Lending more credibility to Keystone Phil's anecdotes.

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I'll just use this thread for random anecdotal evidence...

I visited my Grandparents tonight. My Grandmother was telling me about a certain someone she is friendly with who stopped to talk to her at a local diner. All I'll say about this certain someone is that he or she is a major Democratic ward leader here in the NE Philly and this person also holds elected office.

The person asked my Grandmother, "So be honest. Who do you want?" My Grandmother told her that she's for McCain. The Democratic ward leader responded, "I wish there were more people like you."

Wow democrats in philly are really messed up. That ward leader ought to quit if he feels that way.

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I think Phil may have a point about his area of the city, but that says nothing at all about PA overall.

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I think Phil may have a point about his area of the city, but that says nothing at all about PA overall.

Says nothing at all? Do these votes not get counted in the statewide total?

Ok it says a tiny,tiny bit about the state. I remember in 2004 I could tell my city was swinging towards the democrats so I thought my state and the country would swing democrat. Not only was I wrong about the country, but my state moved the other direction as well. Strong performance by Mccain in NE philly can easily be counteracted by a strong performance by Obama in the suburbs, if not the black part of philly itself.

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This year, he believes, issues like abortion and even the war in Iraq weren’t determining factors.
"The issue of the economy trumped all others," he said. "That was the final straw for many voters."
Medvec thinks a lot of local voters liked Joe Biden, Obama’s vice presidential running mate. Biden, a senator from Delaware, was born in the blue-collar town of Scranton, Pa.

The professor looked back to Deval Patrick’s election as Massachusetts governor in 2006 and Michael Nutter’s victory in the 2007 Philadelphia mayoral race as harbingers of Obama’s success.

Like Patrick and Nutter, Obama is an Ivy League-educated black man who did well with white voters.
Still, some of Obama’s votes came from whites who wouldn’t tell even their family members they were backing him.

"We saw a reverse Bradley Effect," Medvec said.

The Bradley Effect, discredited by many analysts, is a term used to describe how black candidates sometimes do worse on Election Day than in pre-election polls.

The theory was coined after black Democrat Tom Bradley lost the 1982 California governor’s race to white Republican George Deukmejian, despite leading in polls. Some Bradley supporters contended afterward that many white voters told pollsters they were for Bradley because they did not want to be perceived as racists. In the end, they voted for Deukmejian.

State Rep.-elect Brendan Boyle, a Democrat, took a poll in late May that showed him leading his 170th Legislative District race by 24 points, but Obama trailing McCain by 16 points.

"People would say, ‘I’m definitely supporting you, but Obama, I’m not sure,’" he said.

The candidate, who knocked on doors most of the year, said some homeowners had Boyle and McCain signs on their lawns.

The anti-Obama comments he heard started to lessen in the summer and mostly ended when the economy faltered in September. Obama ultimately received 54 percent of the vote in the 170th district.
"I think the economic crisis is absolutely why Obama took a firm lead nationally and in our district," Boyle said.

Mike Driscoll, a 65th Ward Democratic committeeman and co-owner of Finnigan’s Wake, became Obama’s Northeast coordinator in mid-July. At the time, he was skeptical whether the candidate — who was crushed in the primary by Hillary Clinton — would resonate in the Northeast.

Driscoll, who ran for an at-large City Council seat in 2003, credits Obama with giving a strong speech at the Democratic National Convention. He believes choosing Biden as his vice president was a plus.
"Little by little, you could see people starting to trust him," he said.

The local Obama field organization worked well with the party infrastructure. They developed a list of every division in the Northeast, identifying those who were undecided, leaning to Obama and definitely in his camp.

Early on Election Day, union members put voting reminders on doorknobs of supporters. Volunteers and campaign staffers followed up with phone calls and visits.

Driscoll received some good news from Bob Dellavella, Democratic leader of the 55th Ward, just five minutes after the polls closed. The 55th, based in West Mayfair, was one the McCain folks were counting on to win.

"He called me at 8:05 with results from his division," said Driscoll, adding that the division went narrowly for Obama. "I said, ‘Barack Obama is the next president of the United States.’ "

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Reporter Tom Waring can be reached at 215-354-3034 or twaring@phillynews.com

Aren't these two articles just more proof anecdotal evidence is total bullsh**t? How does this back up your claims in any way?

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Aren't these two articles just more proof anecdotal evidence is total bullsh**t? How does this back up your claims in any way?

It's proof that it wasn't just me saying all of this. I wasn't crazy for saying this stuff. I was backed up by Democratic Obama supporters up until the polls closed on November 4th.

What you did wrong was not telling us of this anecdotal evidence, actually I think most people appreciate it, but where you went wrong was making predictions based on that kind of evidence. Especially when you wouldn't believe polls but were eager to believe any anecdotal evidence that helped your side.

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Aren't these two articles just more proof anecdotal evidence is total bullsh**t? How does this back up your claims in any way?

It's proof that it wasn't just me saying all of this. I wasn't crazy for saying this stuff. I was backed up by Democratic Obama supporters up until the polls closed on November 4th.

What you did wrong was not telling us of this anecdotal evidence, actually I think most people appreciate it, but where you went wrong was making predictions based on that kind of evidence. Especially when you wouldn't believe polls but were eager to believe any anecdotal evidence that helped your side.

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You have no idea what you're talking about. I predicted an Obama win in PA, pal. Insert foot in mouth now, please.

Not in September when every single poll showed Obama up. You just "clinged" to your anecdotal evidence, which is why you get so much sh**t. And it is 100% deserved. And even when you predicted an Obama win it was by what 2-3% or something, and you proceeded to denigrate people who were predicting a double digit win in PA. Refresh my memory a little, who was correct?

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Aren't these two articles just more proof anecdotal evidence is total bullsh**t? How does this back up your claims in any way?

It's proof that it wasn't just me saying all of this. I wasn't crazy for saying this stuff. I was backed up by Democratic Obama supporters up until the polls closed on November 4th.

What you did wrong was not telling us of this anecdotal evidence, actually I think most people appreciate it, but where you went wrong was making predictions based on that kind of evidence. Especially when you wouldn't believe polls but were eager to believe any anecdotal evidence that helped your side.

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You have no idea what you're talking about. I predicted an Obama win in PA, pal. Insert foot in mouth now, please.

Not in September when every single poll showed Obama up. You just "clinged" to your anecdotal evidence, which is why you get so much sh**t. And it is 100% deserved. And even when you predicted an Obama win it was by what 2-3% or something, and you proceeded to denigrate people who were predicting a double digit win in PA. Refresh my memory a little, who was correct?

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And all of that is pointless. For all we know, I could have been right if things stayed the same. They didn't and I changed what I said before voting began.

And, yes, I did laugh off people predicting a double digit win as did many people that actually supported Obama. It wasn't a mainstream prediction. I was wrong. I admitted it and that's more than any of you ever do.

Dude if things stayed the same and the market didn't crash Obama wouldn't have won it by 10 points, but rather by 2-3 at least. Anybody seeing the polls then could have told you that, but no your anecdotal evidence was too important. PA was above the national mean like we all said would happen a hundred million times and you disputed that a hundred million times. And that would have happened regardless of economic conditions.

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Dude if things stayed the same and the market didn't crash Obama wouldn't have won it by 10 points, but rather by 2-3 at least. Anybody seeing the polls then could have told you that, but no your anecdotal evidence was too important. PA was above the national mean like we all said would happen a hundred million times and you disputed that a hundred million times. And that would have happened regardless of economic conditions.

Dude, you must be really special. To predict with certainty what would happen that far out is amazing! Just get me the Powerball numbers, ok?

Read the bolded part again. I know the debates we had before the election about PA involved that point. I had said back then( and I think Lunar as well?) that this election PA would be at least a few points more democratic than the national average. So if the race had been tied, which I assume would have been the result without the economic crash, Obama would have still won PA by 2-3 points. Back in september when the polls were just about tied, Obama still was never behind in any poll even at Mccain's peak. Thus even a retarded monkey with an abacus could have told you Obama would have won PA, as long as Mccain didn't win by more than 2-3 points. My main argument back then was that PA would not be a tipping point state and I was right and you were wrong. And the reason you were wrong is because you relied on your anecdotal evidence( I don't know what else you could have relied on since all the polls were showing that you were wrong). Now I don't want to argue anymore, but can we both sing kumbaya and say with one voice that anecdotal evidence only tells you about the enthusiasm of a base, and it is absolutely worthless when trying to figure out which candidate will prevail.