I didn't communicate my point effectively. Let me try again. I believe strongly in quantitative analysis of election data. I place zero value in punditry, espe

I didn't communicate my point effectively. Let me try again. I believe strongly in quantitative analysis of election data. I place zero value in punditry, especially from main stream media. What I don't believe is that some of these complicated models, Silver's in particular, are meaningfully superior to predicting the election by trivially applying recent polling data augmenting it perhaps with a simple weighted combination of polls based on recency or sample size. I take as a given that Silver's model is better than punditry. I am skeptical that it is better than the trivial model which any undergraduate stats student would cook up. > The problem is, which polling data do you use? They provide a scientific answer to that question. Instead of cherry picking, they use it all, and weight it based on past accuracy and other factors. What I dispute is whether the "other factors", which is the secret-sauce that allows Silver to give the impression he has a uniquely predictive model, have any real value. Thanks for the Linzer link. I have to take time to read it carefully but on first glance it again shows one of the things I take issue with: If you are going to claim that a model is accurate you should be asking, compared to what? How can you justify a complex model if you aren't even going to try to show that it is better than some trivial baseline?