The Math Problem Behind Ranking The Top 10 GOP Candidates For Broadcasting Debates - Polidicks

[quote]Sixteen presidential candidates talking over each other doesn't sound much like good TV. CNN and Fox News know this, so when they air their Republican debates later this year, [B]they'll both limit the field to 10 candidates.[/B] Both networks will use polling data to limit the field to only the 10 most popular candidates (CNN will have a second debate featuring the also-rans). It'll cut down on the chaos, but there's a big problem with winnowing down the field this way: the lowest-rated people included in the debate might not deserve to be there. The latest GOP presidential poll, from Quinnipiac, shows just how messy polling can be in a field this big. We've put together a chart showing how the candidates stack up against each other among Republican and Republican-leaning voters — and how much their margins of error overlap. [B]Twenty percent of respondents said they didn't know who they'd vote for, but among the rest, here's what the breakdown looks like.[/B] [img]http://i.imgur.com/JrL4Cch.png[/img] In this poll of Republican and leaning-Republican voters, there's a +/- 3.8-percentage-point margin of error, so we created bars around each estimate showing that margin of error. The message is simple: there's a lot of uncertainty about just how much support each candidate has, with so many candidates, each with such low levels of support. (And a couple of nitpicky notes: This chart is a little bit of an oversimplification — Quinnipiac appears to have rounded everything to the nearest digit, so these ranges are approximate. Not only that, but for super-low readings like 0 or 1, statisticians might sometimes use other methods to compute margins of error, so those margins might be a little smaller at the low end of the spectrum.) A quick stats 101 primer: A margin of error tries to capture how far off the survey's finding differs from the true thing it's trying to measure. Each margin of error comes with a "confidence interval" — a figure that tells you how reliable the results are. Quinnipiac's polls come with a 95 percent interval, meaning that if you were to perform this same survey 100 times, it would come out with a result somewhere in that +/- 3.8-percentage-point range 95 times out of 100. [B]In short, polls by their very nature make it difficult to know which lower-tier candidate truly has more support than another.[/B] In this poll, Fiorina and Kasich are tied in 10th place, at 2 percent. Graham, Jindal, and Perry are all at 1 percent.[B] If the two scheduled debates were using this poll, they would allow Fiorina and Kasich, then, while jettisoning the other three, even though this particular poll makes it impossible to tell who, in fact, has more support.[/B] Do the poll 99 more times, and in many of those polls, Perry might easily come out one or two points ahead of Fiorina or Kasich. Of course, Fox and CNN won't be using just one poll; they'll each be using an average of several polls, which does shrink the margin of error some. But average together the most recent GOP nomination polls, and the difference between 10th, 11th, and 12th place is still miniscule, and the order of candidates changes often. In lots of polls, the bottom contenders are grouped tightly together.[/quote] [url]http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/05/29/410524780/the-gop-has-an-overcrowded-debate-problem[/url]

Why... Why would anyone elect another Bush..

[QUOTE=alexguydude;47871526]Why... Why would anyone elect another Bush..[/QUOTE] The first was not bad

And I thought 2012 had too many Republican primary candidates... I mean, this years crop is better than the Herman Cain crop of last time, but still

[QUOTE=alexguydude;47871526]Why... Why would anyone elect another Bush..[/QUOTE] I think the first Bush was a good president, maybe their family follows the Windows good/bad cycle.

[QUOTE=alexguydude;47871526]Why... Why would anyone elect another Bush..[/QUOTE] To prevent another Clinton? That or because the alternative candidates in the GOP are all shit

If I were in charge I'd aim more for a variety of positions rather than popularity. In group A, the first debate, show the range of candidates from most moderate to batshit crazy. Then in group B show a similar range. Each group can have a mix of popular to "who the hell is THAT?" candidates. This way you avoid having to hear from 10 people who are all competing with each other to say the same thing.

[QUOTE=Sableye;47872704]To prevent another Clinton? That or because the alternative candidates in the GOP are all shit[/QUOTE] You say, 'another Clinton,' despite the fact that Bill Clinton was a rather popular and well liked president. He left office with a 65% approval rating and his vice president went on to win the popular vote in the election immediately after his second term. I really don't understand Facepunch's rabid Clinton hatred.

[QUOTE=Sableye;47872704]To prevent another Clinton? That or because the alternative candidates in the GOP are all shit[/QUOTE]Another Clinton or another Bush. I wonder if the Houses of Habsburg, Orange and Windsor are in the running too.

[QUOTE=Maegord;47872844]You say, 'another Clinton,' despite the fact that Bill Clinton was a rather popular and well liked president. He left office with a 65% approval rating and his vice president went on to win the popular vote in the election immediately after his second term. I really don't understand Facepunch's rabid Clinton hatred.[/QUOTE] Bill isn't bad, his wife is a fucking menace to society and should never be allowed to touch any presidential position after all the stuff she's done and said.

[QUOTE=ThePinkPanzer;47871703]The first was not bad[/QUOTE] Nor was the second one. Its just popular to hate on Doubleya.

[QUOTE=Rocket;47872944]And Jeb Bush isn't? Like... not using white house email servers? That's a menace to society?[/QUOTE] The email thing is particularly funny since [url=http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/05/politics/bush-private-emails-aides/]Jeb Bush also used a private email address when he was a governor,[/url] instead of the intended government email address. But no one ever seems to give him grief about it.

[QUOTE=Rocket;47872944] Like... not using white house email servers? That's a menace to society?[/QUOTE] Oh no, I could not find a reason to give a damn regarding the email thing. My main grudges with Mrs. Clinton range from, "East Valley does not need to be cleaned up!" to AWB 1994. Seriously, shes involved with the current failure to put up a barrier against asian carp in the Mississippi River, tries to push an AWB whenever she gets a chance, is for the death penalty, flip-flops on internet censorship, and does a lot of shady shit with corporations. I'd much prefer Sanders over her, as atleast Sanders is being funded by non-corporate lobbies. She is also the epitome of a Democrat in Office when it comes to war related things. With the whole, "grrr evil bush" but the second Obama was in office and authorizing a failure of a troop surge, said that it was no big deal and a failure of the previous administrations.

[QUOTE=JoeSkylynx;47872903]Bill isn't bad, his wife is a fucking menace to society and should never be allowed to touch any presidential position after all the stuff she's done and said.[/QUOTE] [del]I'm totally out of the loop. Why is Hilary Clinton bad?[/del] Nevermind, should have read your last post before posting.

[QUOTE=ThePinkPanzer;47871703]The first was not bad[/QUOTE] or... The first was not two bad.

[QUOTE=Maegord;47873222]The email thing is particularly funny since [url=http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/05/politics/bush-private-emails-aides/]Jeb Bush also used a private email address when he was a governor,[/url] instead of the intended government email address. But no one ever seems to give him grief about it.[/QUOTE] Its slightly different from the third most powerful person in the executive branch using a private email to talk to the president than a governor using a private email. The federal government especially the whitehouse cannot afford to have people deliberately putting massive security holes in for the sake of convieniance [editline]4th June 2015[/editline] Still all the politicians today don't seem to have the slightest clue how technology works which is great that they pretend to legislate on it from a point of knowledge