James Zogby "Remember Talk of a Bush-Clinton Match-up?" ("I wouldn't place a bet on it")

[Attorney in Texas]

I'm in the Sanders camp and not a Clinton supporter, but it bugs me when pundits suggest that her campaign is collapsing -- Bush's campaign is collapsing, Walker's campaign is collapsing, Perry's campaign has collapsed -- Clinton is still the favorite, she still has the overwhelming superabundance of endorsements, she has the campaign infrastructure, she has almost limitless funds, she has a very high approval rating and low disapproval rating among Democrats, etc.

Notwithstanding the fact that Clinton's campaign is experiencing a normal downward correction and not a collapse as some mischaracterize it, here is some interesting analysis (mostly notable for how the Bush campaign has fallen of the rails):

It wasn't that long ago that the pundits had the 2016 presidential contest pegged as a Clinton-Bush match-up. While that may still occur, I wouldn't place a bet on it.
...
On the Republican side, Jeb Bush and the rest of the GOP field of governors and senators ran smack into two non-politicians who, in most polls, are far and away leading the pack. Donald Trump, billionaire showman, and Ben Carson, neurosurgeon, are currently capturing the support of about one-half of Republican voters. Meanwhile, Bush is polling in the mid-single digits.

Just how disturbed the GOP base has become was in evidence after the last debate. At its conclusion, the consensus among the pundits was that Trump had performed not only poorly but badly and that Carson had been present/absent. But in the weeks following the debate, Trump's lead grew and Carson significantly increased his polling numbers, while the candidates favored by the GOP establishment (Bush, Marco Rubio and Scott Walker) lost ground. Too many Republican voters, it appears, are mad at, fed up with and just don't trust politicians.
...
For those who thought that Jeb was the "smart one" -- the Bush who should have been president -- his lackluster performance, to date, has been disappointing. He has repeatedly stumbled when confronted with both tough and easy questions. His supporters were baffled by his failure to have a quick and ready response to questions about his position on the Iraq war. After all, it was started by his brother over 12 years ago and was one of the most consequential foreign policy events of this century. His bungled response was inexcusable.

[HooptieWagon]

1. Clinton's 'downward correction'...

Looks more like the north slope of Mt Everest.

[Attorney in Texas]

2. The article at the link has plenty of the-Clinton-sky-is-falling! hand wringing if that's your thing

but I personally think her campaign has earned a "B-/C+" so far and nothing like the "D-" Bush's and Rubio's campaigns have scored or the "F" Perry's and Walker's campaigns deserve.

Clinton's campaign only looks worse in comparison to Sanders' "A+" campaign.

[Faux pas]

3. ...

[DanTex]

4. In the sense that the north slope is still far higher than anywhere Bernie has or will be,

and that even Everest Base Camp is higher than any point in the contiguous 48 states, that's actually not a bad analogy.

[HooptieWagon]

6. Gravity is a law.

Hillary doesn't have much time to contemplate it during her plummet. I wonder if Nate Silver has predicted the level where she hits bottom. My guess is upper 30s.

[DanTex]

7. Nate Silver has her as a 93% favorite to get the Nom. Personally I think that's a little high,

I'd go somewhere in the 80s, but he's pretty good at this stuff.

[HooptieWagon]

12. That's only a current probability.

Sanders has concentrated his campaigning in the two earliest states. In the remaining 48, plus territories, he's still relatively unknown. As his campaign picks up in other states, his support will grow...just like it has in Iowa and NH. Silver's probability doesn't take into account future campaigning by Sanders, nor does it reflect the slope of Hillarys plummet or predict it's ultimate depth. It is merely one snapshot in time....and utterly meaningless without the other snapshots from which a trend can be determined. Silver probably had Obamas chances at a very low probability 15 months ahead of '08. We all know that success in the early states led to future successes, and Hillary's campaign collapsed due to incompetence and tone-deafness (both of which continue to plague it).

[Motown_Johnny]

16. It isn't THAT steep

I could ski it, but I wouldn't want to try and drive up it for long.

[SonderWoman]

5. Nate Silver just gave HRC a 93% of winning nomination.

[SonderWoman]

9. I'm guessing you never heard of Nate Silver?

[TM99]

13. He also failed very badly

in the UK 2015 predictions.

[morningfog]

14. Good thing about Nate, his numbers adjust over time.

It's a snapshot.

[cherokeeprogressive]

18. I have a 50-50 chance of winning the Powerball Lottery.

I'll either win it, or I won't.

[Attorney in Texas]

19. Where did he give Clinton a 93% chance of winning the nomination? I think he gave Sanders about a 7%

chance of winning the nomination based on the current polling. The current polling can also be used to assign Biden a chance of winning (and O'Malley, etc., small chances of winning, too). Where do you find Nate Silver assigning Clinton a 93% chance of winning the nomination because that conflicts with his recent assessment of Sanders' odds (which -- by the way -- is an increased assessment of Sanders' odd as compared to Silver's analysis from a month ago).

[HereSince1628]

10. One problem is that going from being proclaimed a prohibitive favorite to 'competitive'

against 2 others (Biden, Sanders) doesn't have the feel of a correction.

The 50+ point advantage at the start was close to unprecedented for someone other than an incumbent; the erosion of that advantage seems equally unprecedented.

It was sold far and wide from bulletin boards and blogs to the MSM, as a universal truth that Clinton was inevitable.

Calling it other than a fall from an overwhelmingly dominant position feels somewhere between calling for another Mulligan and just disingenuous.

[Attorney in Texas]

17. Your argument that Clinton is merely "competitive" presumes she's running against the sitting VP who

is not a candidate in the real world.

Clinton's campaign is where it should be 5 months before the Iowa caucus.

Sanders' campaign is where it should be 5 months before the Iowa caucus.

If Sanders keeps doing what he's doing, we could see a major upset, but if you think Clinton's campaign is collapsing or she is going to hand the nomination to Sanders in a way that he does not need to earn every delegate he wins, you are underestimating Clinton.

[HereSince1628]

20. I'm not presuming anything that isn't present in the polls

that are generating the interpretations that Clinton's campaign has lost in numerical terms more support than any other person running democrat or republican.

I'm making the observation that people don't much think about the meaning of numbers and percents, they look, unfortunately, at magnitudes.

[Attorney in Texas]

21. The polls are commissioned and published by news agencies who are trying to sell product. It is a

more newsworthy story (i.e., better MSM product) to concoct a close race to report on. This is why Biden is included in most polling sponsored by the MSM, but that does not change the fact that Biden is not a candidate.

If Santa Clause or Obama or Oprah were also included in the poll, they -- too -- would cut into Clinton's and Sanders' support but the truth is that neither Santa Clause nor Obama nor Oprah nor Biden are a candidate and so including them in the poll might make for a juicier story but a less accurate poll result.

[HereSince1628]

22. Well Obama running would be interesting from a constitutional perspective

the rest of it not so much.

The issue is really why the drop in Clinton would be treated as interesting and more serious than larger percentage collapses of other candidates.

I think meaningful discussion of that needs to involve, in some manner, how people perceive failing expectations. more than it needs to be told as the outcome of a conjectured problem of elementary arithmetic.

[Attorney in Texas]

23. Trump is giving the MSM plenty to talk about other than Bush's and Walker's collapsing campaigns but

on the Democratic side, the MSM does not find a juicier story than Clinton dipping in the polls so they make that into the juiciest story they can.

If the Clinton story runs better with a Biden angle, then they add a Biden angle.

The fact that the MSM has to exaggerate all of this campaign nonsense is the result of the fact that most people aren't really interested in the race 5 months before the Iowa caucus.

The bullshit that the MSM is reporting in September won't matter and won't even be remembered in November, and the bullshit that the MSM is reporting in November won't matter and won't even be remembered in January when most people will only start beginning to pay attention.

[RandySF]

15. Zogby hasn't been right about anything since 2000