one
• 1:55:50
  Speaker 1: thing that I think does separate him out from um,
• 1:55:53
  Speaker 1: from say, the harmon kines the Michelle Bachman's of four
• 1:55:56
  Speaker 1: years ago. Was the guy has real talent for or something?
• 1:56:01
  Speaker 1: Is it politics exactly? Your showmanship or demagoguery or somewhere
• 1:56:06
  Speaker 1: in between those three things. I'm not. I'm not quite sure, right,
• 1:56:10
  Speaker 1: but you know there's a charisma there. He's hosted or
• 1:56:13
  Speaker 1: at least he's been significant in a television show very
• 1:56:19
  Speaker 1: very fast. He has a sense for for theater. He
• 1:56:22
  Speaker 1: can poke the eye. I mean, you know, um, I'm
• 1:56:25
  Speaker 1: not that's a he's got a natural gift for that.
• 1:56:29
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying I like Trump. You know, I wouldn't
• 1:56:31
  Speaker 1: vote for him, but I love the fact that he
• 1:56:33
  Speaker 1: had his helicopter around the Iowa State Fair because it's
• 1:56:35
  Speaker 1: all these rituals that are silly in some ways. Right,
• 1:56:39
  Speaker 1: He's gonna be like, I want to be the evil
• 1:56:40
  Speaker 1: villain and just kind of circle my helicopter around the
• 1:56:42
  Speaker 1: state fair grounds and like driver one's attention, right, And like, um,
• 1:56:46
  Speaker 1: was he giving kids, healthy kids helicopter riots and telling
• 1:56:51
  Speaker 1: them he's he's Batman? Literally? Right? Um? That's great. So
• 1:56:56
  Speaker 1: I like people are willing to defy connection a little
• 1:57:00
  Speaker 1: little bit, right, and he certainly he certainly has done that.
• 1:57:03
  Speaker 1: But you know the reason why we kind of get
• 1:57:05
  Speaker 1: end up as being perceived a very anti trumpet just
• 1:57:07
  Speaker 1: because you know, we think the media takes this fascinating
• 1:57:10
  Speaker 1: story and trumps up so to speak, the chance will
• 1:57:13
  Speaker 1: actually be nominated by the GOP right and also great narrative,
• 1:57:17
  Speaker 1: but also the fact that it is August, right, the
• 1:57:21
  Speaker 1: polls you see in August aren't measuring anything real in
• 1:57:25
  Speaker 1: a sense, people are hypothetically thinking about a vote they're
• 1:57:28
  Speaker 1: going to make in six months when half the candidates
• 1:57:31
  Speaker 1: will have dropped out, right, Um, when they'll have four
• 1:57:35
  Speaker 1: times as much information. The idea of all you have
• 1:57:38
  Speaker 1: a national primary, you don't actually vote kind of one
• 1:57:40
  Speaker 1: state at a time, and so you know, um, some
• 1:57:44
  Speaker 1: people kind of point, um, the Trump's polls as kind
• 1:57:47
  Speaker 1: of self evident evidence that he's succeeding. Then I'm a
• 1:57:50
  Speaker 1: little bit suspicious of that. But he certainly is ah
• 1:57:56
  Speaker 1: entertaining in a way that I think raises some questions
• 1:58:00
  Speaker 1: about the way campaigns are are covered. Right well, there
• 1:58:04
  Speaker 1: certainly raises questions about the way they're run. But the
• 1:58:07
  Speaker 1: coverage is part and parcel of that. The coverage is
• 1:58:11
  Speaker 1: not not necessarily doing democracy any uh any favors. I
• 1:58:15
  Speaker 1: think I mean, you know, kind of I guess the
• 1:58:18
  Speaker 1: two grand thesis about Trump are that, you know, kind
• 1:58:20
  Speaker 1: of Trump reveals what's wrong with the GOP, or that
• 1:58:23
  Speaker 1: he reveals what's wrong with the media, right and kind
• 1:58:26
  Speaker 1: of being Yeah, there some combination thereof I mean kind
• 1:58:29
  Speaker 1: of you know, kind of an amateur media critic, I
• 1:58:31
  Speaker 1: kind of lean towards that explanation more. But there's you know,
• 1:58:35
  Speaker 1: there's something he's tapping into. I think I would resist
• 1:58:39
  Speaker 1: the implication that he's all that popular or that people
• 1:58:42
  Speaker 1: are responding, um, all that literally to the substance of
• 1:58:46
  Speaker 1: his policy proposals. I think there responding to the affect
• 1:58:51
  Speaker 1: to the you know, kind of he to the nerve. Yeah,
• 1:58:55
  Speaker 1: I think that's I think. And certainly if you look
• 1:58:57
  Speaker 1: beyond the poll's terms of is he popular or not,
• 1:58:59
  Speaker 1: people like him or not, there's no doubt that there
• 1:59:02
  Speaker 1: is enormous interest in Donald Trump, right. Um. You know,
• 1:59:07
  Speaker 1: I think we did read some metrics from Google, like
• 1:59:09
  Speaker 1: six of the news coverage of the GP campaign has
• 1:59:12
  Speaker 1: been about Donald Trump. That's amazing, But the Google searches
• 1:59:15
  Speaker 1: for the campaign have been about him. So the public
• 1:59:17
  Speaker 1: is even more obsessed with So you know, you know
• 1:59:21
  Speaker 1: that won't translate into support. Yeah, I want you to
• 1:59:23
  Speaker 1: be president, but there certainly is a fixation with him
• 1:59:26
  Speaker 1: that is not purely a media creation. So last question,
• 1:59:30
  Speaker 1: because I know you have other places to be and
• 1:59:32
  Speaker 1: I've kept you here for a long time. Um, what
• 1:59:35
  Speaker 1: do you know about politics, campaign, sports statistics today that
• 1:59:41
  Speaker 1: you wish you knew fifteen years ago when you were
• 1:59:44
  Speaker 1: starting and you could pick any of those fields to
• 1:59:46
  Speaker 1: work with? Oh gosh, um, I mean there are technical
• 1:59:52
  Speaker 1: answers to this, right, kind of wish I wish I
• 1:59:54
  Speaker 1: had when they took me a while to understand it's
• 1:59:57
  Speaker 1: like really fundamental, but I think it takes other people
• 1:59:59
  Speaker 1: a while too. Is that um, is that a Cisco
• 2:00:02
  Speaker 1: model is built on past data and you're making a
• 2:00:06
  Speaker 1: big assumption to therefore say the model is predictive? Right?
• 2:00:11
  Speaker 1: Sometimes that's true. In baseball, the conditions are so stable
• 2:00:15
  Speaker 1: that if you build a modle that explains the past, well,
• 2:00:18
  Speaker 1: you're kind of, by definition usually predicting the future. Well, right,
• 2:00:21
  Speaker 1: you can extrapolate better with that stable set up than
• 2:00:25
  Speaker 1: you can perhaps with politics. But in politics, you know,
• 2:00:28
  Speaker 1: not always true, and you get into areas like finance, right,
• 2:00:32
  Speaker 1: and there used to be a correlation between which conference
• 2:00:34
  Speaker 1: on the Super Bowl and how the stock market did. Right, Yeah,
• 2:00:37
  Speaker 1: but that was always so I understand. My job has
• 2:00:40
  Speaker 1: always been to point out that's a correlation without a causation,
• 2:00:44
  Speaker 1: and whether it's crazy things like the Hindenburg almen or
• 2:00:48
  Speaker 1: the death Cross, my job is to go back and
• 2:00:50
  Speaker 1: look at these things historically and say, well, here's the
• 2:00:53
  Speaker 1: net result of it, and this doesn't work this, this
• 2:00:57
  Speaker 1: has a strong correlation, but it's a random accident. And
• 2:01:00
  Speaker 1: here's what we get out of this. Um. But the
• 2:01:04
  Speaker 1: leap of you are making a leap of inference. I
• 2:01:07
  Speaker 1: was gonna say leap of faith. That's not really about faith, right,
• 2:01:09
  Speaker 1: but a leap of inference where you say, okay, I
• 2:01:12
  Speaker 1: fit a model the past data, therefore I'm predicting things
• 2:01:15
  Speaker 1: like no, you fit a model of the past data.
• 2:01:17
  Speaker 1: And then there are a lot of factors you have
• 2:01:19
  Speaker 1: to consider in terms of how well that model will
• 2:01:22
  Speaker 1: predict going forward. Right. Um, So you know, whenever I
• 2:01:27
  Speaker 1: see you know, I think a lot of academics make
• 2:01:30
  Speaker 1: this mistake, just like anyone else does. Right, But they'll say,
• 2:01:33
  Speaker 1: you know, I've developed a model too to predict campaigns
• 2:01:37
  Speaker 1: right and perfectly predicts every presidential election. It's like, no,
• 2:01:39
  Speaker 1: you didn't predict anything right. You know, if you publish
• 2:01:42
  Speaker 1: a mouth for the first time in and you say,
• 2:01:44
  Speaker 1: perfectly predicted all fifty two presidential elections, however many there
• 2:01:48
  Speaker 1: are in the past, Like, no, your record is zero
• 2:01:50
  Speaker 1: for zero forfeited, what not? Not fifty two? That that
• 2:01:54
  Speaker 1: was might be with Anthony Robbins model that was heavy
• 2:01:59
  Speaker 1: on gold, have on bonds after a ten year gold
• 2:02:02
  Speaker 1: bull market and a thirty year bond will market, both
• 2:02:05
  Speaker 1: of which were unlikely to continue going forward. It was
• 2:02:08
  Speaker 1: that overfitting predicting the past as opposed to looking forward. Um.
• 2:02:13
  Speaker 1: You know, in the whole question of fascinated by is
• 2:02:15
  Speaker 1: kind of you have this um tension between the fact
• 2:02:18
  Speaker 1: that on the one hand, um, you know, the consensus
• 2:02:23
  Speaker 1: is usually better than an individual forecast. It's very hard
• 2:02:27
  Speaker 1: to beat the market when there's a robust market, you know.
• 2:02:31
  Speaker 1: On the other hand, you know, understanding that there's group
• 2:02:35
  Speaker 1: think and that everyone can kind of be delusional together,
• 2:02:38
  Speaker 1: and that pension I'm kind of I'm kind of fascinated
• 2:02:41
  Speaker 1: by as as we all are. Nate, thank you so
• 2:02:45
  Speaker 1: much for being so generous with your time. Definitely this
• 2:02:48
  Speaker 1: This has been really just an absolutely fascinating conversation. We've
• 2:02:51
  Speaker 1: been speaking with Nate Silver of five thirty eight. If
• 2:02:55
  Speaker 1: you enjoyed this conversation, look up an Inch or Down
• 2:02:58
  Speaker 1: an Inch on iTunes and you can see all of
• 2:03:01
  Speaker 1: the rest of our conversations. If people want to find
• 2:03:04
  Speaker 1: your work, you're at Nate Silver five thirty eight and
• 2:03:07
  Speaker 1: at spelled out five eight dot com. I want to
• 2:03:12
  Speaker 1: thank Mike Batnick, who did a yeoman's job as our
• 2:03:15
  Speaker 1: head of research, and Charlie Bohmer as as my producer. Um,
• 2:03:20
  Speaker 1: you've been listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio