Younger DUers...

[Awsi Dooger]

25. There was confidence that Kerry would win

A math guy named TruthIsAll had bombarded the site for months with fancy formulas asserting Kerry at 99.99% likelihood to win. He based it on unskewing the polls and also assigning an absurd percentage of the undecideds to Kerry as challenger.

That 99.99% avalanche brainwashed the site in general. Too many posters believed there had to be plenty of legitimacy, if someone with fancy mathematical degrees was so insistent. There were many more active major political forums on this site in those days. TruthIsAll hammered every one of them. You couldn't escape his latest thread because he'd post it 6 or 8 different places. Then he got furious at myself and a few others for following him around to all the forums, pointing out his latest mistake in every one of them.

Everybody sensed it would be close. Kerry basically had to win either Florida or Ohio. There was lots of debate toward which one was more likely. Of course, there was already cynicism toward Florida based on 2000, and new concerns about Ohio due to Ken Blackwell and all the obvious suppression going on there.

I had a mathematical model myself. I actually spent more time tinkering with it in 2004 than any other cycle. It was heavily weighted to situational advantage toward Bush as incumbent whose party had been in power only one term, but did give Kerry a chance based on that undecideds aspect. All my wagering friends in Las Vegas chastised me for it because when they took a look at it they said it blatantly screamed that Bush was likely to win, but I had tinkered with some categories to pretend Kerry had more chance than he actually did. I concede they were correct. However, it was largely due to some variables that I did not understand at the time. For example, in 2004 I did not understand that Hispanics tilt unusually to a presidential incumbent. That's why my model was overly friendly to Kerry's chances in Florida. After the fact, once I shifted Bush's Hispanic vote share to what he actually received, my model had nailed Florida almost to a few hundredths of a percent.

The air of confidence on this site is what led to the widespread acceptance and glee toward the early exit polls. My reaction was exactly the opposite. As soon as I saw them I knew Kerry had lost. I was absolutely numbed. There was one preposterous margin after another, in state after state. Obviously way too high. Numbers that didn't make sense based on ideology or anything else. Then when I checked the pivotal states Ohio and Florida, Kerry had only a small edge. Since every state was many points too friendly to Kerry, once the real numbers started coming in, the real-world shift in Florida and Ohio was going to take it across from one victor to another.

Consequently I gave up, turned everything off, and went to sleep knowing Kerry had lost, while everyone here was still celebrating a certain win.

I remember one low-key but smart poster named Dolstein who never got caught up in the 99.99% hype. He matter of factly posted all year that he didn't think Kerry was special enough to defeat an incumbent.