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279 andrew gelman stats-2010-09-15-Electability and perception of electability


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Introduction: Mark Palko writes: We’ve heard a lot recently about the Republican voters going with less electable candidates (last night in particular), but I [Palko] wonder whether this is less a question of putting less weight on electability and more of having a different perception of electability. Is this really a case of primary voters who supported O’Donnell saying “I’d rather be right than be president” or do a large percentage of them believe she has a better than even chance in November. My reply: It’s not so horrible for people to engage in non-strategic voting! Beyond the immediate probabilities of this candidate winning the Senate election in November, primary challenges keep incumbents accountable. The thing I don’t really understand is why there aren’t more such challenges. I suppose they’re unlikely enough to succeed that it’s not usually worth doing it and risking your political career. But, yes, I’m pretty sure that O’Donnell’s voters overestimated the chance that she’


Summary: the most important sentenses genereted by tfidf model

sentIndex sentText sentNum sentScore

1 Mark Palko writes: We’ve heard a lot recently about the Republican voters going with less electable candidates (last night in particular), but I [Palko] wonder whether this is less a question of putting less weight on electability and more of having a different perception of electability. [sent-1, score-1.658]

2 Is this really a case of primary voters who supported O’Donnell saying “I’d rather be right than be president” or do a large percentage of them believe she has a better than even chance in November. [sent-2, score-1.054]

3 My reply: It’s not so horrible for people to engage in non-strategic voting! [sent-3, score-0.225]

4 Beyond the immediate probabilities of this candidate winning the Senate election in November, primary challenges keep incumbents accountable. [sent-4, score-1.089]

5 The thing I don’t really understand is why there aren’t more such challenges. [sent-5, score-0.066]

6 I suppose they’re unlikely enough to succeed that it’s not usually worth doing it and risking your political career. [sent-6, score-0.677]

7 But, yes, I’m pretty sure that O’Donnell’s voters overestimated the chance that she’d win in November. [sent-7, score-0.706]

8 The real question here is why little Delaware has 2 seats in the U. [sent-9, score-0.234]


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Introduction: Mark Palko writes: We’ve heard a lot recently about the Republican voters going with less electable candidates (last night in particular), but I [Palko] wonder whether this is less a question of putting less weight on electability and more of having a different perception of electability. Is this really a case of primary voters who supported O’Donnell saying “I’d rather be right than be president” or do a large percentage of them believe she has a better than even chance in November. My reply: It’s not so horrible for people to engage in non-strategic voting! Beyond the immediate probabilities of this candidate winning the Senate election in November, primary challenges keep incumbents accountable. The thing I don’t really understand is why there aren’t more such challenges. I suppose they’re unlikely enough to succeed that it’s not usually worth doing it and risking your political career. But, yes, I’m pretty sure that O’Donnell’s voters overestimated the chance that she’

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