WEBVTT - Statistics With Nate Silver: Masters in Business (Audio) 0:00:03.240 --> 0:00:07.560 This is Masters in Business with Barry Ridholds on Bloomberg Radio. 0:00:08.119 --> 0:00:10.800 This week, we have a very special guest. And I 0:00:10.840 --> 0:00:13.160 know I say that every week, but really, this week 0:00:13.200 --> 0:00:16.640 we have a very special guest. You know him from 0:00:16.680 --> 0:00:19.520 the five thirty eight blog, formerly of The New York 0:00:19.560 --> 0:00:24.000 Times and now with ESPN, Nate Silver. We had a 0:00:24.079 --> 0:00:29.720 wide ranging and lengthy conversation about everything from sports to 0:00:29.920 --> 0:00:35.760 statistical analysis, to politics and campaigns, and given the current 0:00:36.000 --> 0:00:40.000 madness in the um campaign season, we spent a lot 0:00:40.040 --> 0:00:43.080 of time talking about what's going on, much of which 0:00:43.400 --> 0:00:47.080 is really really fascinating. We we went a little long, 0:00:47.240 --> 0:00:48.959 and normally I like to give you a little more 0:00:49.000 --> 0:00:52.639 details in these intros, but I think this, uh, this 0:00:52.720 --> 0:00:56.560 podcast stands on its own. We covered everything, so rather 0:00:56.600 --> 0:01:00.640 than me continually babbling about how fast and in this is, 0:01:01.080 --> 0:01:04.479 let's just jump right to it. Here's my conversation with 0:01:04.600 --> 0:01:11.960 five thirty eight Nate Silver. This is Masters in Business 0:01:12.040 --> 0:01:16.200 with Barry Ridholts on Bloomberg Radio. This week on Masters 0:01:16.200 --> 0:01:19.640 in Business, my special guest is one Nate Silver. You 0:01:19.720 --> 0:01:23.160 probably know him from five thirty eight. A quick bit 0:01:23.160 --> 0:01:27.160 of background about Mr Silver graduated in two thousand from 0:01:27.160 --> 0:01:32.760 the University of Chicago bachelor's degree in economics, became frustrated 0:01:33.200 --> 0:01:35.120 by what he was seeing both in the world of 0:01:35.800 --> 0:01:39.800 sports statistics and politics. Created we'll talk a little bit 0:01:39.800 --> 0:01:44.160 about Pacoda, which was the baseball statistical system you had 0:01:44.160 --> 0:01:48.480 set up, and basically said, while stranded in an airport 0:01:48.480 --> 0:01:51.640 in New Orleans, the idea for five thirty eight popped 0:01:51.840 --> 0:01:54.240 fully formed into your head. Is that true? I'm not 0:01:54.320 --> 0:01:57.040 sure fully formed right. There was a certain amount of 0:01:57.120 --> 0:01:59.640 you know, gumbo and stuff have been consumed, and yeah, 0:01:59.840 --> 0:02:02.840 and on a slash slash thought lots of other things 0:02:02.840 --> 0:02:06.400 in New Orleans to but the analysis about about elections 0:02:06.440 --> 0:02:09.200 was frustrating you. And and obviously five thirty eight is 0:02:09.240 --> 0:02:12.880 a number of total votes in the US Electoral College, 0:02:12.880 --> 0:02:17.480 of which you need to sixty nine or two and 0:02:17.639 --> 0:02:21.080 um and created five thirty eight. Just a quick background 0:02:21.240 --> 0:02:25.040 about five thirty eight. In two thousand and eight, it 0:02:25.639 --> 0:02:29.320 correctly predicted the winner in forty nine of fifty states 0:02:29.720 --> 0:02:33.480 for the presidential election. Uh. It gets licensed by the 0:02:33.520 --> 0:02:36.840 New York Times in two thousand ten in anticipation of 0:02:36.840 --> 0:02:40.320 the two thousand twelve election, and he basically Nate runs 0:02:40.360 --> 0:02:44.120 the table in two thousand twelve predicts every state and 0:02:44.200 --> 0:02:47.560 the district of Columbia correctly as to the winner of 0:02:48.320 --> 0:02:52.400 Barack Obama versus Mitt Romney, as well as all thirty 0:02:52.400 --> 0:02:57.000 five UM senatorial race. I should be correct. The Senate 0:02:57.040 --> 0:02:59.600 was in two thousand and eight, we had thirty thirty five. 0:02:59.600 --> 0:03:03.639 We missed think two in how dare you sir? Well 0:03:03.680 --> 0:03:08.240 the irony and we'll talk about this morning ironies and 0:03:08.320 --> 0:03:13.079 like the fact that you know, uh, because we got lucky. Basically, 0:03:13.480 --> 0:03:15.639 you know, there's some skill, but there's a lot of lucky, 0:03:15.639 --> 0:03:17.480 and so let's jump right into that. So normally at 0:03:17.480 --> 0:03:19.600 this point I say, welcome to Boolberg, but I know 0:03:19.639 --> 0:03:22.040 you've been here before, and I'm I'm really thank you 0:03:22.080 --> 0:03:24.720 so much for doing this. I'm really excited. We'll talk 0:03:24.720 --> 0:03:29.119 a little bit about your relationship UM with various uh 0:03:29.160 --> 0:03:32.640 statistical approaches, how five thirty eight just blew up at 0:03:32.639 --> 0:03:36.840 the New York Times, and how life is currently at ESPN, 0:03:37.400 --> 0:03:41.200 and then we'll take a really close look at the elections. 0:03:41.240 --> 0:03:44.600 So I'm sure there's a ton of stuff. I would 0:03:44.600 --> 0:03:47.680 be remiss if I failed to mention that you were 0:03:47.760 --> 0:03:50.920 named by Time magazine is one of the hundred most 0:03:50.920 --> 0:03:53.840 influential people in the world, and that your book, The 0:03:53.880 --> 0:03:56.680 Signal in the Noise was a New York Times best 0:03:56.680 --> 0:04:00.240 seller and an Amazon number one pick for Best our 0:04:00.480 --> 0:04:03.720 Nonfiction in two thousand twelve. Well, thank you. So so 0:04:03.760 --> 0:04:06.760 that's really um, we're out of time now, but let's 0:04:06.840 --> 0:04:09.800 let's let's start with a little bit of of baseball. 0:04:09.920 --> 0:04:13.640 So you develop something called Pakoda. Tell the listen one, 0:04:13.760 --> 0:04:17.479 it's exactly what that. So Pakoda is a terrible acronymic. Yeah, 0:04:17.560 --> 0:04:21.720 it's like picture empirical comparison and optimization tests algorithm. But 0:04:21.760 --> 0:04:23.679 the idea is that couldn't you've come up with something 0:04:23.680 --> 0:04:26.240 wonkier than that? Yeah, but Pakoda built Pacoda was a 0:04:26.240 --> 0:04:29.160 baseball player. I played for the Royals, like in the eighties, 0:04:29.240 --> 0:04:30.720 the Tigers fan and so it was a thorn in 0:04:30.760 --> 0:04:32.400 the side of the Royals, right, So it was meant 0:04:32.440 --> 0:04:37.320 to be kind of intentionally self parrying and giffy a 0:04:37.400 --> 0:04:41.640 little a little um part of the punt inside baseball, 0:04:41.720 --> 0:04:43.680 a little inside baseball. Yeah, And that's the thing I 0:04:43.680 --> 0:04:45.880 think people don't realize about, you know, kind of what 0:04:45.920 --> 0:04:48.520 I do. It's always a little bit very serious work. 0:04:48.560 --> 0:04:51.560 But we're not taking ourselves too seriously. But anyway, the 0:04:51.600 --> 0:04:55.280 idea of Pakoda was to use baseball is very rich 0:04:55.360 --> 0:04:58.159 history to project the future, which is really all you 0:04:58.160 --> 0:05:02.440 know of Cisco models are really using this history protict 0:05:02.440 --> 0:05:05.560 the future, right, an extrapolation based on what's the highest 0:05:05.560 --> 0:05:08.400 probability relative to what's happened in the past. But in 0:05:08.440 --> 0:05:10.440 baseball you have so many good years of data and 0:05:10.440 --> 0:05:14.680 so many players every season where you can say, you know, uh, taked, 0:05:14.800 --> 0:05:17.919 you know current player, right, Curtis Grander cent or whatnot, 0:05:18.000 --> 0:05:19.560 age thirty three whatever is for the Mets, and go 0:05:19.640 --> 0:05:22.320 back in history and see who were the guys who 0:05:22.440 --> 0:05:26.320 were like Curtis Granderson at age thirty three and similar attributes, 0:05:26.360 --> 0:05:28.840 similar history, similar attributes, right, and you can say, okay, 0:05:28.920 --> 0:05:30.880 so now we can say kind of, here are a 0:05:30.920 --> 0:05:33.640 hundred different career paths for um, what's the risk of 0:05:33.640 --> 0:05:35.719 a you very easily could have ended up in a 0:05:35.800 --> 0:05:37.440 career path where you would have either been in Wall 0:05:37.480 --> 0:05:42.560 Street analyst or economists because essentially the better ones. That's 0:05:42.560 --> 0:05:46.440 what they do recognizing the limitations of pretty similar right. 0:05:46.520 --> 0:05:49.679 And we're spoiled in sports in the sense that, um, 0:05:49.880 --> 0:05:51.720 so much data is so much data. The data is 0:05:51.760 --> 0:05:53.720 so reliable, you know, there's not really a lot of 0:05:54.160 --> 0:05:58.120 uh uncertainty there in terms of measurement error. Right. Um, 0:05:58.480 --> 0:06:00.520 so you get really spoiled in sport and you spend 0:06:00.560 --> 0:06:03.800 a lot of your time actually testing hypotheses, whereas in 0:06:03.839 --> 0:06:06.920 most fields, you know, to some extent, including politics, you're 0:06:06.920 --> 0:06:09.479 spending nine saying your time cleaning up the data and 0:06:09.520 --> 0:06:11.560 scratching your head and saying, you know, does this tell 0:06:11.600 --> 0:06:14.200 us anything at all? We we look at non farm payrolls, 0:06:14.240 --> 0:06:18.240 the way it's measured each month has changed and evolved 0:06:18.240 --> 0:06:21.560 over time. Everybody forgets, you know, this data doesn't go 0:06:21.600 --> 0:06:25.360 back forever. Was only after the Great Depression, and FDR 0:06:25.480 --> 0:06:29.800 essentially created the Commerce and Bureau of Labor Statistics Department 0:06:29.800 --> 0:06:32.920 in order to assemble this data so we can actually 0:06:33.120 --> 0:06:36.440 so so let's get into a little more details and 0:06:36.440 --> 0:06:40.280 and we'll we'll come back to Pacoda because it's it's fascinating. 0:06:40.760 --> 0:06:43.600 In two thousand and seven, you're still working for you 0:06:43.640 --> 0:06:48.320 sell Pacoda to Baseball Perspectives, you're writing for them, and 0:06:48.360 --> 0:06:51.160 you start posting at the Daily Coast under the name 0:06:51.600 --> 0:06:57.520 Poblano looking at various um polling data in a way 0:06:57.560 --> 0:07:00.440 to to, well, why don't I let you describe, yeah, 0:07:00.440 --> 0:07:03.760 what you're doing? An oh seven? So uh, So, I 0:07:03.839 --> 0:07:07.320 had worked for Baseball Perspectives for for several years that point, 0:07:07.360 --> 0:07:09.120 and this was kind of in an era when Moneyball 0:07:09.160 --> 0:07:12.280 came out in two thousand three, right, fantastic book, the 0:07:12.320 --> 0:07:14.240 movie was great, great book, and you kind of that 0:07:14.240 --> 0:07:16.320 triggered a lot of interests and things that Bill James 0:07:16.360 --> 0:07:19.320 have running about for decades. Actually, metrics has been around 0:07:19.320 --> 0:07:21.920 for yeah, it seems like forever. But you saw how 0:07:21.960 --> 0:07:24.600 much of an impact that had both on the game itself, 0:07:24.760 --> 0:07:26.200 the way the game was played, and the way the 0:07:26.200 --> 0:07:28.720 game was covered by the media, and it seemed like 0:07:28.760 --> 0:07:33.280 there was very little of that in campaign coverage at all. Um. 0:07:33.320 --> 0:07:36.800 So I kind of started anonymously a daily coast, uh, 0:07:37.080 --> 0:07:39.560 kind of writing these little things about about the two 0:07:39.600 --> 0:07:43.559 thousand and seven primary between Clinton and Obama. Um and 0:07:43.600 --> 0:07:45.040 eventually said, you know, I kind of want to be 0:07:45.080 --> 0:07:47.960 on my own here, and so I launched five dot 0:07:48.000 --> 0:07:51.400 com in March two eight. You're listening to Masters in 0:07:51.440 --> 0:07:55.360 Business on Bloomberg Radio. My special guest today Nate Silver 0:07:55.560 --> 0:07:59.000 of five thirty eight, the man who correctly predicted just 0:07:59.120 --> 0:08:02.160 about every race that mattered in two thousand and twelve 0:08:02.280 --> 0:08:05.120 and came pretty darn close, and in two thousand and 0:08:05.120 --> 0:08:08.520 eight got just about everything right then. So you launched 0:08:08.520 --> 0:08:10.520 the side in o A. You do a great job 0:08:10.600 --> 0:08:14.280 with the election in oh eight, uh, not only determining 0:08:14.360 --> 0:08:17.240 who's going to win the Democratic primary. So a lot 0:08:17.280 --> 0:08:19.920 of your insights turned out to be very prescient on that. 0:08:20.680 --> 0:08:24.240 But then you do the head to head between Obama 0:08:24.280 --> 0:08:28.920 and McCain and Hillary McCain and tell us what you found. Well, 0:08:28.960 --> 0:08:31.280 I mean, two thousand and eight was not really among 0:08:31.320 --> 0:08:35.400 them more suspenseful general elections. Um, I guess early on 0:08:35.600 --> 0:08:38.280 in March when I launched, uh, it was a little 0:08:38.280 --> 0:08:41.520 bit closer. But historically polls in March don't tell you 0:08:41.600 --> 0:08:43.440 very much, right, And that's one of the things you 0:08:43.520 --> 0:08:45.960 talk about very often, which I think a lot of 0:08:46.000 --> 0:08:49.600 people don't really pay attention to us, which is, hey, 0:08:49.640 --> 0:08:52.720 here's the polls, but at this stage don't give us 0:08:52.720 --> 0:08:55.080 at election cycles are really really long thing, right, And 0:08:55.080 --> 0:08:57.480 we spend this country, in this country, the UK, they 0:08:57.480 --> 0:08:59.640 don't understand it's five and a half weeks and they 0:08:59.679 --> 0:09:02.800 spend nine million dollars and They look at us like 0:09:02.800 --> 0:09:06.520 what crazy? But here we have it's a two year process, right, um, 0:09:06.920 --> 0:09:08.800 and we probably spend eighty percent of that time at 0:09:09.320 --> 0:09:12.160 eight saying you know what, these polls are not very meaningful. 0:09:12.280 --> 0:09:14.760 You should not take them to literally interpret them with 0:09:14.800 --> 0:09:17.760 a lot of caution. Right. Then at the end we say, actually, 0:09:17.880 --> 0:09:21.160 when you get after Labor Day, polls do a pretty 0:09:21.160 --> 0:09:23.680 good track record, right, and pay more attention to them. 0:09:23.760 --> 0:09:26.079 And so but people people don't do that, right, the 0:09:26.200 --> 0:09:29.840 kind of are too distrustful of the polls in November 0:09:30.280 --> 0:09:33.800 and much too serious about the polls like now in 0:09:33.840 --> 0:09:37.400 August of all things, a year before the election. Um, 0:09:37.440 --> 0:09:39.240 you know, you could go back and look at who 0:09:39.280 --> 0:09:42.760 was ahead in August of the past nomination campaigns. Well, 0:09:43.040 --> 0:09:45.520 in two thousand twelve, Rick Perry at this point in 0:09:45.600 --> 0:09:48.079 time was surging past Mitt Romney. In two thousand and eight, 0:09:48.080 --> 0:09:50.719 it was Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton. Two thousand and 0:09:50.760 --> 0:09:53.680 four it was Joe Lieberman and Howard Dean on the 0:09:53.679 --> 0:09:56.840 Democratic side. Right, Um, so kind of four in a row. 0:09:56.880 --> 0:09:59.040 I'm before that two thousand was a more predictable year, 0:09:59.200 --> 0:10:01.920 right u. Um, but you know ninety two, Bill Clinton 0:10:01.920 --> 0:10:05.800 hadn't even entered the race yet. Um, So you know, 0:10:05.920 --> 0:10:09.160 people kind of ignore history at their at their peril. 0:10:09.240 --> 0:10:11.719 That's fascinating. We'll get to that more in in a 0:10:11.800 --> 0:10:15.600 later segment when we talk about this carent election. So, so, 0:10:15.679 --> 0:10:18.200 oh eight comes and goes and you do a you know, 0:10:18.360 --> 0:10:22.640 killer job. Who else besides The Times approached you? How 0:10:22.640 --> 0:10:25.760 did that come about? We had four or five or 0:10:25.800 --> 0:10:28.199 six conversations with different people, and you know, I try 0:10:28.240 --> 0:10:30.800 and be respectful of those conversations, but there was there 0:10:30.840 --> 0:10:32.240 was a lot of interest. I mean, I think people 0:10:32.320 --> 0:10:34.800 knew how big a story two thousand and eight had been. 0:10:34.880 --> 0:10:37.200 You know, for me, it was kind of like it 0:10:37.240 --> 0:10:39.280 would be useful to have. I mean, I was basically 0:10:39.320 --> 0:10:41.920 running eight on my own. We had some other part 0:10:41.920 --> 0:10:45.559 time contributors. I was doing everything from doing the graphics 0:10:45.600 --> 0:10:47.719 to writing the stories, trying to promote the blog, and 0:10:47.800 --> 0:10:49.960 it was just a lot of work. And I think, um, 0:10:50.000 --> 0:10:51.800 that's a nuver used word, but there has to be 0:10:52.320 --> 0:10:55.760 some synergy between what a contributor might have to say 0:10:55.800 --> 0:10:59.160 and a big media company like The Times. For example, Um, 0:10:59.600 --> 0:11:01.920 was that the M I. T. Sloan Business Conference, which 0:11:01.960 --> 0:11:04.280 is a sports business conference every year and ran into 0:11:04.280 --> 0:11:06.320 an editor from The Times on a train platform and 0:11:06.360 --> 0:11:09.079 we really and we talked, and so it's kind of spontaneous, right, 0:11:09.320 --> 0:11:12.640 a little serendipity and uh yeah, a little serendipity, and 0:11:12.640 --> 0:11:15.400 it wound up being a really good fit for a 0:11:15.440 --> 0:11:17.880 couple of years. It was a tremendous fit. And if 0:11:17.920 --> 0:11:22.960 memory serves something like in the height of the election 0:11:24.000 --> 0:11:27.480 the I'm sure I'm destroying the statistic, but you were 0:11:27.520 --> 0:11:31.439 twenty or of the total New York Times web traffic. 0:11:31.520 --> 0:11:33.839 I think, you know a second, it's a little at 0:11:33.840 --> 0:11:36.439 a peak. At a peak, yeah, um, you know, I 0:11:36.480 --> 0:11:39.480 think on election week something like twenty percent of unique 0:11:39.480 --> 0:11:44.760 and users at the Times went by and viewed eight Um. 0:11:44.800 --> 0:11:47.199 It was really nice, and it definitely got really crazy. 0:11:47.520 --> 0:11:49.559 I can imagine towards the end of I mean, it's 0:11:49.559 --> 0:11:51.680 a little bit like this is really self agruandizing, right, 0:11:51.679 --> 0:11:54.440 but it's a little bit like, um, I feel some 0:11:54.520 --> 0:11:57.880 sympathy for like Olympic athletes, where you know that every 0:11:57.880 --> 0:12:01.480 four years their life becomes like a total crazed swamp 0:12:01.520 --> 0:12:04.680 of although the difference between you and an Olympic athlete, 0:12:05.360 --> 0:12:07.839 um is that they're training the entire for you. They 0:12:07.880 --> 0:12:09.640 train the entire for you. You have I need a 0:12:09.679 --> 0:12:12.040 lot better than I do. But uh so let me 0:12:12.080 --> 0:12:16.080 ask you about training. Food doesn't matter as much as so. 0:12:16.160 --> 0:12:19.200 You have an undergraduate degree from University of Chicago, great 0:12:19.280 --> 0:12:24.079 school in economics. I would have assumed it was applied mathematics, statistics, 0:12:24.120 --> 0:12:29.319 and probability. I know those can be concentrations within economics. 0:12:29.360 --> 0:12:31.880 How did you find your way into this form of 0:12:31.960 --> 0:12:34.720 statistical analysis? I mean, you have c is a pretty 0:12:34.760 --> 0:12:37.520 quantitative school in general, but it was really kind of 0:12:37.520 --> 0:12:40.360 stuff I did outside of of school and outside of work. 0:12:40.440 --> 0:12:42.800 So sports in particular was kind of like a lot 0:12:42.840 --> 0:12:45.720 of applied statistics. You want to win your fantasy baseball league, 0:12:45.720 --> 0:12:48.320 you want to win your instate tournament, Brackett. And you know, 0:12:48.360 --> 0:12:50.560 like I said earlier, the data and sports is so 0:12:50.600 --> 0:12:52.880 good that it's a good way to train your hypothesis 0:12:52.920 --> 0:12:56.320 testing skills and logical inference skills and stuff like that. 0:12:56.400 --> 0:12:58.640 But it's all, you know, it's all kind of a 0:12:58.920 --> 0:13:03.840 passion jacked and also you know, I'm motivated by um 0:13:03.880 --> 0:13:05.920 there's that cartoon about oh someone's wrong on the internet. 0:13:06.000 --> 0:13:09.480 You can't get to sleep right like I'm motivated by that. Yeah, 0:13:09.600 --> 0:13:11.280 x K c D one of my favorite come to 0:13:11.320 --> 0:13:14.000 bed somebody on the internet. But I'm a little bit 0:13:14.040 --> 0:13:16.640 like the person in that cartoon, right, he's not going 0:13:16.679 --> 0:13:18.480 to bed because I'm like, boy, you know, you go 0:13:18.600 --> 0:13:21.720 and read the campaign coverage and in the mainstream press, 0:13:21.720 --> 0:13:27.040 and it's blatantly wrong think that because somebody saw some 0:13:27.480 --> 0:13:30.679 one signs and palm beach, that didn't determine who was No. 0:13:30.760 --> 0:13:33.080 I mean they rely on an anecdotal evidence or or 0:13:33.160 --> 0:13:35.079 the you know what's funny, which to an article about 0:13:35.080 --> 0:13:37.560 how how Hally Clinton's problems are at least as far 0:13:37.559 --> 0:13:40.280 as the Democratic primary concerned, a little bit overrated. But 0:13:40.320 --> 0:13:42.679 I went back and looked at the kind of coverage 0:13:42.679 --> 0:13:46.120 of past campaigns like two thousand, Al Gore versus Bill 0:13:46.160 --> 0:13:49.400 Bradley and theme for themes, sometimes almost word for a word. 0:13:49.760 --> 0:13:51.880 You can see the same stories written, and the fact 0:13:51.880 --> 0:13:55.000 that people kind of forget that history, right. It's not 0:13:55.040 --> 0:13:57.160 it's not forgetting right. I mean, they're really smart people 0:13:57.200 --> 0:14:00.120 working on on campaign coverage, but there's an insane have 0:14:00.200 --> 0:14:02.680 to to tell the story and to sell the story 0:14:02.760 --> 0:14:05.480 in a narrative format, and a narrative format, and that's 0:14:05.520 --> 0:14:10.360 kind of for me. Campaign journalism's original sin, right, UM 0:14:10.559 --> 0:14:12.480 is it's like a baseball season where things play out 0:14:12.520 --> 0:14:15.480 really slowly. It's a really long season. Not that much 0:14:15.520 --> 0:14:17.560 happens from day to day. Maybe you'll have a few 0:14:17.600 --> 0:14:20.800 genuine events that are um, upset the apple cart, but 0:14:20.840 --> 0:14:22.440 not many. But it's hard to write every day of 0:14:22.440 --> 0:14:25.600 the story. Like you know, today people campaign and nothing 0:14:25.640 --> 0:14:28.520 of importance happened. Right. So, in the last minute we 0:14:28.600 --> 0:14:32.000 have in this segment, how did you end up finding ESPN? 0:14:32.200 --> 0:14:35.440 I'm going to assume your love of sports has made 0:14:35.440 --> 0:14:37.800 that a really strong fit. Yeah. Well, there were a 0:14:37.840 --> 0:14:40.880 couple of reasons. I mean, afterlve the contract with the 0:14:40.880 --> 0:14:44.720 New York Times, UM expired and we again UM we 0:14:44.840 --> 0:14:47.240 the Royal We meaning me and my lawyer and whatnot, 0:14:47.320 --> 0:14:50.480 talked to six or seven different companies, um, you know, 0:14:50.520 --> 0:14:52.880 but ESPN offered a couple of things that were unique. 0:14:52.880 --> 0:14:55.320 One is that they realize that I'm not just about 0:14:55.320 --> 0:14:57.320 politics that to some extent, I want to hedge and 0:14:57.320 --> 0:15:01.120 diversify what I'm doing because we did get lucky in um. 0:15:01.560 --> 0:15:03.760 Another thing is that you know, they have the resources 0:15:03.840 --> 0:15:07.000 to invest in a company that can grow at a 0:15:07.000 --> 0:15:11.440 sustainable rate and UM and evolve a little bit. Right. 0:15:11.480 --> 0:15:13.480 We have twenty five or thirty people now working for 0:15:13.560 --> 0:15:18.840 us at at UM. You know it's sustainable. We we think, 0:15:18.880 --> 0:15:20.480 we hope, I mean, you know, we say, hey, look, 0:15:20.480 --> 0:15:22.960 our traffic is growing. Therefore can we hire this person 0:15:22.960 --> 0:15:25.840 who will help us to keep that growing? Um. But 0:15:26.000 --> 0:15:29.560 you know, that kind of more entrepreneurial attitude, I think 0:15:29.720 --> 0:15:32.680 is is a good fit at ESPN. You're listening to 0:15:32.800 --> 0:15:36.120 Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. My special guest this 0:15:36.160 --> 0:15:40.480 week is statistical wizard Nate Silver On, the man who 0:15:40.520 --> 0:15:44.920 correctly forecast the O eight and twelve elections. Let's talk 0:15:44.920 --> 0:15:47.600 a little bit about baseball. So here we are. This 0:15:47.680 --> 0:15:52.640 is being recorded in middle August. What stands out this 0:15:52.720 --> 0:15:57.200 year is statistically aberrant or interesting or unusual. I think 0:15:57.280 --> 0:16:00.240 you actually look at the preseason predictions and thank I 0:16:00.280 --> 0:16:02.680 don't have to make these anymore. They've had one of 0:16:02.720 --> 0:16:04.640 the more inaccurate years in a long time. A lot 0:16:04.720 --> 0:16:07.600 of the set systems said the Royals um were likely 0:16:07.640 --> 0:16:11.120 to regress heavily to the mean not so much, and 0:16:11.160 --> 0:16:14.480 they haven't. Right. Um. You know, the Nationals, I think 0:16:14.520 --> 0:16:17.960 we're supposed to win nine games and they're struggling, uh 0:16:18.040 --> 0:16:20.560 to break five d Right now, you've seen the Mets 0:16:20.600 --> 0:16:24.080 to pretty well, which is um, maybe not that's shocking, 0:16:24.120 --> 0:16:27.400 given how it is New York. You're waiting for the 0:16:27.480 --> 0:16:29.400 late season collapse. But given how much talent they had 0:16:29.400 --> 0:16:31.080 in their farm system, maybe not that shocking. But it's 0:16:31.120 --> 0:16:33.880 come maybe maybe the first time that's look at all 0:16:33.880 --> 0:16:36.200 this talent. Well, look, we'll see how it goes. And 0:16:36.280 --> 0:16:38.840 you know, finally teams have learned how to manage their 0:16:38.880 --> 0:16:41.040 young pictures a little bit better and a little bit 0:16:41.040 --> 0:16:43.120 more cautiously. Maybe, and we'll see if this is sustainable 0:16:43.200 --> 0:16:44.880 for the Mets or not. But that's a little bit different. 0:16:44.920 --> 0:16:47.560 You mean, not ruining them early on. It's not ruining uh, 0:16:47.640 --> 0:16:49.560 not ruining them early on like the famous like Triple, 0:16:49.720 --> 0:16:53.280 the van Popol years or the Jason if Ringhausen crop 0:16:53.400 --> 0:16:56.600 and you know, um, so so far it's gone well 0:16:56.720 --> 0:16:58.800 for the Mets with their with their young pictures famous 0:16:58.840 --> 0:17:01.200 last words. I guess we'll we'll see how long that 0:17:01.200 --> 0:17:06.560 that stands. Earlier, we were talking about Pakoda. Um. I 0:17:06.560 --> 0:17:09.160 didn't realize that was just pictures. I thought that was players. 0:17:09.240 --> 0:17:12.800 Is so start out with pictures, the idea being that UM, 0:17:12.920 --> 0:17:16.679 pictures are much harder to predict than hitters. UM. And 0:17:16.720 --> 0:17:19.960 so I thought this is later more. Yeah, what why 0:17:20.119 --> 0:17:23.280 is that? Uh? For a lot of reasons. One is 0:17:23.320 --> 0:17:26.640 that kind of measures of pitching are more indirect, Right, 0:17:26.640 --> 0:17:28.359 like if you look at wins and losses, well, it's 0:17:28.400 --> 0:17:29.919 conditional on how many runs you give up and how 0:17:29.920 --> 0:17:32.560 many runs give up? Is it conditional on how many 0:17:32.600 --> 0:17:34.280 hits you give up and how many walks you give up? 0:17:34.320 --> 0:17:35.760 So now we know a lot. But you would think 0:17:35.800 --> 0:17:39.080 you would think pitch is thrown and strikes versus balls. 0:17:39.200 --> 0:17:42.240 And but ten years, ten years ago, this is not 0:17:42.240 --> 0:17:43.639 where the state of the art of thinking was. And 0:17:43.640 --> 0:17:46.200 also we didn't actually have data like now we can say, oh, 0:17:46.280 --> 0:17:48.440 you know what, um, Jason Berlander, he's not the picture 0:17:48.440 --> 0:17:49.920 he winch was. We can actually say, well, now he 0:17:49.960 --> 0:17:52.159 doesn't throw as hard as he wins did write you 0:17:52.200 --> 0:17:54.719 have data on every pitch and what the velocity is, 0:17:54.800 --> 0:17:57.520 what the speed is, what a picture is doing on 0:17:57.840 --> 0:18:02.240 different counts. Right. UM, So now the pitching UH, forecasts 0:18:02.240 --> 0:18:05.560 have come a long way past Pakoda. But you know 0:18:05.600 --> 0:18:07.479 the other thing too, is that pitching is kind of 0:18:07.520 --> 0:18:13.520 an inherently unnatural act on a on a picture's arm. Right, Um, Okay, 0:18:13.720 --> 0:18:16.640 I I pitched in high school, so i'll uh and 0:18:16.720 --> 0:18:19.280 you know I have the torn real rotated to prove it. 0:18:19.680 --> 0:18:22.040 But I'm not gonna argue with you whipping a ball, 0:18:22.040 --> 0:18:25.199 whipping your shoulder around that way for ninety or so 0:18:25.320 --> 0:18:28.680 throws a game is is not what normal you could 0:18:29.000 --> 0:18:31.399 You could throw a spear if you're out in the 0:18:31.840 --> 0:18:35.000 on the savannah hunting mammoths, but you're not gonna throw 0:18:35.040 --> 0:18:37.840 a spear nineties seven times. The pictures, Yeah, pictures. And 0:18:37.920 --> 0:18:40.480 you know, even though now pitch counts are monitored more. 0:18:40.520 --> 0:18:45.199 Now every pitch, every at bat is contested so much, right, 0:18:45.200 --> 0:18:46.920 and the strikeout rates are so high. There are a 0:18:46.920 --> 0:18:48.879 lot of pitches per plate appearance. Obviously, there's a lot 0:18:48.880 --> 0:18:52.000 of focus on taking walks and played discipline. Um. The 0:18:52.080 --> 0:18:54.560 thing about pitching that people realize now, maybe not ten 0:18:54.640 --> 0:18:56.640 years ago, is that a lot of what people think 0:18:56.680 --> 0:18:59.840 of as pitching is really positional defense. And you've seen 0:19:00.359 --> 0:19:03.920 phases evolved. Kind of in the early moneyball days, people 0:19:03.960 --> 0:19:07.160 were like, well, it's hard to measure defense, Therefore, let's 0:19:07.160 --> 0:19:08.760 just kind of ignore it and put a big lot 0:19:08.800 --> 0:19:11.720 of big, clunky, chunky out fielders out there, and they'll 0:19:11.760 --> 0:19:15.040 hit a lot of home runs, right, And then teams realized, um, 0:19:15.080 --> 0:19:17.919 you know, actually a lot of this is positional defense, 0:19:17.960 --> 0:19:20.320 Like really the impact of having a good center fielder, 0:19:20.640 --> 0:19:23.960 a good tes not necessarily the slugging sort of batter 0:19:24.000 --> 0:19:27.280 as they used to be, but the difference between a 0:19:27.359 --> 0:19:31.840 hundred yard blooper over the UH over the second baseman's head, 0:19:31.920 --> 0:19:34.119 depending on where it goes, is either an out or 0:19:34.160 --> 0:19:37.960 a double. And the funny thing sasonally the same bad 0:19:38.000 --> 0:19:41.000 contact with the ball. I mean, if you save uh, 0:19:41.359 --> 0:19:44.400 you know, twenty hits a year with your defense, I mean, 0:19:44.480 --> 0:19:46.280 you know, if you've got treen or hits a year 0:19:46.280 --> 0:19:48.200 with your batting average, and that translates to what forty 0:19:48.200 --> 0:19:51.040 points of betting average, right, So it's really pretty significant, 0:19:51.080 --> 0:19:53.080 and the differences can be that large. But you know, 0:19:53.119 --> 0:19:56.000 one one thing to remember here is that there's always 0:19:56.040 --> 0:19:57.960 the peril that people think, oh, if you can't measure 0:19:58.040 --> 0:20:01.280 something there, for it's not Wharton. And once we got 0:20:01.320 --> 0:20:03.680 better locational data, we can actually say, oh, now we 0:20:03.680 --> 0:20:08.800 can actually physically measure how much range uh Lorenzo Caine 0:20:08.840 --> 0:20:11.960 covers or whatever. Right, we're no longer guessing, and it's like, boy, 0:20:12.000 --> 0:20:14.720 those are some pretty big differences. Actually. So recently on 0:20:15.680 --> 0:20:20.880 there was an article about tennis gets essentially the Moneyball treatment. 0:20:21.000 --> 0:20:24.720 What other sports will benefit from this sort of statistical 0:20:24.760 --> 0:20:28.160 analysis that currently are are escaping its gaze? I mean 0:20:28.160 --> 0:20:30.320 in terms of kind of what sports are on that 0:20:30.440 --> 0:20:34.280 nice part of the learning curve. Um, the NBA is 0:20:34.480 --> 0:20:36.679 one of them, certainly. I mean, you know, teams like 0:20:36.680 --> 0:20:38.760 the US TO Rockets are run by Darryl Moore, isn't 0:20:38.840 --> 0:20:41.679 m I T guy? Right? Um, you know, we're actually 0:20:41.680 --> 0:20:46.800 introducing a kind of basketball version of pakoda um called Carmelo, 0:20:46.920 --> 0:20:50.879 which will debut at some point the next Oh gosh, 0:20:50.920 --> 0:20:54.159 it's a very clever acronym. It's like career arc regression 0:20:54.400 --> 0:20:57.000 estimate something like that. But a lot of layers in 0:20:57.000 --> 0:21:00.240 Carmelo were good with very geeky words. Um. You know, 0:21:00.520 --> 0:21:03.159 soccer is a sport where there's been very little data collected. 0:21:03.200 --> 0:21:05.480 But now you see teams in the Premiership have their 0:21:05.560 --> 0:21:08.640 their stet heads and whatnot. And obviously the magnitude of 0:21:08.720 --> 0:21:12.440 the economy of soccer is so enormous right where um 0:21:12.480 --> 0:21:14.680 where you know that might be the next frontier. You're 0:21:14.720 --> 0:21:18.160 listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. My special 0:21:18.240 --> 0:21:22.920 guest this week is statistical wizard Nate Silver. And here 0:21:22.960 --> 0:21:26.440 we are towards the end of the summer in and 0:21:26.840 --> 0:21:31.840 we just had the Republican first debate, and we're looking 0:21:31.880 --> 0:21:35.160 at Iowa and New Hampshire coming up. This is quite 0:21:35.160 --> 0:21:38.600 a fascinating electoral season, isn't it. Yeah, we've never seen 0:21:38.840 --> 0:21:42.280 so I know, Um, I'm being a little bit anecdotal here, 0:21:42.359 --> 0:21:44.840 but the type of um traffic that we're getting on 0:21:44.880 --> 0:21:48.199 our politics articles in August, which is historically this August 0:21:49.000 --> 0:21:51.920 year before, Yeah, a year before this is historically about 0:21:51.960 --> 0:21:55.000 the slowest time of the year for politics news or 0:21:55.000 --> 0:21:57.679 hard news in general. Right. And it's it's kind of 0:21:57.720 --> 0:21:59.760 like it's September of the election year, right, it's not 0:22:00.440 --> 0:22:03.280 the November peak. But like you know, um, people are 0:22:03.320 --> 0:22:07.159 fascinated by Donald Trump, by Bernie Sanders, um in a 0:22:07.200 --> 0:22:10.920 way that's way ahead of where things were at twelve. 0:22:11.000 --> 0:22:12.720 So I kind of conflicted here. On the one hand, 0:22:13.119 --> 0:22:16.720 it's probably good for business. On their hand, it's a 0:22:16.760 --> 0:22:19.360 little maddening, right, And I think, you know, so much 0:22:19.359 --> 0:22:22.959 of what we say at is slow down, right, this 0:22:23.000 --> 0:22:26.440 is not gonna unfold today or next week or this month. 0:22:26.440 --> 0:22:29.840 It's gonna take a while. Slow down, take the long view, 0:22:30.000 --> 0:22:33.400 don't hyperventilate about this stuff. And so they're conflicting impulses here. 0:22:33.680 --> 0:22:36.119 I say that about stock markets all the time. It 0:22:36.240 --> 0:22:38.679 is it is people wanted, like the hairs on fly 0:22:38.800 --> 0:22:41.040 Apple is down. Part of this that you have this 0:22:41.080 --> 0:22:45.400 whole industry of commentators who are asked to say, weigh 0:22:45.440 --> 0:22:48.560 in on what happened today, right, and are very close 0:22:48.600 --> 0:22:52.320 to the subject matter. Um, and you know, so to 0:22:52.359 --> 0:22:54.680 a first approximation, you might learn more about the campaign 0:22:54.840 --> 0:22:58.000 if you went on vacation for for a month right now. 0:22:58.000 --> 0:22:59.639 We just love when reports. We'll get back on Twitter 0:22:59.680 --> 0:23:01.360 and they say, oh my gosh, you know we're still 0:23:01.359 --> 0:23:04.040 talking about Trump now. It's like, well, yeah, let's let's 0:23:04.040 --> 0:23:07.600 talk about Trump for first. What does he do to 0:23:07.640 --> 0:23:11.359 the calculate? Really, the first question is how unusual of 0:23:11.359 --> 0:23:15.159 a candidate is he? So I'd say, right now, he's 0:23:15.280 --> 0:23:18.160 not quite as unusual as people would say, at least 0:23:18.160 --> 0:23:20.280 if you kind of made him a ciscal data point 0:23:20.359 --> 0:23:22.320 right in the sense that first of all, we had 0:23:22.400 --> 0:23:26.600 in UM four or five different Republican candidates from Michelle 0:23:26.640 --> 0:23:30.240 Bachman to New ging Rich, who surged Herman Kaine in 0:23:30.280 --> 0:23:34.440 the polls to about where Trump is UM and then 0:23:34.520 --> 0:23:38.120 faded UM, sometimes rapidly sometimes slowly after that. But there's 0:23:38.119 --> 0:23:42.040 also another tradition of kind of gadfly entire sufficient candidates 0:23:42.080 --> 0:23:46.000 like Pat Buchanan which Trump belongs to, to UM, you know, 0:23:46.119 --> 0:23:47.600 and some of them were able to hold on to 0:23:47.680 --> 0:23:52.080 a segment of the Republican base UM through Iowa and 0:23:52.119 --> 0:23:55.480 New Hampshire. So I don't discount the possibility that Trump 0:23:55.520 --> 0:23:57.960 could be with us for for a long time. I 0:23:58.040 --> 0:24:01.040 do discount the idea that he could ever become the nominee. 0:24:01.760 --> 0:24:04.400 Or you think it's highly unlikely that Donald Trump will 0:24:04.400 --> 0:24:06.480 be the Republican nominee. Yeah, I mean I put the 0:24:06.520 --> 0:24:09.560 chances recently at which is when you kind of go 0:24:09.640 --> 0:24:13.359 through and say, well, they're basically six different hurdles that 0:24:13.400 --> 0:24:16.160 he faces, and say he has shot of clearing a hurtle. 0:24:16.200 --> 0:24:18.720 Then you get to you know, one and sixty four chance, 0:24:18.760 --> 0:24:22.840 which is, you know, right, that's that's pretty fascinating. So 0:24:22.880 --> 0:24:24.959 what about on the other side, Bernie Sanders, what does 0:24:25.000 --> 0:24:28.280 he do with this calculus? So socialist running for press, 0:24:28.280 --> 0:24:31.439 socialis running first time in half a century. I mean, 0:24:31.480 --> 0:24:33.919 the funny thing is, you have all the media hype 0:24:34.000 --> 0:24:37.200 is about um a Democrat who's not even officially Democrat 0:24:37.200 --> 0:24:39.080 and Republican who, let's be honest, it's not really even 0:24:39.080 --> 0:24:41.720 a Republican, right, you know, I never thought that, but 0:24:41.760 --> 0:24:45.520 that's absolutely true. Um, I think the Bernie Hillary race 0:24:45.720 --> 0:24:49.560 is a lot more typical in some ways, where you 0:24:49.640 --> 0:24:53.360 have someone to the far left of a Democratic candidate. Yeah, 0:24:53.440 --> 0:24:55.199 and if you kind of mapped out and kind of 0:24:55.680 --> 0:24:58.320 um actually mapped out in a very mathematical way, kind 0:24:58.320 --> 0:25:01.639 of where our Democrats preferences, then you know about a 0:25:01.760 --> 0:25:05.080 third of the electorate would say we're closer to Bernie Sanders. 0:25:05.080 --> 0:25:07.600 He's not quite there yet in the polls, but it 0:25:07.640 --> 0:25:09.600 would not be surprising if he got a third of 0:25:09.640 --> 0:25:13.280 the vote nationally. And the thing is, though, Um, Iowa, 0:25:13.560 --> 0:25:15.800 New Hampshire, you have a lot of liberals, and you 0:25:15.880 --> 0:25:17.320 had a lot of a lot of white liberals, and 0:25:17.320 --> 0:25:19.199 Bernie Sanders is doing pretty well with white voters, not 0:25:19.240 --> 0:25:22.800 so well with his manox African Americans. So um, so 0:25:22.840 --> 0:25:26.920 it's entirely possible he could win, Um, New Hampshire, maybe 0:25:26.920 --> 0:25:29.119 Iowa and a few other states could win, Wisconsin and 0:25:29.160 --> 0:25:32.840 Oregon and states like that Massachusetts. Um, you know, but 0:25:33.240 --> 0:25:36.240 there was a poll out recently in Alabama which is 0:25:36.280 --> 0:25:38.639 where Hilly was beating him eighty one to twelve or 0:25:38.680 --> 0:25:42.840 something like that, like an Alabama football score or something almost. Um, 0:25:42.880 --> 0:25:46.960 you know. And um, look, what you don't get from 0:25:47.000 --> 0:25:48.880 kind of reading the press coverage every day is that 0:25:49.280 --> 0:25:52.000 by every metric she's doing as well as any non 0:25:52.000 --> 0:25:55.000 incumbent has the stage of the primary. Ever, whether she's 0:25:55.000 --> 0:25:58.960 beating Sanders by twenty points or thirty points nationally, she's 0:25:59.000 --> 0:26:01.520 still a way ahead. He's already been endorsed by half 0:26:01.520 --> 0:26:04.639 of the Democratic Congress, basically. But also that you know, 0:26:04.960 --> 0:26:06.560 these things tend to tighten if you go back and 0:26:06.560 --> 0:26:09.120 look at candidates like Clinton in the past. So al 0:26:09.240 --> 0:26:11.880 Gore UM came within a couple of points of losing 0:26:11.920 --> 0:26:15.399 to Bill Bradley, right. Um, you know, George Bush and 0:26:16.320 --> 0:26:18.240 was a sitting vice president, which is kind of analogous 0:26:18.280 --> 0:26:23.040 to Clinton's position. He finished third in Iowa, lost like 0:26:23.040 --> 0:26:26.680 seven or eight states. Um, George W. Bush in two 0:26:26.720 --> 0:26:28.720 thousand was as a much of a juggernaut as you 0:26:28.720 --> 0:26:31.359 could be. But McCain caught him one a few states. 0:26:31.400 --> 0:26:33.800 So that kind of modal outcome was that is that 0:26:33.840 --> 0:26:37.200 she does lose a few states, New Hampshire being one 0:26:37.200 --> 0:26:41.200 of the better candidates, right um, and then by um 0:26:41.240 --> 0:26:43.199 by February March of next year, we're like, you know, 0:26:43.240 --> 0:26:45.399 what was all the what was all the fuss about it? 0:26:45.480 --> 0:26:49.199 She's also out raising him monetarily and the money and 0:26:49.240 --> 0:26:51.280 the money helps too. It might stay with Jeb. Right, 0:26:51.359 --> 0:26:53.479 Jeb is the big winner on the Republicans. Jeb has 0:26:53.480 --> 0:26:56.400 although on the GOP side, Uh, everyone has so much 0:26:56.440 --> 0:26:58.320 access to capital that that's one of the things that is, 0:26:58.320 --> 0:27:00.440 I think a little bit different now it used to 0:27:00.480 --> 0:27:04.679 be that. So look at um Tim plenty uh in 0:27:04.720 --> 0:27:09.360 two thousand and eleven, right, perfectly plausible Candy Midwestern governor 0:27:09.440 --> 0:27:13.600 right um, kind of down the middle positions for Republican UM, 0:27:13.640 --> 0:27:16.160 but he ran out of money, uh, you know, even 0:27:16.200 --> 0:27:18.119 four years ago, and so he's like, well, I have 0:27:18.160 --> 0:27:21.040 to put the plug. Um. You know. Now a candidate 0:27:21.080 --> 0:27:23.800 like Rick Perry who's raised almost no public funds, like 0:27:23.840 --> 0:27:27.080 a million dollars, which is Um, you know Donald Trumper 0:27:27.200 --> 0:27:29.880 called that pathetic. I think, uh, you can, you can 0:27:29.920 --> 0:27:33.600 tap into a superpack. The superpacks no longer are maintaining 0:27:33.640 --> 0:27:37.280 any pretense of separating their operations from the campaigns. I 0:27:37.320 --> 0:27:40.840 think there's no um enforceable legal risk there and so 0:27:41.240 --> 0:27:43.560 his campaign can can continue. But that's why I think, 0:27:43.640 --> 0:27:45.760 you know, we are a little bit in New Territory 0:27:45.760 --> 0:27:49.440 with a goop slide, just because you have seventeen candidates running. 0:27:49.440 --> 0:27:51.240 And as much as Democrats might not want to admit it, 0:27:51.440 --> 0:27:53.480 these are seventeen candidates, a lot of whom have some 0:27:53.960 --> 0:27:57.960 really impressive credentials, right like governors and centers from big 0:27:58.080 --> 0:28:02.240 large swing states as our typically pretty strong candidates. Um, 0:28:02.359 --> 0:28:06.840 of course, like let's stall go Hio then yeah, uh well, 0:28:07.320 --> 0:28:09.800 um Ka Sick is a candidate who maybe is a 0:28:09.880 --> 0:28:13.240 little bit of a of a dark horse. Um, he's 0:28:13.280 --> 0:28:15.159 done something interesting, which is he's invested a lot of 0:28:15.200 --> 0:28:19.600 money in advertising in New Hampshire. Now, um, the reason 0:28:19.600 --> 0:28:22.680 interesting forging Iowa and going straight to New Hampshire. Well, 0:28:22.680 --> 0:28:25.760 I think the goal is actually to get some media buzz, right, 0:28:25.800 --> 0:28:29.200 because the advertising says that hey, um or the empirical 0:28:29.280 --> 0:28:33.320 literature says advertising has really short lived effects. Right, you 0:28:33.320 --> 0:28:35.440 see an ad, you might remember it for a week 0:28:35.560 --> 0:28:37.879 or two, So you should save your money towards the 0:28:38.000 --> 0:28:40.440 end and then advertise. But I think he wants to say, look, 0:28:40.720 --> 0:28:42.480 it's a field of seventeen candidates. I want to stay 0:28:42.520 --> 0:28:45.080 on the first debate stage, so to speak, get some 0:28:45.120 --> 0:28:48.040 positive attention, build some momentum. And so he's kind of 0:28:48.040 --> 0:28:51.120 investing in trying to make a name for himself now. 0:28:51.160 --> 0:28:52.880 But yeah, he is a case and he can say, look, 0:28:53.120 --> 0:28:56.200 I'm really popular in Ohio. Boy, that happens to be 0:28:56.240 --> 0:28:59.720 a pretty important state in the general election. Um, And 0:28:59.760 --> 0:29:01.760 I'll what it indicates that I can I can win 0:29:01.840 --> 0:29:06.440 over abroad and diverse coalition of voters to um. So 0:29:06.560 --> 0:29:09.440 you know, I mean there are questions about uh, you know, 0:29:09.480 --> 0:29:13.480 so I'm skeptical about Trump's chances. There's no one Republican 0:29:13.560 --> 0:29:15.600 you can point to though and say, boy, they've had 0:29:15.600 --> 0:29:19.320 a great start to their campaign so far either right, Um, 0:29:19.760 --> 0:29:22.240 Jeb has kind of faltered on the Iraq question a 0:29:22.240 --> 0:29:25.680 few other things. I think people were generally unimpressed with 0:29:25.760 --> 0:29:30.160 Walker's performance. Walker, although I would say, um, Rubio didn't 0:29:30.240 --> 0:29:33.200 hurt himself yeah, Rubio is Rubio was in win candid 0:29:33.360 --> 0:29:35.400 where you know I talked about on the Democratic side, 0:29:35.840 --> 0:29:37.719 come March, we might be saying, yeah, that was kind 0:29:37.720 --> 0:29:39.520 of obviously I was going to play out right. I 0:29:39.560 --> 0:29:43.120 think we could say that March of next year. You know, boy, 0:29:43.160 --> 0:29:47.680 it was clear that Rubio was a really smart consensus choice. Right. 0:29:47.720 --> 0:29:50.040 He's a little bit more relatable than Bush. He's a 0:29:50.040 --> 0:29:53.520 little bit more electable than Walker. Um, you know, he 0:29:53.560 --> 0:29:56.400 wasn't panicked about trying to boost his poll numbers in August. 0:29:56.400 --> 0:30:01.080 He waited till towards the end. Um you know, Ruby O, 0:30:01.240 --> 0:30:02.920 I think I don't know. I mean, you know, Bush 0:30:02.920 --> 0:30:04.680 has the money, he's a little bit ahead of Ruody 0:30:04.760 --> 0:30:06.440 on the polls. And no, one can't have a Bush. 0:30:06.520 --> 0:30:09.680 You can't have a Bush Rubio ticket. You can't. Well, 0:30:09.720 --> 0:30:12.680 there's some machinations about I guess there are some end 0:30:12.720 --> 0:30:14.840 arounds maybe, but we you know, I don't know all 0:30:14.840 --> 0:30:16.760 the constitution of details there. But basically the answer is 0:30:16.800 --> 0:30:18.760 basically no, I think you would not have you could 0:30:18.800 --> 0:30:22.520 have you know, Rubio and Walker, or Rubio and Kasick. 0:30:22.600 --> 0:30:23.800 You do have a lot of all the way around 0:30:23.880 --> 0:30:26.440 Kasi Rubio, the senior potentially. So one thing that happened, 0:30:26.440 --> 0:30:29.400 by the way, is that the GOP had UM a 0:30:29.560 --> 0:30:33.880 very good election in and then another one in UM, 0:30:33.960 --> 0:30:36.040 and they won lots of Senate and governor seats and 0:30:36.080 --> 0:30:39.040 swing states. So you know, that's the benefit now as 0:30:39.080 --> 0:30:41.000 they have a whole suite of caanics pick for them 0:30:41.000 --> 0:30:43.920 that are are popular or at least somewhat popular in 0:30:43.920 --> 0:30:46.719 in big swing states like Florida and Ohio and whatnot. 0:30:47.200 --> 0:30:51.400 Quite quite fascinating. So I just said, Kasi Rubio, how 0:30:51.440 --> 0:30:55.960 important are the VP choices to the electability or the 0:30:56.000 --> 0:31:01.040 polling note numbers of either candidate? So history really, VP 0:31:01.200 --> 0:31:05.280 choices are are not all that important. UM. As best 0:31:05.280 --> 0:31:06.880 as we can tell, you get about a two or 0:31:06.920 --> 0:31:10.200 three percent boost in the state where the VP candidate 0:31:10.640 --> 0:31:13.160 is from sometimes, so even that seems to be fading. 0:31:13.160 --> 0:31:18.160 Paul Ryan didn't help hit Romney very much in Wisconsin apparently, UM. 0:31:18.200 --> 0:31:20.400 But there's downside of the VP choice, you know, I 0:31:20.440 --> 0:31:23.560 think UM, although she was heralded at first, Sarah Palin 0:31:23.640 --> 0:31:26.880 probably UM wound up further injuring any chance, but came 0:31:26.960 --> 0:31:29.760 muld have had in two thousand and eight. Uh, you know, 0:31:29.920 --> 0:31:32.920 we go back to seventy two and Eagleton and Shriver 0:31:33.120 --> 0:31:35.880 and that whole mess. Um, so you know, some extent 0:31:36.080 --> 0:31:39.200 making the um the way Obama played it, where you 0:31:39.200 --> 0:31:43.640 picked this boring, old, safe, safe white guy basically right, Um, 0:31:43.720 --> 0:31:45.480 but I know there are different ways to do it. 0:31:45.760 --> 0:31:49.480 We've been speaking with Nate Silver. If you enjoy this conversation, 0:31:49.520 --> 0:31:52.160 be sure to check out our podcast, where the tapes 0:31:52.240 --> 0:31:55.960 keep rolling and we keep recording until the guests pass 0:31:56.000 --> 0:32:00.400 out from exhaustion. If you enjoy this conversation, be sure 0:32:00.440 --> 0:32:03.720 and check out all of our other interviews. Follow my 0:32:04.320 --> 0:32:07.480 daily column on Bloomberg View dot com, or follow me 0:32:07.560 --> 0:32:11.160 on Twitter at Ridhults. Your your Twitter handle is at 0:32:11.240 --> 0:32:14.520 Nate Silver Silver, Nate Silver Fight. What did somebody else 0:32:14.560 --> 0:32:18.200 grib Nates at Nate Silver? I think so, yeah, that's 0:32:17.920 --> 0:32:21.400 that's a shame. I'm sure you're you have the blue checkmark, 0:32:21.480 --> 0:32:24.000 so you've very got the blue check mark and um, 0:32:24.040 --> 0:32:26.920 but you know so our website is actually five spells 0:32:26.960 --> 0:32:30.320 spilled out, not the number. I'm Barry, Ridhults. You're listening 0:32:30.360 --> 0:32:34.120 to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. All right, welcome 0:32:34.160 --> 0:32:36.800 to the podcast portion of our show. Nates, thank you 0:32:36.840 --> 0:32:39.600 so much for doing this. I'm really I'm excited about 0:32:39.680 --> 0:32:42.400 this and I've been looking forward to for a while 0:32:42.480 --> 0:32:46.280 for having me my pleasure. So there's so many different 0:32:46.360 --> 0:32:49.400 questions we we didn't get to that I really want 0:32:49.400 --> 0:32:51.640 to talk to you. This is the big, big one 0:32:51.640 --> 0:32:55.960 will save. So the one quiet Mike bat Nick in 0:32:56.000 --> 0:32:58.960 my office is, uh said you have to ask him 0:32:59.000 --> 0:33:03.640 this question, and it's how important are managers to team's 0:33:03.680 --> 0:33:07.920 successful failure? And how do we measure that statistically? So 0:33:08.000 --> 0:33:11.720 in in baseball in particular, I think you can talk 0:33:11.760 --> 0:33:14.480 football also because that that that comes up quite often. 0:33:14.640 --> 0:33:18.360 I think in baseball, First of all, the strategic choices 0:33:18.360 --> 0:33:22.040 of manager makes are not very consequential, right. Really you 0:33:22.080 --> 0:33:24.200 can debate like, oh, how MU should you sack bunt 0:33:24.360 --> 0:33:27.320 or you know, um, some guys now have the picture 0:33:27.360 --> 0:33:29.320 hitting a The impact of that stuff is probably not 0:33:29.400 --> 0:33:31.880 more than a couple of wins a year over a 0:33:31.960 --> 0:33:36.680 hundred two games season. Um. What I think is understudied is, uh, 0:33:36.720 --> 0:33:40.680 how much influence a manager has on getting the best 0:33:40.680 --> 0:33:43.400 out of his players? As simple as that sounds, right, Um, 0:33:43.440 --> 0:33:45.600 you know there's been some studies done in the NBA. 0:33:45.760 --> 0:33:49.040 When you say take a preseason prediction about a guy's 0:33:49.080 --> 0:33:51.520 ciscal line that doesn't know who the manager is. And 0:33:51.520 --> 0:33:55.200 then how often does uh, Gregg Popovitch, for example, get 0:33:55.240 --> 0:33:58.640 his players to outperform that prediction, either by by improving 0:33:58.640 --> 0:34:00.400 their skills or I fit up feeling a all better 0:34:00.400 --> 0:34:02.960 than the answer is, you know, routinely the Spurs and 0:34:03.000 --> 0:34:07.440 way that's disically significant beat their kind of raw um 0:34:07.440 --> 0:34:10.240 projections from name, not scars from Vegas. Vegas can account 0:34:10.239 --> 0:34:13.399 for that um, but from like a naive algorithm. Right, 0:34:13.520 --> 0:34:15.960 and so I've not seen that done for baseball, and 0:34:16.040 --> 0:34:18.560 I'm sure someone has, but kind of saying, you know, 0:34:18.600 --> 0:34:21.920 who really motivates their guys to do the best, that's 0:34:21.920 --> 0:34:24.960 still kind of a black box a little bit. That's fascinating. 0:34:25.200 --> 0:34:30.759 I have a mixed um relationship with sports books. Some 0:34:30.800 --> 0:34:34.720 are better, some are worse. The one that I really liked, 0:34:34.840 --> 0:34:39.120 which is right up your alley. Did you read Tom 0:34:39.239 --> 0:34:43.360 Coughlin's book on the Right to Win? Former coach? I 0:34:43.400 --> 0:34:46.840 did not know. So the one statistical thing that stayed 0:34:46.880 --> 0:34:49.160 with me from that book that was so fascinating. I 0:34:49.200 --> 0:34:54.000 don't remember which player was complaining about it, um, uh 0:34:54.080 --> 0:34:59.040 center linebacker. That was you know, they would run a 0:34:59.040 --> 0:35:02.640 whole bunch of numbers for every opponent on second and long. 0:35:02.680 --> 0:35:04.359 Here's what they like to do on third and one, 0:35:04.400 --> 0:35:07.479 here's what I like to do on in the red 0:35:07.600 --> 0:35:09.960 zone late in the game. Here's what they like to do. 0:35:10.000 --> 0:35:12.400 And they they would just bury these guys who just 0:35:12.480 --> 0:35:15.640 weren't used to this sort of mathematical stuff. And he always, 0:35:15.760 --> 0:35:19.080 I wish I can remember who it was, which giant 0:35:19.719 --> 0:35:24.000 um that one a championship with him, and complained about 0:35:24.040 --> 0:35:28.080 this constantly, and then gets traded somewhere else and it's 0:35:28.360 --> 0:35:29.880 you know, third and one. He goes, all, right, what 0:35:29.920 --> 0:35:32.440 are they gonna do? And I don't know? And it 0:35:32.800 --> 0:35:36.839 dawns on him that, oh, this conkling cockling guy was fantastic, 0:35:36.920 --> 0:35:40.400 that that data was really helpful to know what the 0:35:41.280 --> 0:35:44.000 Certainly it's not a sure thing, but hey, they like 0:35:44.200 --> 0:35:46.920 to do this at at third and one. And I 0:35:46.960 --> 0:35:49.239 got to think that that how do you measure? Yeah? 0:35:49.440 --> 0:35:51.919 I mean football is a different story, right. I think 0:35:51.960 --> 0:35:55.959 everyone from stat heads to UM coaches themselves would say 0:35:56.000 --> 0:35:59.759 that NFL coaches are pretty darn significant. Yeah, look at 0:36:00.040 --> 0:36:04.719 get the Seattle UM the Super Bowl. This year. Yeah, 0:36:04.840 --> 0:36:07.760 you know, well, so this is you know, we would 0:36:07.760 --> 0:36:09.919 say that there was some very long announced we did 0:36:09.920 --> 0:36:12.600 that the choice that Pete Carroll may was fine, you 0:36:12.680 --> 0:36:16.160 defend that, right, I see, I looked at it as 0:36:16.760 --> 0:36:23.759 he was playing a U a high risk, lower probability game. Consistently, 0:36:23.800 --> 0:36:25.239 if you look at a lot of the choices that 0:36:25.280 --> 0:36:27.920 were made, you start to veer into the anecdotal Well 0:36:27.920 --> 0:36:30.040 what about this and why did they run here? And 0:36:30.080 --> 0:36:33.120 why did they But you know, something like one percent 0:36:33.239 --> 0:36:36.160 of passes get intercepted in this situation, so it's kind 0:36:36.200 --> 0:36:38.919 of a a rounding error really, and there's a lot 0:36:38.960 --> 0:36:42.560 of kind of you know, post facto sure analysis. Right, 0:36:42.560 --> 0:36:44.680 no one would ever have complained about that play call 0:36:44.840 --> 0:36:47.360 for a second, if he caught the past, if it 0:36:47.440 --> 0:36:50.879 was if it wasn't intercepted, it's a whole different Well, 0:36:50.960 --> 0:36:54.320 to the to the victors not only goes to spoils, 0:36:54.360 --> 0:36:59.520 but the opportunity to write. Um, So we we mentioned intangibles, 0:37:00.000 --> 0:37:02.880 how do you measure the intangibles of a player? And 0:37:02.880 --> 0:37:08.080 and again mentorship, attitude, locker room behavior. Can you ignore 0:37:08.160 --> 0:37:12.400 these things? What do they actually actually mean? So I've 0:37:12.440 --> 0:37:14.400 been thinking about ways to kind of set up a 0:37:14.920 --> 0:37:19.640 um uh verifiable experiment for this, and one might be 0:37:20.760 --> 0:37:23.839 if people identify in advance, say twenty baseball players they 0:37:23.840 --> 0:37:26.560 think have strong or weak leadership, and then see what 0:37:26.640 --> 0:37:29.160 happens when they change teams and as there's some residual 0:37:29.760 --> 0:37:33.600 value you can identify, but you know sort of that 0:37:33.719 --> 0:37:36.160 can you really another ways unless you really run a 0:37:36.160 --> 0:37:40.120 control group, it's pretty hard to. In baseball performance is 0:37:40.160 --> 0:37:43.640 pretty individualized. Like the NBA is different the NBA. The 0:37:43.640 --> 0:37:46.120 whole challenge the NBA is you have um you know, 0:37:46.440 --> 0:37:49.880 one possession per possession, right, one shot per possession. You 0:37:49.920 --> 0:37:52.400 have to get the guys to cooperate. They have selfish 0:37:52.400 --> 0:37:55.240 incentives to each take the shot and boost their stats 0:37:55.280 --> 0:37:57.319 or whatnot, right, And so that makes coaching important, It 0:37:57.320 --> 0:38:00.600 makes um chemistry important, and you can to measure this. 0:38:00.640 --> 0:38:03.759 You can kind of say, uh, what residual value is 0:38:03.800 --> 0:38:05.520 there when a guy is on the court or off 0:38:05.560 --> 0:38:07.480 the court. And there's some better and better methods for 0:38:07.520 --> 0:38:10.960 doing that. Now it's some of the guys who UM 0:38:11.000 --> 0:38:13.200 who play twenty five minutes a game, they're like, oh, 0:38:13.200 --> 0:38:15.040 they're defensive players. It might have been ten years ago 0:38:15.040 --> 0:38:17.319 that the stats were like, oh, this guy can't shoot right, 0:38:17.320 --> 0:38:18.959 you can't really do anything. And now we're seeing actually 0:38:19.000 --> 0:38:21.680 they often do have a big impact on the game. 0:38:21.840 --> 0:38:24.960 But baseball I'm a little bit more more skeptical, in 0:38:25.040 --> 0:38:29.080 part because I think sometimes, um, sometimes the guys who 0:38:29.200 --> 0:38:32.200 um have a rep for being good clubhouse guys are 0:38:32.200 --> 0:38:33.759 just guys who are friendly to the media. And that's 0:38:33.760 --> 0:38:37.840 a slightly different thing necessarily. Sure. So in basketball, you know, 0:38:37.880 --> 0:38:41.400 I always as a nick fan who always felt thwarted 0:38:41.440 --> 0:38:46.520 by the bulls under Michael Jordan's I always a picture 0:38:46.640 --> 0:38:48.640 him as a guy who doesn't put up with any 0:38:48.680 --> 0:38:52.200 nonsense in the locker room, and he demands top performance, 0:38:52.200 --> 0:38:55.680 and he drives the rest of his team the way 0:38:55.760 --> 0:39:00.799 that Patrick Ewing never did. It's arguable whether anybody since 0:39:00.840 --> 0:39:05.640 Michael Um, since um, anybody in the Lakers ever did this, 0:39:05.719 --> 0:39:09.279 since Magic Johnson. Um. You know, you don't really know, 0:39:09.560 --> 0:39:12.360 you don't really see Kobe Bryant is that sort of player? 0:39:12.719 --> 0:39:15.759 Is that just anecdote? And and after the fact, or 0:39:16.480 --> 0:39:18.280 did he? Is he the sort of guy that really 0:39:18.320 --> 0:39:21.719 had that impact? And is there any way after the 0:39:21.760 --> 0:39:24.239 fact we can we can determine that. I mean, one 0:39:24.400 --> 0:39:29.120 weird thing about and I grew up a Pistons fans, so, um, 0:39:29.200 --> 0:39:31.759 you know, everyone hated Michael Jordan for reason or not. 0:39:31.800 --> 0:39:33.640 I remember in the in the final Championship E one 0:39:33.719 --> 0:39:38.400 was it I kind of involuntarily found myself rooting for him, right, 0:39:38.480 --> 0:39:41.759 And I'm like, I can't root for Utah, come on, right, Um? 0:39:41.880 --> 0:39:46.560 But those contents and letters to Nate Silver at ESPN 0:39:46.640 --> 0:39:49.840 dot Com. One thing that I think helped Jordan's reputation, 0:39:49.880 --> 0:39:52.799 apart from being maybe the best best player of all time, 0:39:53.040 --> 0:39:55.319 that he didn't have a lot of near misses, right 0:39:55.400 --> 0:39:59.440 you know, Uh, the Bulls were probably the favorites and 0:39:59.520 --> 0:40:02.600 five out of the six UH championship seasons where they 0:40:02.640 --> 0:40:05.759 won the championship, right, um, but they were blown up 0:40:05.760 --> 0:40:08.239 in a hurry, right Um. The year before they won 0:40:08.280 --> 0:40:10.640 their first one one, it was a really strong time 0:40:11.040 --> 0:40:13.960 for Eastern Conference kind of sat out the year and 0:40:14.000 --> 0:40:16.920 a half, right Um. So for some reason, it almost 0:40:16.920 --> 0:40:19.960 feels to me like if Jordan had UH won five 0:40:20.040 --> 0:40:23.359 championships and ten tries, he would look worse than six 0:40:23.360 --> 0:40:25.839 out of six. But that's a pretty petty complaint. I mean, 0:40:25.880 --> 0:40:28.880 you know, Jordan had an amazing career. One reason I 0:40:28.960 --> 0:40:31.520 kind of like the NBA and contrast to other sports 0:40:31.520 --> 0:40:33.880 where there's so much randomness, is that in the n 0:40:33.920 --> 0:40:39.359 b A there are not very many undeserving NBA champions right, 0:40:39.640 --> 0:40:41.799 we saw in the not a lucky call or a 0:40:41.800 --> 0:40:45.640 bad bounce or something like that in tennis. Really, if 0:40:45.680 --> 0:40:48.279 you want us opens coming right, um, but you have 0:40:48.360 --> 0:40:51.080 to earn the NBA championship. We saw in the NBA 0:40:51.120 --> 0:40:54.400 Finals last year the Calves playing the absolute best of 0:40:54.440 --> 0:40:57.319 their ability and they can win. They can win two 0:40:57.360 --> 0:41:01.200 close games, right, It's really hard to win a seven 0:41:01.200 --> 0:41:03.880 game series against the team when you know your second 0:41:03.880 --> 0:41:07.520 base player, best players j R. Smith or something more 0:41:07.520 --> 0:41:10.280 power to j R. Smith. But but so in other words, 0:41:11.040 --> 0:41:14.560 Lebron doesn't have the same supporting cast that Jordan's did, 0:41:15.160 --> 0:41:18.279 and the Calves need to do some offseason. Well they've 0:41:18.280 --> 0:41:20.719 done some stuff, they need to do some more. I 0:41:20.719 --> 0:41:23.040 mean everyone's if everyone's healthy, they're a good team. I 0:41:23.040 --> 0:41:24.719 mean it should be really fanned. That's a great era 0:41:24.840 --> 0:41:27.600 for the NBA. By the way, between the Spurs and 0:41:27.600 --> 0:41:30.560 the Warriers and the Calves, um, you're gonna have three 0:41:30.600 --> 0:41:34.440 great teams are all very different, looks different stylistically, so 0:41:34.640 --> 0:41:37.440 you know, Um, you know, my boss just signed this 0:41:37.480 --> 0:41:42.080 big new NBA contract. Should have a great season coming ahead. Um, 0:41:42.120 --> 0:41:45.160 and you said you mentioned tennis. Let's talk a little 0:41:45.160 --> 0:41:49.160 bit about some of the the male players who I think. 0:41:49.200 --> 0:41:53.120 It's been fascinating watching this go back and forth between 0:41:54.320 --> 0:41:57.799 uh Na Doll and you know, go down the list 0:41:57.800 --> 0:42:00.120 of the top five players. There's been this sort of 0:42:00.280 --> 0:42:05.280 rotating how fast do the skills deteriorate? At age thirty? 0:42:05.320 --> 0:42:09.720 It seems like these guys peak nine and then they start, 0:42:10.280 --> 0:42:12.439 you know, just losing it a little bit. I think 0:42:12.440 --> 0:42:14.479 twenty eight or twenty I might even be a little 0:42:14.480 --> 0:42:16.960 bit early. Obviously, you have guys like Samprus that held 0:42:17.000 --> 0:42:19.880 an agacy that held on for for longer, but maybe 0:42:19.880 --> 0:42:23.120 more like like twenty five. I mean, I go to 0:42:23.160 --> 0:42:25.000 the US Open every year. I'm not a huge tennis fan, 0:42:25.080 --> 0:42:28.279 but I think people who are watching on TV don't 0:42:28.320 --> 0:42:32.440 realize how physically demanding it is. A five set match, 0:42:32.600 --> 0:42:37.360 right Um, in the heat in in New York in September, 0:42:37.520 --> 0:42:40.400 or in Australia and in the you know what summer 0:42:40.440 --> 0:42:43.120 down there, right Um, these guys are hitting at a 0:42:43.160 --> 0:42:48.000 hundred thirty d and it's insane. And where that there 0:42:48.160 --> 0:42:51.120 the guys now actually play a you know, really good 0:42:51.160 --> 0:42:56.160 defensive game. Um, you know, very very challenging if you're 0:42:56.200 --> 0:42:58.759 not absolutely in the top of shape. Right, And so 0:42:58.840 --> 0:43:01.840 in general happens is that for you look at baseball 0:43:01.880 --> 0:43:04.120 where the data is good or something, Um, you know 0:43:04.160 --> 0:43:06.719 the average player peaks at twenty seven. What that really 0:43:06.880 --> 0:43:09.480 is is at your fiscal attributes probably peak actually at 0:43:09.840 --> 0:43:14.359 at age twenty three or something. Your mental attitudes keep growing. Um, 0:43:14.640 --> 0:43:17.760 that makes up for the physics you have the best 0:43:18.200 --> 0:43:21.359 overall combination for And if three of these guys peak 0:43:21.400 --> 0:43:23.759 at twenty if you look at like an NFL running back, 0:43:23.880 --> 0:43:27.320 and um, guys were just kind of purely about brute 0:43:27.400 --> 0:43:30.160 strength and how beat up or not your body is. Right, 0:43:30.520 --> 0:43:32.440 Very often in NFL running back is as best as 0:43:32.480 --> 0:43:35.680 we'll ever be in his rookie season. Right. There's a 0:43:35.840 --> 0:43:39.160 quarterback conversely, where obviously the arm streak matters, but the 0:43:39.200 --> 0:43:42.160 mental parts important to a quarterback. Of course, those guys 0:43:42.440 --> 0:43:45.600 can be perfectly good, sometimes even better in their thirties. 0:43:45.640 --> 0:43:48.320 You could, you could deflate football's way into your thirties. 0:43:48.360 --> 0:43:51.080 You can keep it. You could. I don't think there's 0:43:51.080 --> 0:43:54.040 in any age limitation. But I love the stories about 0:43:54.120 --> 0:43:57.279 Jerry Rice about how he used to train in San Francisco, 0:43:57.880 --> 0:44:00.719 and you talk about the mental out of it. He 0:44:00.800 --> 0:44:04.520 used to invite people from the opposing teams to train 0:44:04.560 --> 0:44:06.000 with him, and he would just run up and down 0:44:06.040 --> 0:44:09.160 the hills of San Francisco and he would destroy these guys. 0:44:09.520 --> 0:44:11.200 They like could not keep up with him, and then 0:44:11.200 --> 0:44:14.160 they seem on the field and they would be horrified. 0:44:14.520 --> 0:44:16.400 Stop and think about that sort of head game. I 0:44:16.880 --> 0:44:19.880 just find that, uh, fascinating. But he's a guy whose 0:44:19.920 --> 0:44:24.360 career went you know, quite quite deep into his thirties. 0:44:24.400 --> 0:44:29.200 That's um. Is that unusual for a receiver for receiver is? Yeah, 0:44:29.320 --> 0:44:33.120 receivers are not quite as early peaked as running backs. 0:44:33.160 --> 0:44:35.919 But um, but you know they're definitely mid to late 0:44:36.400 --> 0:44:40.840 twenties for for the most part. Well, that that's amazing. Um. 0:44:40.880 --> 0:44:43.000 So tennis we mentioned is the is one of the 0:44:43.040 --> 0:44:46.360 next things. And soccer, how are they going to change? 0:44:46.480 --> 0:44:50.839 How are you going to change the statistical analysis of 0:44:50.840 --> 0:44:54.160 of World Cup football, of of soccer? Well, how do 0:44:54.200 --> 0:44:56.160 you how do you look at that? Um? I mean 0:44:56.239 --> 0:44:59.120 historically the only data that was collected, we're just goals 0:44:59.160 --> 0:45:02.359 and bookings and yellow cards and and red cards. Right, 0:45:02.520 --> 0:45:06.480 that's it. That's changing now though, Right So now, um, 0:45:06.560 --> 0:45:09.000 you know in the big four or five leagues in Europe, 0:45:09.000 --> 0:45:11.440 paying what you think of the French League? Um, you 0:45:11.480 --> 0:45:13.600 know you have lots of real time data collectives. And 0:45:13.640 --> 0:45:15.280 now we ran a big article and we know Messy 0:45:16.200 --> 0:45:19.200 I remember that where it's like he actually is saying, now, okay, 0:45:19.200 --> 0:45:20.800 now we can actually measure all these things that we 0:45:20.880 --> 0:45:24.520 thought of as intangibles before, right, like how well does 0:45:24.520 --> 0:45:27.080 he set up his teammates, how much space does he cover? 0:45:27.560 --> 0:45:29.160 Some things are actually a little bit kinter intuitive, like 0:45:29.160 --> 0:45:31.239 I think Messi doesn't cover that much territory. He's very 0:45:31.280 --> 0:45:32.880 much kind of thinking about how can I have the 0:45:32.920 --> 0:45:35.200 most impact and being in the center of of the 0:45:35.200 --> 0:45:37.120 pitch more or less to kind of be the focal 0:45:37.160 --> 0:45:40.400 point for for the offense. Um. But yeah, I didn't 0:45:40.400 --> 0:45:42.880 play in the World today Messi for sure. Yeah. I mean, 0:45:42.920 --> 0:45:47.120 and people people don't realize how good he's amazing he is. Yeah. 0:45:47.160 --> 0:45:48.960 I'm a World Cup fan for a long time and 0:45:49.000 --> 0:45:50.640 I find it fascinating and I wish we had the 0:45:50.680 --> 0:45:53.600 World Cup every uh every two years. I actually went 0:45:53.960 --> 0:45:57.120 uh to the Women's World Cup and in Canada, which 0:45:57.160 --> 0:46:00.800 was a ton of fun. Right, Um, to see Americans 0:46:00.800 --> 0:46:04.840 actually win something at soccer was spectacular. So, UM, all right, 0:46:04.880 --> 0:46:08.080 so let's see what else we've forgotten or I skipped 0:46:08.120 --> 0:46:12.800 over in the prior segment. Um, So we'll save the 0:46:12.880 --> 0:46:17.080 election stuff for a little later. And I'm gonna I'm 0:46:17.080 --> 0:46:19.760 gonna touch that. We did that, we did this. Wow, 0:46:20.480 --> 0:46:22.200 there's so much stuff I could I could stay on 0:46:22.239 --> 0:46:24.279 sports for a long time, but I want to. I 0:46:24.280 --> 0:46:28.239 want to bring it back to um, bring it back 0:46:28.280 --> 0:46:30.359 to to what you're doing with five thirty eight now 0:46:30.400 --> 0:46:32.399 and a little bit of the history with that. So 0:46:32.680 --> 0:46:37.480 your name to one of Time magazines most influential people 0:46:37.680 --> 0:46:41.120 in two thousand and nine. Then comes the Times, then 0:46:41.160 --> 0:46:45.200 comes the the election. Personally, what's it like blowing up 0:46:45.239 --> 0:46:48.440 like that? I mean, I used to be disorienting and 0:46:49.520 --> 0:46:52.399 kind of like what's going on? So one thing is that, 0:46:52.719 --> 0:46:56.279 um two twelve, you're so busy that you kind of 0:46:56.320 --> 0:46:59.400 don't have time to process it almost all really, so 0:46:59.560 --> 0:47:03.080 he doesn't, Well, my book came out in September two 0:47:03.160 --> 0:47:06.759 thousand twelve. Um, and so you know the combination of that, 0:47:06.920 --> 0:47:09.719 and of course the you know Penguin. My PR people 0:47:09.760 --> 0:47:12.399 had me doing shows like this like like every day 0:47:12.440 --> 0:47:15.600 pretty much, right, and then there was random stuff. Hurricane 0:47:16.440 --> 0:47:19.960 Uh Sandy hit at that time, so also's going on. 0:47:20.000 --> 0:47:23.200 I was like kind of commuting in the dark from 0:47:23.320 --> 0:47:26.400 my uh apartment then in Brooklyn to to the New 0:47:26.440 --> 0:47:28.680 York Times office sort of do a media hit or whatnot. 0:47:28.800 --> 0:47:31.360 It was just kind of crazy time and then you 0:47:31.400 --> 0:47:33.520 emerge from it. And I was like at some conference 0:47:33.520 --> 0:47:35.840 in Chicago the weekend after the election, and it was 0:47:35.920 --> 0:47:37.960 like like every time I got the elevator, someone would 0:47:38.000 --> 0:47:40.120 like recognize me and be like, hey, are you Nate Silver? Right? 0:47:40.120 --> 0:47:42.920 And that was that was that's pretty weird. Yeah, so 0:47:43.000 --> 0:47:45.080 I do less TV than I used to. But the 0:47:45.120 --> 0:47:47.680 one place that I got to ask, if you have 0:47:47.800 --> 0:47:50.480 this experience, if you ever check a bag when you 0:47:50.520 --> 0:47:54.640 fly and you're waiting by the carousel, you're just fair game. 0:47:54.960 --> 0:47:56.880 You're you're fair game. For some reason, it happens a 0:47:56.920 --> 0:47:58.480 lot in airports. I think a lot of people watch 0:47:58.560 --> 0:48:01.720 serious quote unquote TV and and airfats on the planes. 0:48:01.840 --> 0:48:04.439 But um, but it definitely there's a half life based 0:48:04.480 --> 0:48:07.120 on how recently you've been on TV. It probably happens, 0:48:07.239 --> 0:48:09.319 you know, a couple of times a month still, but 0:48:09.440 --> 0:48:12.759 not daily it used to be used to be. Yeah, yeah, 0:48:13.120 --> 0:48:15.839 and certainly we may we may see that pick up 0:48:15.880 --> 0:48:19.560 again towards next year, towards we'll see that although I'm 0:48:19.600 --> 0:48:22.319 trying not to be uh, I don't know, I'm trying 0:48:22.360 --> 0:48:25.160 not to overexpose myself too much. That makes sense, And 0:48:25.239 --> 0:48:26.960 part of it is that you know, you've probably learned 0:48:26.960 --> 0:48:29.719 this too. But if um, if you have your own 0:48:29.760 --> 0:48:32.680 platform right and we have the opportunity to reach a 0:48:32.760 --> 0:48:35.640 very large audience at five eight every day with the 0:48:35.719 --> 0:48:39.919 writing and the stuff we produce in house podcasts and videos, um, 0:48:40.160 --> 0:48:43.560 you get very finicky about how you're presented. You know. 0:48:43.680 --> 0:48:45.640 It's really easy to kind of come across as oh, 0:48:45.719 --> 0:48:48.400 here's this kind of you know, NERD is a know 0:48:48.480 --> 0:48:50.960 it all and you know, and we trying to have 0:48:50.960 --> 0:48:53.600 a little bit more subtlety and how we're presenting our 0:48:53.719 --> 0:48:57.640 view of how campaigns and elections work and so you know, um, 0:48:57.719 --> 0:49:01.080 so I'm trying not to uh go to overboard with 0:49:01.120 --> 0:49:04.720 the with the media stuff. So what I certainly wouldn't 0:49:04.800 --> 0:49:09.399 argue with Nerd. However, you never struck me as someone 0:49:09.400 --> 0:49:12.680 who presents himself as a know it all. In fact, 0:49:13.440 --> 0:49:17.120 your whole approaches. We don't know what the future can bring. 0:49:17.600 --> 0:49:21.040 We don't understand which of these polls is gonna actually 0:49:21.080 --> 0:49:24.040 be right. However, we can look at statistically taking the 0:49:24.080 --> 0:49:25.759 average of all. Do you see how that didn't did 0:49:25.760 --> 0:49:30.000 in the best adjusted for some minor modifications, and come 0:49:30.040 --> 0:49:33.280 fairly close to the actual outcome. That's a humble approach, 0:49:33.480 --> 0:49:36.960 not an arrogant. Appreciate that, thank you, But right, was 0:49:37.000 --> 0:49:38.920 that part of the plan? So I think it's you know, 0:49:39.000 --> 0:49:41.400 it's kind of how do you wait, what's your baseline? 0:49:41.880 --> 0:49:45.759 Prior's right? Um? You know in a general election, the 0:49:45.840 --> 0:49:48.719 prior in a campaign where the incumbents running is that 0:49:49.120 --> 0:49:51.439 the incumbent will probably win unless things are pretty bad. 0:49:52.040 --> 0:49:54.440 In an election with the incumbent, it's probably this is 0:49:54.440 --> 0:49:57.239 going to be really close, right, Um. You know in 0:49:57.280 --> 0:50:00.239 a primary it's maybe a little bit more difficult, but 0:50:00.320 --> 0:50:03.960 you know, the history is that the establishment usually wins 0:50:04.400 --> 0:50:08.040 the primary. In the primary, Um, you know, the candid 0:50:08.080 --> 0:50:11.840 who it's a consensus building process, a nomination process. Literally, 0:50:11.840 --> 0:50:15.080 it is a democratic party's nomination and the gops to 0:50:15.280 --> 0:50:19.759 bestow they kind of set the rules for how delicates 0:50:19.760 --> 0:50:22.560 are allegated and what happens. Right, So they have a 0:50:22.560 --> 0:50:24.839 lot of influence on the a lot of influence, right. 0:50:24.960 --> 0:50:28.000 You know, if the GOP doesn't want to nominate Donald Trump, 0:50:28.120 --> 0:50:31.000 it's actually not a popularity contest, Right, they can make 0:50:31.000 --> 0:50:32.680 it very difficult for Now and Crump to do it. 0:50:33.000 --> 0:50:35.400 And there are maybe one or two cases. So McGovern 0:50:36.000 --> 0:50:40.719 in seventy two, UM was very smart about getting UM 0:50:40.760 --> 0:50:42.800 a lot of grassroots support from people who would be 0:50:42.800 --> 0:50:45.680 delegate at the Democratic National Convention and kind of UM 0:50:45.760 --> 0:50:48.720 he had designed the system for how delicates re alligated 0:50:48.760 --> 0:50:50.799 and so he really knew allocated, so he knew how 0:50:50.840 --> 0:50:53.440 to UM how to work that system really well. But 0:50:53.600 --> 0:50:59.120 seventy two is kind of the only example of where, uh, 0:50:59.200 --> 0:51:02.920 the inmates started burning the asylum. What about oh eight, Um, 0:51:03.120 --> 0:51:08.720 wasn't Hillary sort of ordained in advance and sort of that? 0:51:09.000 --> 0:51:11.399 So I'm upset the apple card a little bit. So 0:51:11.560 --> 0:51:14.440 Clinton in two thousand and eight had ah, you know, 0:51:14.440 --> 0:51:16.239 at this point in the race, like a ten or 0:51:16.239 --> 0:51:19.680 fifteen point lead over Obama. This year it's kind of 0:51:19.719 --> 0:51:21.960 a thirty point lead over Bernie Sanders. But it has 0:51:22.000 --> 0:51:23.719 more let's do with Hillary and more to do with 0:51:23.920 --> 0:51:28.200 uh with Barack Obama versus versus Bernie senators where Barack 0:51:28.200 --> 0:51:32.800 Obama represented a whole, huge, kind of mainstream part of 0:51:32.840 --> 0:51:36.680 the Democratic coalition. Um, obviously he did very well with 0:51:36.920 --> 0:51:39.200 African American voters, which is a huge voting block in 0:51:39.239 --> 0:51:42.600 the coalition. So you know, um, you can basically split 0:51:42.640 --> 0:51:45.760 the Democratic Coalition into the third so you can have uh, 0:51:45.840 --> 0:51:49.560 white liberals, white moderates, and non white voters. Actually it's 0:51:49.560 --> 0:51:53.160 more of it really, right, and um, you know he 0:51:53.200 --> 0:51:56.000 had better support across coalitions. But also he about the 0:51:56.040 --> 0:51:59.680 support from Harry Reid and whatnot. Right, lots of influential 0:51:59.680 --> 0:52:02.040 people in the dipretic party said said, we have an 0:52:02.040 --> 0:52:05.399 amazing cadate in Obama, right, and we want to make 0:52:05.400 --> 0:52:07.759 it a fair fight. Whereas this year there is not 0:52:07.920 --> 0:52:13.719 a single sitting Democratic legislator excuse me, senator or representative 0:52:13.760 --> 0:52:16.640 or governor who has endorsed Bernie Sanders, in part because 0:52:16.760 --> 0:52:20.960 you know, he's not a Democrat. Um, he's seventy four 0:52:21.000 --> 0:52:26.080 years old. He probably lose general election by by ten points. Right, Um, 0:52:26.120 --> 0:52:29.040 you know, uh, what about Buden, what about al Gore. 0:52:29.160 --> 0:52:31.560 Is anybody else got a credible gonna throw that hat 0:52:31.600 --> 0:52:34.120 in the ring? Or is that just early chatter? I 0:52:34.160 --> 0:52:37.680 mean I think, you know, let's say that Hillary Clinton, 0:52:37.719 --> 0:52:39.920 I think it's not likely. Maybe it's a ten percent chance. Right, 0:52:40.000 --> 0:52:42.640 Let's say these scandals are more serious than they appear 0:52:42.719 --> 0:52:45.799 to be the email or something else, maybe something else. 0:52:45.840 --> 0:52:48.760 I'm not I'm not totally persuaded. So you know, baseball, 0:52:48.760 --> 0:52:52.160 there's just set value over replacement player. Right, It's like 0:52:52.200 --> 0:52:54.640 for me, it's like valuable replacement scandal. Right, We're gonna 0:52:55.640 --> 0:52:57.680 you see over the Clinton's that there's something like slightly 0:52:57.719 --> 0:53:00.320 funny going on, Right, So maybe something that's a given 0:53:00.320 --> 0:53:04.520 in Otherwise, Yeah, the placement scandal, I'm not sure that 0:53:04.960 --> 0:53:08.000 this is that remarkable proved to be, you know, the 0:53:08.000 --> 0:53:11.680 Republican Control Committee. But I have Republican friends who are 0:53:11.680 --> 0:53:15.600 in d C who insist the email scandal is totally 0:53:15.600 --> 0:53:18.799 different than it's. Sorry, this is more serious. You've seen 0:53:18.840 --> 0:53:22.040 a long decline in Clinton favorability ratings. It's really hard 0:53:22.080 --> 0:53:25.000 to determine cause and effect and say has that been 0:53:25.040 --> 0:53:29.560 accelerated by the email scandal or it certainly isn't helping 0:53:29.960 --> 0:53:33.200 um but overall, you look at markets and their betting markets, 0:53:33.280 --> 0:53:36.640 their perception of where Hilly Clinton stands hasn't changed. They've 0:53:36.640 --> 0:53:38.560 had her with about an eight chance of winning the 0:53:38.600 --> 0:53:41.680 nomination for a long time. It's not been affected except 0:53:41.719 --> 0:53:45.600 at the margin by by Bernie or by the scandals. UM. 0:53:45.640 --> 0:53:49.440 You know, Biden, UM or someone like Biden would at 0:53:49.520 --> 0:53:52.400 least be a little bit different in that UM in 0:53:52.480 --> 0:53:55.320 that let's say that Clinton is not doing well, Democrats 0:53:55.360 --> 0:53:58.760 would still, i think, want to intervene to not nominate 0:53:58.760 --> 0:54:02.480 Bernie Sanders. Whether they could say, well, Biden, he's fine, right, 0:54:02.880 --> 0:54:05.480 you know, Biden will give us a shot at least, 0:54:05.520 --> 0:54:07.000 and so you know, that would be one of the 0:54:07.040 --> 0:54:10.200 more significant developments so far. From what I've read, it 0:54:10.200 --> 0:54:12.560 all seems pretty speculative. I think part of what Biden 0:54:12.560 --> 0:54:15.520 wants to do is say, you know what, UM, it's 0:54:15.520 --> 0:54:17.520 tricky because it's August right now. It takes a long 0:54:17.560 --> 0:54:20.480 time to mount presentational campaign. What happens if there is 0:54:20.520 --> 0:54:22.920 maybe it's the email thing, maybe something new, maybe it's 0:54:22.920 --> 0:54:25.160 a health problem. What happens if Hiller Clinton, if that 0:54:25.200 --> 0:54:29.040 happens in November, and then UM and then only Bernie 0:54:29.080 --> 0:54:32.440 Sanders is on on the ballot, right, then you have 0:54:32.600 --> 0:54:35.920 a deeply damaged Democratic nominee in Clinton, or someone who 0:54:35.920 --> 0:54:38.759 the party will not want to nominate in Sanders. That's 0:54:38.760 --> 0:54:41.920 where you have the kind of break glass for emergency Biden, Gore, 0:54:42.160 --> 0:54:45.920 John Kerry uh type candidates. Right. Um, And so I 0:54:45.920 --> 0:54:48.080 think part of what Briden's trying to signal is to say, look, 0:54:48.440 --> 0:54:51.880 I'm here, I'm around if everything else is going wrong. 0:54:52.480 --> 0:54:54.640 You know, I'm at least thinking about this. I have 0:54:54.640 --> 0:54:56.200 a few people who are loyal to me. I can 0:54:56.200 --> 0:54:59.400 mount a campaign on the fly that's very different from 0:54:59.440 --> 0:55:02.200 actually run. And the way he sends signals it's very 0:55:02.280 --> 0:55:05.080 much like kind of his inside baseball you know, Marine 0:55:05.080 --> 0:55:08.279 Dowds Sunday column Right, those are kind of dog whistles too. 0:55:08.280 --> 0:55:12.719 I think other Democrats, more than to like mainstream voters, like, hey, 0:55:12.840 --> 0:55:16.719 if something really goes wrong with Clinton campaign, then then 0:55:16.719 --> 0:55:19.279 I'm here. But I would say, you know, um, we 0:55:19.360 --> 0:55:22.520 are speculative or dismissive. A lot of speculation about Clinton 0:55:22.560 --> 0:55:24.640 is struggling. If Biden ran, that would at least be 0:55:24.680 --> 0:55:28.160 a more tangible sign that that some influential Democrats are 0:55:28.160 --> 0:55:32.200 worried about Clinton. So right now. Statistically, if we had 0:55:32.200 --> 0:55:36.399 a guess, you're guessing Hillary Clinton is the Democratic Yeah, 0:55:36.440 --> 0:55:38.080 and you know, like I said, betting markets put the 0:55:38.120 --> 0:55:41.560 chances at eight percent, I put them marginally higher. I think, 0:55:41.840 --> 0:55:46.040 um you know, and I think of the of the percent, 0:55:46.840 --> 0:55:48.799 most of it's not Bernie Sanders. Most of it is 0:55:48.840 --> 0:55:54.000 that um Al Gore, Biden, Biden carry Gore right are 0:55:54.000 --> 0:55:55.640 the kind of the three people who could step in 0:55:55.680 --> 0:56:00.839 and in an emergency. So it's fascinating that you say 0:56:00.880 --> 0:56:04.880 that when we were looking at the O eight election, 0:56:05.120 --> 0:56:10.200 And I'm curious that you of your perspective. My thesis 0:56:10.440 --> 0:56:14.040 was at the time, so the Iraq War by then 0:56:14.120 --> 0:56:17.000 had turned sour, the economy was in a free fall, 0:56:17.040 --> 0:56:21.319 we were in the midst of a financial crisis. The 0:56:21.560 --> 0:56:26.360 running on the incumbents track record, I said, no matter 0:56:26.440 --> 0:56:30.000 who the GOP put up, they're willing to get destroyed 0:56:30.040 --> 0:56:33.480 by whoever the Democrats put up. But people have argued 0:56:33.520 --> 0:56:35.640 with me, well, if they would have nominated somebody instead 0:56:35.640 --> 0:56:39.640 of McCain, and someone less charismatic than Obama, perhaps it 0:56:39.680 --> 0:56:41.719 would have been a very different outcome. But I mean 0:56:41.760 --> 0:56:45.840 it was about the most difficult imaginable set of circumstances 0:56:45.920 --> 0:56:47.880 for the Republicans to win. I mean not that I 0:56:47.880 --> 0:56:49.600 feel sympathetic for them, because you know, they had a 0:56:49.640 --> 0:56:52.319 president who made some mistakes, shall we say, but you know, 0:56:52.400 --> 0:56:56.680 you had the economy collapsing, a very unpopular war, the 0:56:56.840 --> 0:57:01.280 sitting president had approval rating. Right, it wasn't a hugely 0:57:01.360 --> 0:57:03.400 low number for a sitting president. You can you know, 0:57:03.400 --> 0:57:05.359 one could argue about my ship won by twelve points 0:57:05.400 --> 0:57:07.480 instead of seven or something like that. Right, But that 0:57:07.560 --> 0:57:11.760 was about you know, there are some years that political 0:57:11.800 --> 0:57:15.400 scientists debate and say, you know, uh, he kind of 0:57:15.480 --> 0:57:17.520 was perceived to be kind of still in recession if 0:57:17.520 --> 0:57:20.000 you look back on revised cistics. Now it was actually doing. 0:57:20.520 --> 0:57:23.480 The recession was over before anybody realized. But oh way, 0:57:23.520 --> 0:57:26.520 it's one of those years where I don't know, Democrats 0:57:26.560 --> 0:57:29.520 would have had to make a huge error. Uh. And 0:57:29.560 --> 0:57:33.480 in some ways McCain wasn't a bad candidate. He was premoderate. 0:57:33.600 --> 0:57:35.880 He broke from the GOP in a lot of ways 0:57:35.960 --> 0:57:38.760 of the the time when that party was really unpopular. Right. 0:57:39.040 --> 0:57:41.600 You know, um, I thought he was a better candidate 0:57:41.600 --> 0:57:45.320 in two thousand. He seemed to be less captured and 0:57:45.360 --> 0:57:48.360 therefore less well, that's part of people are are kind 0:57:48.360 --> 0:57:50.720 of concerned about which of these seventeen Republicans will get 0:57:50.720 --> 0:57:53.120 nominated to some except that all kind of get except 0:57:53.160 --> 0:57:55.880 if it is a Trump or something. Right, Um, they're 0:57:55.880 --> 0:57:57.280 all going to kind of have the stamp of the 0:57:57.320 --> 0:57:59.600 party on them anyway, Right, And the ones who are 0:57:59.640 --> 0:58:02.400 more moderate Jeb Bush at least by the times you 0:58:02.400 --> 0:58:05.800 gets nominate, would be pulled more toward UM, toward the right. 0:58:05.880 --> 0:58:08.800 Scott Walker might be pulled more towards not the absolute left, 0:58:08.840 --> 0:58:11.640 but you know, become a little bit less conservative on 0:58:11.680 --> 0:58:13.800 some issues, and then they'll kind of go and do 0:58:13.800 --> 0:58:16.120 what they need to do for the general election. But um, 0:58:16.160 --> 0:58:19.000 but to some extent um, you know, it is a 0:58:19.040 --> 0:58:22.960 party driven process, and the candiates own policy positions might 0:58:23.000 --> 0:58:26.040 be swamped by what the consensus is among Is it 0:58:26.160 --> 0:58:29.600 still true you you um run the primary to the 0:58:29.720 --> 0:58:33.760 right and then um run the main election to the center, 0:58:33.880 --> 0:58:36.400 or for the Democrats, run the primary to the left 0:58:36.440 --> 0:58:37.920 and then tack to the center. For this, I mean 0:58:37.960 --> 0:58:42.000 that's the default, right, I mean I think, uh, you know, 0:58:42.120 --> 0:58:44.880 I think some partisans would say, well, it's all about 0:58:44.880 --> 0:58:48.080 turnout now, so you want to motivate your base, right. 0:58:48.160 --> 0:58:51.120 I'm always a little bit suspicious of that kind of 0:58:51.120 --> 0:58:53.320 the notion that where you can kind of have your 0:58:53.360 --> 0:58:57.160 cake and eat it too. Right. Um, you know, it 0:58:57.160 --> 0:58:59.160 maybe works a little bit better for Democrats in the 0:58:59.240 --> 0:59:02.000 sense that there are just a few more Democrats and 0:59:02.280 --> 0:59:05.560 the electorate and Republicans, so if everyone turns out, Um, 0:59:05.720 --> 0:59:08.360 they might have an edge out of those numbers. Different 0:59:08.440 --> 0:59:12.520 what what's the GOP percentage? And how accurate is is 0:59:12.560 --> 0:59:15.640 that about independence? I always thought people just angry at 0:59:15.680 --> 0:59:17.560 their party. A lot of people say their independence aren't 0:59:17.560 --> 0:59:20.320 really independence, right, but you know Democrats have right now 0:59:20.320 --> 0:59:23.400 about it five or six point edge and party identification, 0:59:23.800 --> 0:59:26.120 but it doesn't give them any well, els would be 0:59:26.120 --> 0:59:31.200 a whole another hour long segment right that time. Um, 0:59:31.240 --> 0:59:33.480 you know, but there are a lot of qualifications to that, 0:59:33.520 --> 0:59:36.360 one being that they Democrats get a lot of people 0:59:36.360 --> 0:59:40.680 who are only marginally likely to vote. Um. You know, 0:59:40.720 --> 0:59:42.480 if if we had mandatory voting in this country, a 0:59:42.520 --> 0:59:45.360 lot of things would be different. That's weird hypothetical, right, Um. 0:59:45.400 --> 0:59:50.800 Without mandatory voting benefit who would benefit Democrats? The Republicans 0:59:51.200 --> 0:59:54.200 on the other hand, you know a lot of times um, 0:59:54.280 --> 0:59:56.600 people won't turn out necessarily. Also, one thing that's a 0:59:56.640 --> 1:00:00.200 little bit tricky is that, um, because the GOP has 1:00:00.240 --> 1:00:03.720 been unpopular, Um, a lot of people that formally would say, 1:00:03.720 --> 1:00:06.800 you know, I'm a Republican, now they'll say I'm an independent, 1:00:07.400 --> 1:00:10.240 but I lean Republicans look at leaners and it gets 1:00:10.240 --> 1:00:14.040 a little bit closer still. Um. So I couldn't completely 1:00:14.080 --> 1:00:16.880 relate to that because we were talking before the show. 1:00:16.920 --> 1:00:20.040 I grew up. Jacob Javits was our senator, and that 1:00:20.240 --> 1:00:24.840 sort of center right republican you Kasik is probably the 1:00:24.840 --> 1:00:28.040 closest thing we mentioned. You know, Bush has actually surprised 1:00:28.040 --> 1:00:31.120 me to the extent that, um, he has run pretty 1:00:31.160 --> 1:00:35.960 explicitly as as a moderate right, which is an interesting approach. 1:00:36.000 --> 1:00:37.840 I think maybe he figures that, look, I have a 1:00:37.920 --> 1:00:42.720 very long track record in public life, right, Um, I'm 1:00:42.720 --> 1:00:46.480 not going to fool anyone like Romney tried to do 1:00:46.640 --> 1:00:50.160 in two thousand and twelve, right, Um, and then looked 1:00:50.160 --> 1:00:52.760 like a flip flopper in the general election. You know, 1:00:53.080 --> 1:00:54.840 they're always cases like The one thing that amazed me 1:00:54.920 --> 1:00:57.280 is that in two thousand and eight, all three of 1:00:57.280 --> 1:01:01.760 the major Democratic candidates were against gay marriage. Right officially 1:01:01.840 --> 1:01:04.360 even though Obama had said, like in two thousand two 1:01:04.640 --> 1:01:07.280 that he was pro gay marriage. Right. So I'm like, 1:01:07.320 --> 1:01:10.600 you know, are you really fooling anyone? I'm not. I'm 1:01:10.640 --> 1:01:12.800 not totally sure. And so I think Bush is saying, 1:01:12.800 --> 1:01:15.200 you know what I am? Who I am? I'm a 1:01:15.280 --> 1:01:20.040 moderate conservative, right, Um, you know, I'd be very electable. 1:01:20.120 --> 1:01:21.800 Although this is the thing that's tricky for him is 1:01:21.840 --> 1:01:24.280 usually you'd have a candidate like that, um, like the 1:01:24.360 --> 1:01:26.800 McCain type candid who's a moderate conservative and they have 1:01:26.920 --> 1:01:31.720 good UM electability numbers, and Bush because the Bush family 1:01:31.800 --> 1:01:34.280 name is still not that popular, maybe he's not seen 1:01:34.320 --> 1:01:36.960 as that relatable. You know, He's head to head numbers 1:01:36.960 --> 1:01:39.240 are not any better than like the more conservative candidates 1:01:39.240 --> 1:01:41.800 against Clinton. Right, So let's talk about the head to 1:01:41.880 --> 1:01:45.520 head numbers. So when we look at Clinton versus fill 1:01:45.560 --> 1:01:50.320 in the blank, Hillary versus Jeb Hillary versus Rubio, Hillary 1:01:50.520 --> 1:01:57.080 versus Kasik, who stands the best shot at at winning? Well, 1:01:57.120 --> 1:01:58.360 this is what we talked about. You know, I probably 1:01:58.400 --> 1:02:00.000 would not look at those head to head numbers very 1:02:00.120 --> 1:02:03.439 much right now. They're almost meaningless. Yeah, if you're gonna 1:02:03.440 --> 1:02:06.480 look at them, you know, candidates who have comfortable name 1:02:06.480 --> 1:02:08.920 recognition to Hillary, which is kind of almost no one. 1:02:09.000 --> 1:02:12.920 But you know, for that reason, the Bush number, you know, 1:02:13.040 --> 1:02:15.760 I would discount almost all of it instead of literally 1:02:15.800 --> 1:02:17.600 all of it as I might for like Hillary versus 1:02:17.680 --> 1:02:21.520 Rubio or whatnot. Um, but usually there's correlation between how 1:02:21.600 --> 1:02:25.680 moderate a guy is and how well he does among independents. Um. 1:02:25.720 --> 1:02:29.520 You know, because Bush isn't personally seeing that favorably, he 1:02:29.600 --> 1:02:31.240 might not have that edge this year, which is kind 1:02:31.280 --> 1:02:35.960 of why I say, if you're Republican, you might say, well, um, 1:02:36.080 --> 1:02:38.560 you know what, if we look at Rubio versus Bush, 1:02:38.600 --> 1:02:41.880 then we get a guy number one who's more conservative, right, 1:02:42.400 --> 1:02:44.520 number two who is actually a little bit more popular 1:02:44.680 --> 1:02:48.360 with independence, and number three avoids this whole voice versus 1:02:48.360 --> 1:02:51.960 Clinton dynasty angle. Again, it's not my job to advise parties, 1:02:52.000 --> 1:02:53.840 but that's what Rubio is one candidate where that you 1:02:53.880 --> 1:02:56.760 could kind of go back and say, I totally get 1:02:56.800 --> 1:03:00.000 why they nominated him and what we're all discounting somebody. 1:03:00.000 --> 1:03:03.280 I guess I'm you know, I'm bullish on Rubio's You know, 1:03:03.520 --> 1:03:09.000 here's the thing that I find fascinating. Bright, Hispanic articulate, 1:03:09.480 --> 1:03:13.240 like a really like and you know, has almost a 1:03:13.440 --> 1:03:20.080 Kennedy esk photo genetic photogenic sort of thing. But when 1:03:20.080 --> 1:03:23.080 you look at his policies and I know the Republicans 1:03:23.120 --> 1:03:26.760 are I don't remember was you or wrote about the 1:03:26.840 --> 1:03:31.760 gender gap on the GOP versus Democrats, he is surprisingly 1:03:31.840 --> 1:03:36.560 hard right. If he was a more centrist, moderate conservative, 1:03:37.000 --> 1:03:39.840 I would think that he would be the front runner 1:03:40.000 --> 1:03:43.240 for for getting elected in the general election. Well, and 1:03:43.280 --> 1:03:45.240 we'll and we'll see, right. You know, one way this 1:03:45.280 --> 1:03:49.120 could play out, um, is that people sour on Bush 1:03:49.160 --> 1:03:52.240 and then you'll see Rubio maybe move a little bit 1:03:52.280 --> 1:03:56.920 to the the center. Despite what he said recently about abortion, 1:03:57.080 --> 1:04:00.439 no exceptions for rape, incest, life of the mother, Like 1:04:00.640 --> 1:04:04.560 you don't hear that from mainstream candidates the past twenty years. 1:04:04.800 --> 1:04:06.440 When he is pretty and there are fiscal systems to 1:04:06.480 --> 1:04:09.560 the try and quantify how conservative people are, and Rubio 1:04:09.680 --> 1:04:12.920 is very conservative. I mean, the GOP is a very 1:04:12.920 --> 1:04:18.240 conservative party. So relative to the other seventeen people, he's 1:04:18.240 --> 1:04:20.560 about in the middle of the GOP field. But he 1:04:20.560 --> 1:04:25.200 would be, you know, twenty years ago considered very conservative. Um. 1:04:25.280 --> 1:04:29.600 But you know, um who's more to the right of Rubio, 1:04:30.320 --> 1:04:36.040 So Walker probably, Um, you know Walker is UM far 1:04:36.120 --> 1:04:38.480 enough to the right where he might kind of compete 1:04:38.480 --> 1:04:42.160 for votes with UM with Ted Cruz a right and 1:04:42.480 --> 1:04:46.080 Carson for that matter, right, UM, which you know, maybe 1:04:46.160 --> 1:04:47.720 isn't a good place to be. There is gonna be 1:04:47.760 --> 1:04:51.120 some support for candidates like those, I think throughout the race. 1:04:51.320 --> 1:04:54.640 What's interesting about Trump is that, UM, he's really difficult 1:04:54.640 --> 1:04:58.080 to peg Ideologically, He's kind of all over the place. 1:04:58.360 --> 1:05:00.280 And his support too, was all over the place. Right, 1:05:00.280 --> 1:05:04.560 people with somoa's capturing Tea Party voters not true? Right. 1:05:04.560 --> 1:05:09.880 That coalition he has is drawn from all different kind 1:05:09.920 --> 1:05:14.160 of ideological parts the GOP in. What's one reason I'm 1:05:14.160 --> 1:05:15.800 scipticle by him is that it's also drawn from people 1:05:15.800 --> 1:05:19.600 who don't traditionally turn out and vote in primaries. Right. 1:05:19.760 --> 1:05:21.720 It's a lot of people would say, you know, I 1:05:21.800 --> 1:05:23.760 like that kind of six it to the establishment and 1:05:23.800 --> 1:05:27.800 six it to the media. Right, they're fascinated by him. 1:05:27.840 --> 1:05:31.160 You know, does that translate into driving to the Iowa 1:05:31.240 --> 1:05:34.680 caucus in the snow when you've never voted before. You know, 1:05:35.520 --> 1:05:38.520 we don't know, there's some reason to be skeptical of that. UM, 1:05:38.560 --> 1:05:41.080 but Trump is you know, if you kind of if 1:05:41.120 --> 1:05:44.480 you average out his policy positions, then they're kind of, 1:05:44.960 --> 1:05:48.680 you know, fairly typical right of center. But that means 1:05:48.680 --> 1:05:50.880 you have some things that are like radical Tea Party 1:05:50.920 --> 1:05:54.120 and some things that are like practically like socialists. Yeah, 1:05:54.280 --> 1:05:58.440 and it kind of averages out um and that is interesting. 1:05:58.440 --> 1:06:00.000 I mean, you know, there were some article right today 1:06:00.080 --> 1:06:04.840 about how um so that was smart, uh, about how 1:06:05.080 --> 1:06:09.160 usually a candidate is so constrained right, and these disagreements 1:06:09.200 --> 1:06:11.480 remember in tuth as an eight the Democrats on on 1:06:11.640 --> 1:06:15.040 healthcare right, Democrats had huge fights about you know, did 1:06:15.080 --> 1:06:19.400 Obama have a employee mandate in his healthcare bill or 1:06:19.440 --> 1:06:22.760 a mandate and Hillary didn't. I mean, these are you know, 1:06:23.160 --> 1:06:25.960 pretty minor differences, whereas Trump is saying, I'm not going 1:06:26.000 --> 1:06:28.560 to play by those constraints where you can be you know, 1:06:28.640 --> 1:06:30.480 an eight point two or an eight point five on 1:06:30.600 --> 1:06:32.280 something right, I'm just gonna be all over the place. 1:06:32.760 --> 1:06:34.920 And that's how a lot of real people I think 1:06:35.000 --> 1:06:38.880 to write, um right there, their views aren't necessarily in 1:06:38.920 --> 1:06:41.440 tonally consistent, So so I would I would dispute that, 1:06:41.520 --> 1:06:43.680 like I think, you know, I don't think the party's 1:06:43.720 --> 1:06:47.000 views are that internally consistent either, Like I'm not sure why, 1:06:47.160 --> 1:06:51.080 you know, policy your views on taxation and gay marriage 1:06:51.160 --> 1:06:55.400 and um and uber and the war and Iraq should 1:06:55.440 --> 1:06:59.080 be correlate with one another that much. But you know, certainly, um, 1:06:59.080 --> 1:07:03.240 you know, these views coalescent to parties and people often. Um, 1:07:03.280 --> 1:07:05.280 you know, our Democrats are Helbicans for like one or 1:07:05.320 --> 1:07:06.680 two big issues, and they kind of say, you know what, 1:07:06.720 --> 1:07:08.280 it's a lot easier to kind of agree with the 1:07:08.320 --> 1:07:11.120 party on everything. Right, So I kind of disagree with 1:07:11.160 --> 1:07:14.960 the idea that, oh, um, trumps use are more incoherent, 1:07:15.000 --> 1:07:17.360 because I don't think anyone's views are all that coherent 1:07:17.800 --> 1:07:22.040 necessarily right, but definitely it's it's maps differently than any 1:07:22.080 --> 1:07:25.880 other candidates would. So at this point, given all the changes, 1:07:26.160 --> 1:07:29.080 well let's let's use gay marriage as an example. Yeah, 1:07:29.200 --> 1:07:32.640 the Supreme Court has ruled. I thought Case six. Answer was, 1:07:33.000 --> 1:07:34.600 and by the way, this is a kiss of death 1:07:35.080 --> 1:07:38.360 if I like you when a Republican primary, you're done 1:07:38.680 --> 1:07:40.960 last year. I thought, last last election, I'm like this 1:07:41.040 --> 1:07:45.120 huntsman guy seems pretty yeah, toast, that's the kisses I 1:07:45.160 --> 1:07:48.160 thought Case six answer was, Oh, that's who the responsible 1:07:48.200 --> 1:07:51.440 adults on the stages. It's him, So you know, he's not. 1:07:51.680 --> 1:07:53.560 And a lot of people who are running cases campaign 1:07:53.880 --> 1:07:57.240 ran Huntsman's campaign. Um, same people. It's a lot of 1:07:57.320 --> 1:07:59.600 same people. And their strategy is, you know, you want 1:07:59.600 --> 1:08:02.400 to kind of appealed to to the media. So the 1:08:02.400 --> 1:08:04.920 first debate was interesting in that, um, you know, the 1:08:04.960 --> 1:08:08.200 media spam was that case that had done really well, right, 1:08:08.280 --> 1:08:10.880 And I thought he did pretty well. I personally liked him, 1:08:10.880 --> 1:08:13.120 But I'm somewhere probably near you want to play the spectrum, 1:08:13.120 --> 1:08:16.000 and I know, right, um, socially progressive, a little, a 1:08:16.040 --> 1:08:20.240 little fiscally conservative and and to me, I I've assumed 1:08:20.280 --> 1:08:23.080 the abortion issue has been settled. I can't believe that's 1:08:23.120 --> 1:08:26.920 still ongoing. And and now it looks like the question 1:08:27.000 --> 1:08:29.720 of of nwage equality is settled. And the only one 1:08:29.720 --> 1:08:32.000 on the stage who seemed willing to say that was Casing. 1:08:32.320 --> 1:08:35.280 But if you looked at Google searches, which they now 1:08:35.280 --> 1:08:38.720 releas stayed in real time, Ben Carson was doing really well. 1:08:38.720 --> 1:08:43.240 People were interested in him. Cross is much less crazy 1:08:43.360 --> 1:08:45.840 than I expected, not that that's saying any He was 1:08:45.840 --> 1:08:49.240 pretty he was pretty down, toned down and mellow, and 1:08:49.360 --> 1:08:52.559 I know I thought that were okay, right, Um, yeah, 1:08:52.600 --> 1:08:54.519 for sure, when he's gaining the polls a little bit. 1:08:54.560 --> 1:08:57.080 So let's talk about Carly Fianna, who did really well 1:08:57.120 --> 1:09:01.040 at the children's tables. People have derisively called it, but 1:09:01.720 --> 1:09:06.000 I know her as a horrible CEO oversaw one of 1:09:06.040 --> 1:09:09.800 the worst mergers in technology history, you know, HP and 1:09:09.880 --> 1:09:13.120 Compact is described like a O L Time Warner. It 1:09:13.160 --> 1:09:16.639 was just a disaster, and she's laid off. I don't 1:09:16.680 --> 1:09:20.599 remember the number, a hundred thousand, some huge number. Can 1:09:20.680 --> 1:09:24.840 she really be a credible candidate given that background, she 1:09:24.840 --> 1:09:28.639 she's managed to fail And again send your hate email 1:09:28.680 --> 1:09:33.160 to Nate Silvertie, but I think she's failed upwards and 1:09:33.200 --> 1:09:39.280 I'm wholly unimpressed with her as a candidate UM or 1:09:39.439 --> 1:09:42.519 as a as a CEO, as a corporate I thought 1:09:42.520 --> 1:09:45.800 she did well in UM in the debate and the 1:09:45.880 --> 1:09:48.519 JV debate. It was very self possessed and kind of 1:09:48.760 --> 1:09:51.639 right understood the balance between you don't want to sound 1:09:52.360 --> 1:09:53.960 like a wing nut, but you want to make sure 1:09:54.040 --> 1:09:56.200 that you're memorable on that stage. People are kind of 1:09:56.200 --> 1:09:58.320 hap paying attention, you know. I know, I think it's 1:09:58.360 --> 1:10:01.240 a little bit premature. I think she's um she's not 1:10:01.439 --> 1:10:03.120 quite yet at the point where you're gonna see a 1:10:03.120 --> 1:10:08.559 lot of scrutiny. Um. But yeah, there's uh, you know, 1:10:08.560 --> 1:10:11.360 this is one of the things about comparing like Hillary 1:10:11.400 --> 1:10:14.559 and Bernie Sanders, right. You know, if you compare a 1:10:14.640 --> 1:10:17.439 candid who has um received a lot of scrutiny from 1:10:17.439 --> 1:10:19.240 the media, from other members of their party, from the 1:10:19.280 --> 1:10:22.280 other party, versus one who hasn't, it's a really apples 1:10:22.280 --> 1:10:25.679 to or or just comparison. Right. Um. You know, Sofia 1:10:25.680 --> 1:10:29.759 a Mina has not yet been through that scrutiny phase. Right. Um. 1:10:29.960 --> 1:10:32.760 If she keeps doing well, then her reward is that 1:10:32.800 --> 1:10:36.960 she'll she'll then endure that, right Um. But you know 1:10:37.000 --> 1:10:39.439 it's not I don't know. I would think she would 1:10:39.479 --> 1:10:42.360 have more chance me the nominee than Trump. Maybe you'd 1:10:42.360 --> 1:10:44.599 have to think about what about her is the vice 1:10:44.600 --> 1:10:48.160 presidential candidate. If Hillary is the nominee, put a woman 1:10:48.200 --> 1:10:51.400 on the ticket, I would imagine that would offset, um, 1:10:51.479 --> 1:10:55.760 some of the gender gap that is inherent with Hillary running. Sure, 1:10:55.800 --> 1:11:00.679 although women don't necessarily um support women who aren't good 1:11:00.720 --> 1:11:04.120 on on quote unquote women's issues, right, I mean, certainly 1:11:04.120 --> 1:11:06.559 not every woman is pro choice, right, but you know 1:11:06.600 --> 1:11:09.800 what many are but but many are, right, Um, and 1:11:09.880 --> 1:11:12.960 so you know, Republican women might have a more difficult 1:11:12.960 --> 1:11:17.559 time of it than than Democratic women. And what since, 1:11:17.960 --> 1:11:22.519 uh we're talking about Carly she kind of um caught 1:11:22.640 --> 1:11:26.800 some positive attention for her comments about the whole Megan 1:11:26.920 --> 1:11:30.519 Kelly Fox thing. Yea, how does that play into this? Uh? 1:11:30.680 --> 1:11:33.120 This is one thing that I, uh, one bad prediction 1:11:33.120 --> 1:11:35.880 we've made, right, I kind of thought that, boy when um, 1:11:35.960 --> 1:11:39.360 when Fox News started taking on Trump, that Fox were 1:11:39.400 --> 1:11:42.160 hammering and that Fox News wouldn't back down, and they 1:11:42.160 --> 1:11:46.080 did back down really really quickly to I mean, so 1:11:46.160 --> 1:11:48.320 you sound as surprised as I was. Yeah, I was 1:11:48.360 --> 1:11:51.719 surprised because I kind of thought that. But look, Fox News, 1:11:51.760 --> 1:11:55.560 like any major media organizations, a complicated place, right. Um. 1:11:55.600 --> 1:11:58.759 You know, they want ratings and attention. On the one hand, 1:11:59.080 --> 1:12:03.120 the their hand, you know, um have some influence in 1:12:03.160 --> 1:12:07.760 Republican politics, so on the some Yeah, on the third hand, 1:12:07.880 --> 1:12:10.559 you know, you have lots of individual producers, some of 1:12:10.560 --> 1:12:12.920 whom are awesome journalists and some of them are not. 1:12:13.040 --> 1:12:16.400 And you know it's a complicated place. But um, but 1:12:16.479 --> 1:12:19.439 you know, it was funny how explicit Trump was about 1:12:19.479 --> 1:12:22.360 the quid pro quel like, I got you terrific ratings 1:12:22.479 --> 1:12:24.280 right and made you all this money, and you're giving 1:12:24.280 --> 1:12:27.280 me this right and I'm like, yeah, you have a point, 1:12:27.360 --> 1:12:30.160 you know, And um, you know, it was amazing. I 1:12:30.200 --> 1:12:34.000 thought Fox did a great job on the on the debate. 1:12:34.600 --> 1:12:37.719 I watched about an hour of it, maybe a little more, 1:12:38.000 --> 1:12:40.920 and at that point, you know it started. You know, 1:12:41.200 --> 1:12:43.000 it's when you're watching a game and it looks like 1:12:43.040 --> 1:12:45.519 a blowout and all right, I don't need to watch 1:12:45.560 --> 1:12:47.680 the stay for the fourth quarter. That's kind of but 1:12:47.960 --> 1:12:50.360 it seemed really interesting. The one name we didn't mention, 1:12:51.080 --> 1:12:53.920 um who I could give you a whole laundry list 1:12:54.000 --> 1:12:56.839 of reasons why he's terrible and I don't like him. 1:12:56.880 --> 1:12:59.320 But I thought Chris Christie did a really good job 1:12:59.360 --> 1:13:02.040 at the debate. So the Christie story is kind of fascinating. 1:13:02.040 --> 1:13:05.840 We've been on um on the Chris Christie's toast man wagon, 1:13:06.000 --> 1:13:09.120 I recall, for a long time before it was cool, um, 1:13:09.680 --> 1:13:11.720 you know, in part because he's a guy who the 1:13:11.720 --> 1:13:15.320 party wants, Kenny, who's conservative but also reliable, right, And 1:13:15.400 --> 1:13:17.680 I think Christie is he is a guy who's not 1:13:17.720 --> 1:13:20.759 that reliable. He's no longer very popular with independent voters. 1:13:20.840 --> 1:13:25.439 But but who knows. I I almost think everyone at 1:13:25.479 --> 1:13:26.840 the office dis agrees with this, right. I think it 1:13:26.840 --> 1:13:29.720 would almost help Christie if um if he dropped out 1:13:29.720 --> 1:13:31.960 of the top ten and then had the stage to 1:13:32.120 --> 1:13:35.439 himself at the next JV debate, right, and could be 1:13:35.560 --> 1:13:39.280 alpha male and totally dominant. I don't think Christy has 1:13:39.439 --> 1:13:42.000 is very likely at all to win the nomination, but 1:13:42.080 --> 1:13:45.240 he's a guy who could have a surge right in 1:13:45.280 --> 1:13:48.000 the media. The media is fascinated by Christie. He's a 1:13:48.040 --> 1:13:51.080 fascinating guy. He's great on his feet. I thought he 1:13:51.240 --> 1:13:54.479 I thought he hurt Ran Paul. I mean, he really 1:13:54.520 --> 1:13:57.720 came at him hard. And then so there's guys who 1:13:57.800 --> 1:14:02.000 you know, there's Christie, Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, the three season. 1:14:02.240 --> 1:14:03.800 You know, they're all in the category of candidates I 1:14:03.840 --> 1:14:06.000 think could be the next candidate who searches but probably 1:14:06.000 --> 1:14:11.519 couldn't win the nomination, whereas Rubio Kik kind of slower 1:14:11.520 --> 1:14:13.800 and steadier. I think Rubio is a one candidate where 1:14:13.840 --> 1:14:15.960 you get the sense that he's not trying to win 1:14:16.000 --> 1:14:18.759 the nomination in August, which is probably a really smart 1:14:18.840 --> 1:14:22.360 thing to do. But my general impression of him is 1:14:22.920 --> 1:14:26.040 that he's a little young, he's a little green. Some 1:14:26.080 --> 1:14:29.120 of the other candidates that compared him to some guy 1:14:29.640 --> 1:14:34.040 at this term in his first Senate term named Barack Obama, 1:14:34.520 --> 1:14:37.519 which I find am using. But you could see there's 1:14:37.560 --> 1:14:43.080 a political um uh, there's a wind at his back 1:14:43.240 --> 1:14:46.280 that that could help him. If not this, uh not, 1:14:47.120 --> 1:14:50.040 then certainly. Yeah. Though I think one thing a lot 1:14:50.080 --> 1:14:53.519 of UM Republicans have learned is that UM and a 1:14:53.520 --> 1:14:55.639 lot of cands have learned is that you know, there's 1:14:55.680 --> 1:14:58.360 no time like today, right, you know, I'm sure are 1:14:58.400 --> 1:15:01.760 a lot of candidates this year, UM where you know 1:15:01.960 --> 1:15:05.040 Rick Perry, who was someone who had one of the 1:15:05.040 --> 1:15:07.840 better chances to beat Romney until he kind of imploded, right, 1:15:08.160 --> 1:15:10.720 you know, he was not in the top ten. Rick Santorum, 1:15:10.720 --> 1:15:13.400 who kind of sensibly finished in second place, was not 1:15:13.479 --> 1:15:14.600 in the top ten. So there has to be a 1:15:14.600 --> 1:15:16.639 lot of these candidates now we're kicking themselves and saying, 1:15:16.920 --> 1:15:19.960 you know what, Um, Romney a little bit underrated as 1:15:19.960 --> 1:15:23.120 candidate maybe, but boy, you know it was a much 1:15:23.160 --> 1:15:27.200 easier nomination to win in twelve and probably kicking themselves 1:15:27.200 --> 1:15:29.040 for not having run four years. Why do you say 1:15:29.120 --> 1:15:33.280 undernominated as a candidate. I'm curious about that because in 1:15:33.360 --> 1:15:37.200 the end, it's hard to beat an incumbent president. Um, 1:15:37.320 --> 1:15:41.520 the economy improved to the point where it was okay. 1:15:42.040 --> 1:15:44.280 I would take the other start of the arguments, say, 1:15:44.439 --> 1:15:48.160 when Romney was running against Obama, you had a very 1:15:48.320 --> 1:15:53.120 unpopular or at least it appeared to be unpopular. Um, Obamacare. 1:15:53.160 --> 1:15:56.040 It's since turned out to be quite successful. But here 1:15:56.080 --> 1:15:58.400 was a guy who put Obamacare only was Romney care 1:15:58.439 --> 1:16:03.200 in his state and the weakest economy, the weakest recovery 1:16:03.240 --> 1:16:06.360 you've seen in half a century. Certain, it was a gimme, 1:16:06.479 --> 1:16:10.320 but like like the average elected in president wins the 1:16:10.400 --> 1:16:13.880 second term by by eight percentage points in the popular vote, 1:16:13.880 --> 1:16:16.880 No Ababa went by four three point eight or something. Right, 1:16:16.920 --> 1:16:20.640 So Obama kind of did underperform, But it was a 1:16:20.720 --> 1:16:24.719 huge electoral college blowout. It was so the electoral college 1:16:24.760 --> 1:16:26.559 can make It's kind of designed that way to make 1:16:26.600 --> 1:16:29.479 a relatively small edge and the popular vote be bigger. 1:16:29.800 --> 1:16:32.800 UM in the electoral college, right, Um, And probably I 1:16:32.800 --> 1:16:35.439 think his campaign helped at the margin and some of 1:16:35.439 --> 1:16:40.000 the swing states to UM. But I don't know, I mean, UM, 1:16:40.040 --> 1:16:43.200 you know, I don't think Romney ran a terrific campaign. 1:16:43.280 --> 1:16:45.680 I think he was not a disaster though, either. And 1:16:45.720 --> 1:16:48.120 I think people, um, you know, again, you go back 1:16:48.120 --> 1:16:52.000 to the fact that historically incumbent presidents are re elected 1:16:52.400 --> 1:16:55.599 seventy percent of time UM and this was just one 1:16:55.600 --> 1:16:57.240 of those. And a lot of subtle ways, like going 1:16:57.280 --> 1:17:00.599 into like UM a college football stadium or something, right, 1:17:00.960 --> 1:17:05.639 UM Michigan Stadium where UM US, at least it used 1:17:05.640 --> 1:17:07.760 to be University Michigan was tough to to beat there, 1:17:07.800 --> 1:17:09.920 and it kind of manifests self in all sorts of 1:17:10.400 --> 1:17:12.640 subtle way us to get better officiating, you know, the 1:17:12.680 --> 1:17:15.200 playing surface a little bit better, a little bit better 1:17:15.600 --> 1:17:19.000 under pressure. It's tough to beat an incumbent president. And 1:17:19.040 --> 1:17:21.800 I'm not saying Romney was the most horrific nominee, but 1:17:21.840 --> 1:17:24.599 these guys get kind of tarnished with the loser brush 1:17:24.720 --> 1:17:27.000 or John Kerry is another one where he lost by 1:17:27.040 --> 1:17:29.360 by two points. You know, people are right in the 1:17:29.400 --> 1:17:34.080 middle of an active war, which at the time UM 1:17:34.120 --> 1:17:37.880 that war was somewhat popular, right where the plurality of 1:17:37.880 --> 1:17:42.320 Americans in the four right six months later, different six 1:17:42.360 --> 1:17:44.680 months later, I think um Bush might have lost that 1:17:44.720 --> 1:17:47.559 election was really close. But um, but you know, at 1:17:47.600 --> 1:17:52.200 the time, the economy was had recovered from a mild recession, 1:17:52.800 --> 1:17:56.400 um and looked not bad, right, um, you know, and 1:17:56.439 --> 1:17:58.559 you had a war that was becoming less and less popular. 1:17:58.720 --> 1:18:02.400 But um it it's easy to have hindsight bias now right. 1:18:02.720 --> 1:18:04.640 And their models part of the two their models that 1:18:04.720 --> 1:18:07.839 look at factors like the economy measured in various ways, 1:18:08.400 --> 1:18:11.680 you know, war measured in various ways. Incumbent see and 1:18:11.760 --> 1:18:13.599 most of them said, oh, you know, Carrie should lose 1:18:13.640 --> 1:18:16.719 by by several points, and you know he did about 1:18:16.760 --> 1:18:19.040 as well. I didn't realize it was that close. I 1:18:19.080 --> 1:18:23.559 thought carry had lost much more substantially Democrats, because you 1:18:23.560 --> 1:18:25.519 do have this kind of tied shifting in how Iraq 1:18:25.640 --> 1:18:28.360 was perceived and the Bush presidency was perceived, right, um, 1:18:29.040 --> 1:18:31.599 And I think you had Democrats kind of saying, boy, 1:18:31.600 --> 1:18:34.439 how can we not win this election? And that's kind 1:18:34.439 --> 1:18:37.519 of parallel to two thousand. I didn't hear a lot 1:18:37.560 --> 1:18:39.720 of Democrats saying that to me. I thought it was 1:18:40.280 --> 1:18:44.080 sitting President nine eleven, still very fresh in memory. You're 1:18:44.160 --> 1:18:46.760 you're the old expression I kept hearing was you don't 1:18:46.840 --> 1:18:49.000 change horses mid stream. You're in the middle of an 1:18:49.000 --> 1:18:52.200 active war, and the tendency is to reelect the income 1:18:52.240 --> 1:18:54.360 in in the middle of an active war. Is that 1:18:54.479 --> 1:18:57.400 is that overstating the circumstances. Well, war, it depends on 1:18:57.439 --> 1:18:59.600 it's a popular war and an unpopular war. Right in 1:18:59.680 --> 1:19:03.040 Iraq was going from a war that was initially very popular, uh, 1:19:03.160 --> 1:19:05.479 to one that wasn't And as easy as amazing as 1:19:05.479 --> 1:19:08.120 it sounds like, it's easy to forget the impact of 1:19:08.120 --> 1:19:12.760 September eleven, um, you know, and that still cast a 1:19:12.840 --> 1:19:16.479 real shadow on the way the race was contested to 1:19:16.760 --> 1:19:19.000 so things about Vietnam and seventy two and next we 1:19:19.080 --> 1:19:22.479 got reelected. That was a terribly unpopular war by seventy two, 1:19:22.760 --> 1:19:25.400 by the late sixties it was unpopular. But it just 1:19:25.439 --> 1:19:27.519 seems to be a sense that's not well. S two 1:19:27.640 --> 1:19:29.639 is one of those cases where the kindo was actually 1:19:29.680 --> 1:19:32.280 not so bad and seventy to um. But that is 1:19:32.320 --> 1:19:35.800 a case where the Democrats blew any chance they had 1:19:35.840 --> 1:19:39.080 by nominating McGovern And in this convention where it went 1:19:39.160 --> 1:19:40.800 until three in the morning that the world gave his 1:19:40.880 --> 1:19:43.439 speech and they picked a VP who they had to 1:19:43.479 --> 1:19:47.559 then veto. Right, I mean that was you know. So, um, 1:19:47.880 --> 1:19:49.760 so people should remember that SENTI Too campaign because it 1:19:49.800 --> 1:19:53.320 means like you know, this app doesn't always win, right. Um, 1:19:53.360 --> 1:19:57.120 there is this kind of you know five chance empirically 1:19:57.280 --> 1:20:01.760 that um that they don't um. But the odds are 1:20:01.800 --> 1:20:05.799 are you know, certainly in Hillary Clinton's favor uh, certainly 1:20:05.840 --> 1:20:09.439 against someone like like Donald Trump right where you know, 1:20:09.479 --> 1:20:11.479 and maybe at the party the GOP is weaker than 1:20:11.479 --> 1:20:14.000 it once was, but they're going to fight until they're 1:20:14.040 --> 1:20:17.320 dying embers to not nominate Donald Trump. He's kind of 1:20:17.360 --> 1:20:20.479 a trifecta of things that um that they wouldn't like. 1:20:20.560 --> 1:20:24.439 Number one, he's not very popular with independent voters. Um. 1:20:24.479 --> 1:20:26.880 People talk about how you know kind of Trump is 1:20:26.920 --> 1:20:29.920 extremely he's a new populism take of the country. Well, 1:20:30.000 --> 1:20:32.960 you know he is really awful. Favorability ratings with the 1:20:33.040 --> 1:20:38.439 electorate as a whole about negative positive right um. Number 1:20:38.439 --> 1:20:40.880 two he's now that conservative. And number three, you don't 1:20:40.880 --> 1:20:43.320 know we're gonna get with him, right. Um. So you 1:20:43.320 --> 1:20:45.960 know there's kind of the three criteria that the party 1:20:45.960 --> 1:20:49.280 would say, boy, you know it could this could be 1:20:49.320 --> 1:20:52.120 a real disaster. And and yeah, so gun to the 1:20:52.120 --> 1:20:55.920 head today you're are you looking at Hillary Bush or 1:20:56.360 --> 1:20:59.920 Clinton Bush or is it Clinton somebody else? I mean, 1:21:00.120 --> 1:21:02.840 you know, I kind of think, um, on the GP side, 1:21:02.840 --> 1:21:10.520 it's about Rubio Walker and other Right, Really, that's fascinating. 1:21:10.520 --> 1:21:13.639 I wouldn't have thought maybe I'd diminished Walker's chances a bit. 1:21:13.680 --> 1:21:16.719 He struggled in the polls after the debate somewhat unless 1:21:16.720 --> 1:21:20.280 he really comes back in the next debate. He seemed 1:21:20.360 --> 1:21:23.120 kind of soften, not ready for prime And that was 1:21:23.200 --> 1:21:26.120 some reputation he had, is that this guy is does 1:21:26.240 --> 1:21:28.760 find one on one but maybe his trouble standing out 1:21:28.800 --> 1:21:31.760 a little bit. At the same time, you know, um, 1:21:31.840 --> 1:21:33.760 he's leading the Iowa polls or at least as a 1:21:33.840 --> 1:21:37.000 leading non Trump candidate, depending on what poll you look at, right, 1:21:37.080 --> 1:21:39.439 and he kind of is that's a new category. Leading 1:21:39.560 --> 1:21:42.320 non Trump can today. But you do almost have to 1:21:42.360 --> 1:21:46.439 pull Trump. It's a little bit how uh, in a 1:21:46.520 --> 1:21:50.679 weird way with um Ron Paul in two thousand twelves 1:21:51.439 --> 1:21:54.040 where Ron Paul was going to get of the vote 1:21:55.240 --> 1:21:58.160 and if the vote were divided evenly enough among other candidates, 1:21:58.160 --> 1:22:01.240 then um, then that my have been enough to win. 1:22:01.280 --> 1:22:04.200 He came pretty close, right, you know. You know, but 1:22:04.320 --> 1:22:06.680 being the leading non Trump Candida. I mean the term 1:22:06.720 --> 1:22:10.559 front runners used um sometimes in horse racing for a 1:22:10.600 --> 1:22:13.800 horse that uh jumps out to really quickly, but it's 1:22:13.840 --> 1:22:17.000 not going to have the stamina stamina to go the distance. Right. 1:22:17.080 --> 1:22:19.120 And so you know, if you call Trump for front runner, 1:22:19.120 --> 1:22:20.680 I kind of think in that more ibronic sense, it 1:22:20.760 --> 1:22:23.439 might be more worthwhile. But you could also hold on 1:22:23.479 --> 1:22:26.640 to and then not really grow from there. There are 1:22:26.640 --> 1:22:30.160 a lot of guys that, um, you know again, Pat Robertson, 1:22:30.160 --> 1:22:35.680 Pat Buchanan, Paul Huckabee, Santaurum. Right, Um, you know you 1:22:35.760 --> 1:22:38.640 can win Iowa in a field with seventeen candidates, with 1:22:38.760 --> 1:22:43.960 twenty doesn't mean a lot, you know. One poster recently said, Um, okay, 1:22:44.040 --> 1:22:48.559 let's just take this down to three candidates. Um, you know, Trump, Walker, 1:22:48.640 --> 1:22:52.799 and Bush. I think it was and Trump barely gained anything, 1:22:52.960 --> 1:22:55.720 whereas Walker and Rubio pick up support from the sense 1:22:55.800 --> 1:23:00.120 Christie's and and the fi Arenas and the whatnot right. Um, 1:23:00.160 --> 1:23:03.680 And so as that field consolidates, right, then Trump will 1:23:03.680 --> 1:23:05.880 have trouble or maybe it won't consolidate, but then you're 1:23:05.880 --> 1:23:09.960 gonna have like know him with a plurality of delegates. Um, 1:23:10.000 --> 1:23:14.640 this is a scenario that journalists dream of, um, brokered convention, madness, 1:23:14.680 --> 1:23:18.160 brookered convention or at least, you know, maybe resolved before 1:23:18.160 --> 1:23:20.400 the convention. But and there's a lot of backroom dealing. 1:23:20.640 --> 1:23:22.400 Trump is not going to benefit from that because the 1:23:22.400 --> 1:23:25.960 Party of Salesman faciates his guts. Right. So, um, you know. 1:23:26.080 --> 1:23:28.160 But the one thing that would make me more bullish 1:23:28.200 --> 1:23:30.639 about Trump's chances. You hear he's actually investing in staff 1:23:31.120 --> 1:23:33.760 in Iowa, right, is he or is he not? You 1:23:33.760 --> 1:23:36.519 never know. It's there's a lot of smoke mirrors with 1:23:36.560 --> 1:23:39.120 any candy at the stage the race. Um. And also 1:23:39.200 --> 1:23:40.960 you can invest in something and not do a good 1:23:41.040 --> 1:23:43.880 job of it. Right. But you know, um, you know 1:23:44.439 --> 1:23:47.920 again the one candidate who defied the establishment and one 1:23:48.040 --> 1:23:51.000 was McGovern seventy two a long time ago. Very different 1:23:51.040 --> 1:23:54.360 cannate than Trump, very different. Um. But you know it 1:23:54.439 --> 1:23:58.160 wasn't just uh he got lucky. He had lots of 1:23:58.200 --> 1:24:01.160 grass roots support. He understood how to in caucuses, He 1:24:01.200 --> 1:24:05.400 understood the delegate rules. He understood you know, party conventions 1:24:05.400 --> 1:24:07.639 and how the delegates are allocated that the caucus can 1:24:07.720 --> 1:24:11.920 change later on. Right. Um, you know, so if he 1:24:12.040 --> 1:24:14.840 if Trump has that side of the operation, really good logistics, 1:24:15.200 --> 1:24:16.920 and understands the rules and has had a lot has 1:24:16.960 --> 1:24:19.280 a lot of lawyers willing to litigate when the GOP 1:24:19.400 --> 1:24:21.920 tries to change the rules. Then then you know, maybe 1:24:21.920 --> 1:24:24.960 i'd make his odds six percent instead of two percent. 1:24:25.520 --> 1:24:30.600 But still, yeah, I think so, Because I was the 1:24:31.080 --> 1:24:33.680 last political question I wanted to ask you was what 1:24:33.840 --> 1:24:39.000 happens in the head to head between Trump and Clinton? UM, 1:24:39.120 --> 1:24:43.439 I think Clinton wins thirty eight states or something. It's 1:24:43.479 --> 1:24:47.360 that so so Trump's core audience is his core audience. 1:24:47.640 --> 1:24:51.479 He's got those folks, but as other candidates drop out 1:24:51.479 --> 1:24:55.639 of the race, he's not gonna necessarily attract those those voters. 1:24:55.760 --> 1:24:58.479 Now he's not that popular, right, I mean, you know, 1:24:58.520 --> 1:25:01.000 again his kind of unfavorable reading ORG about Hillary because 1:25:01.000 --> 1:25:03.639 she's now like five points it's like, you know, forty 1:25:03.920 --> 1:25:06.400 to forty two or something. Now right with Trump, it's 1:25:06.439 --> 1:25:09.879 like sixty five to thirty. He is not very popular 1:25:09.960 --> 1:25:13.519 apart from UM, apart from you know, a certain number 1:25:13.600 --> 1:25:16.640 of Republicans. Um, of course you could also run as 1:25:16.640 --> 1:25:19.360 an independent. Is that likely to happen or is that 1:25:20.439 --> 1:25:23.200 a lot of noise? I mean, ordinarily you'd say no, 1:25:23.439 --> 1:25:25.280 but I think Donald Trump doesn't like to hear no 1:25:25.439 --> 1:25:29.160 for an answer, right, And you can certainly decide. Um, 1:25:29.200 --> 1:25:32.320 you know, I'm having too much fun, right, right, And 1:25:32.400 --> 1:25:35.160 it's gonna be grateful whatever my next show is, when 1:25:35.200 --> 1:25:37.080 it's gonna be great. Right. And he seems like he's 1:25:37.080 --> 1:25:40.639 a guy he wouldn't mind spying people. You know, It's again, 1:25:40.760 --> 1:25:43.679 it's not clearly he's really a Republican. Rights Like, Ordinarily 1:25:43.680 --> 1:25:45.840 a Republican would say, you know, at the end of 1:25:45.840 --> 1:25:48.240 the day, I owe an oath of loyalty to my party. Right, 1:25:48.439 --> 1:25:50.080 Trump might say, you know, I don't care if it's 1:25:50.160 --> 1:25:53.800 Jeff Bush or Clinton, right, or Rubio or Clinton. You know, 1:25:53.840 --> 1:25:57.160 it's all the same difference to me. Right, I'm so 1:25:57.280 --> 1:26:01.000 all over the place, So so I don't know. You know, Um, 1:26:01.040 --> 1:26:04.160 there was a story out some time ago that last 1:26:04.240 --> 1:26:08.000 year Trump spoke to Clinton and um, yeah, he was 1:26:08.120 --> 1:26:12.080 encouraged to run or or he wasn't discharged from running 1:26:12.160 --> 1:26:15.200 or something like that, and the conspiracy nuts all uncrazy 1:26:15.200 --> 1:26:17.400 about it. Yeah, I think it's quite a conspiracy. But 1:26:17.439 --> 1:26:19.120 you you clearly you have a guy who's running as 1:26:19.120 --> 1:26:22.280 a Republican who does not care about the long term 1:26:22.280 --> 1:26:26.240 misinterest of the Republican Party at all. Right, Um, you 1:26:26.280 --> 1:26:30.599 know he's a potential spoiler. That's very different. And and 1:26:30.680 --> 1:26:34.240 even though I think he's very unluckly to win the nomination, 1:26:34.880 --> 1:26:36.840 the chance that can make it difficult for the GEOP 1:26:36.960 --> 1:26:40.839 to nominate to candidate, difficult for them to coordinate a message. 1:26:41.120 --> 1:26:43.320 And the chance I still think is low but not 1:26:43.400 --> 1:26:46.920 negligible that he would run as independent. Right, So I 1:26:46.920 --> 1:26:51.240 think he's um mostly bad news for the GP. I 1:26:51.280 --> 1:26:52.400 was trying to make. I always want to make my 1:26:52.400 --> 1:26:55.479 own contrarian case, gendering a lot of enthusiasm where to 1:26:55.520 --> 1:26:58.320 look reasonable as compared to him. But you know, he 1:26:58.400 --> 1:27:01.280 certainly brought a lot of excitement so race that probably 1:27:01.280 --> 1:27:03.639 wouldn't be here August. But what I say is Trump 1:27:03.680 --> 1:27:06.160 can be a problem for the GOP, even if he's 1:27:06.240 --> 1:27:09.640 very unluckly to win. Right. Quite fascinating. So let me 1:27:09.640 --> 1:27:13.040 shift gears on you and talk a little bit about 1:27:13.080 --> 1:27:16.120 you and some other aspects. You know. We we quickly 1:27:16.160 --> 1:27:21.200 went over your background on the on the radio portion. Um, 1:27:21.360 --> 1:27:23.960 prior to Pakoda, there was a quote of yours that 1:27:24.000 --> 1:27:29.360 I really liked. You. You were working at KPMG in Chicago, 1:27:29.840 --> 1:27:32.519 and someone had once asked you what's your biggest regret 1:27:32.520 --> 1:27:35.439 in life? And you said, spending four years of my 1:27:35.520 --> 1:27:38.599 life in a job I didn't like? Yeah? Is that accurate? 1:27:38.640 --> 1:27:42.000 Is that a true? Uh? I've been true, true quote. 1:27:42.080 --> 1:27:45.080 I've been lucky enough. And so whether you work, it's 1:27:45.120 --> 1:27:48.479 been half your time working or you know, man with 1:27:48.560 --> 1:27:50.240 onum work and I we bet listeners of the show 1:27:50.280 --> 1:27:53.719 are somewhere higher on the spectrum of how much energy 1:27:53.720 --> 1:27:56.639 they to vote to work. Um, you know it's time. 1:27:56.680 --> 1:27:58.880 You can't get back really, and even though the day 1:27:58.920 --> 1:28:00.840 to day can be a grind any job, just to 1:28:00.880 --> 1:28:05.680 have a job where you fundamentally our challenged intellectually, were you? Uh, 1:28:05.840 --> 1:28:08.519 where you enjoy yourself, where you have ownership of the work, 1:28:08.880 --> 1:28:10.600 where you like the people I work, you work with? 1:28:10.640 --> 1:28:12.240 I did like my colleagues ATKPMG. That was not the 1:28:12.240 --> 1:28:14.639 issue at all, right, But um, but a really great 1:28:14.680 --> 1:28:16.360 team I work with now, I mean that's you know, 1:28:16.800 --> 1:28:21.040 that's really important to say the least. And then and 1:28:21.080 --> 1:28:24.559 then you quit KPMG and you start playing poker. Yeah, 1:28:24.760 --> 1:28:27.439 how did how did that work out? Um? So there 1:28:27.479 --> 1:28:29.280 was kind of a poker boom, which I would call 1:28:29.360 --> 1:28:33.400 more of a poker bubble really in the mid two thousands. So, 1:28:33.760 --> 1:28:36.479 uh so my buddy at KPMG is like, Hey, we're 1:28:36.479 --> 1:28:38.479 gonna get a game going. I'm like, I'm really competitive. 1:28:38.479 --> 1:28:41.640 So I started practicing online at like Yahoo where you 1:28:41.680 --> 1:28:44.160 play for free, and I'm like, you can't really play 1:28:44.200 --> 1:28:47.519 for poker without without real money, right, So some online 1:28:47.560 --> 1:28:51.360 site was like deposit Bucks and you can withdraw it 1:28:51.400 --> 1:28:53.400 and it's like basically free money. Right. Of course, I 1:28:53.439 --> 1:28:56.120 got kind of hooked and started staying up all night 1:28:56.160 --> 1:28:58.320 and playing poker. And at the time, you know, I 1:28:58.320 --> 1:29:00.519 played a little bit, and Kyle just a couple of 1:29:00.560 --> 1:29:02.760 years out of colle at that point, and you know, 1:29:02.840 --> 1:29:05.160 the quality of play was really poor and just kind 1:29:05.160 --> 1:29:08.160 of using a very basic ABC strategy. You can make 1:29:08.160 --> 1:29:10.040 a little bit of money if you started to, you know, 1:29:10.720 --> 1:29:13.360 um bluff a little bit and be a little more aggressive. 1:29:13.360 --> 1:29:14.760 Could do even better than that. So but yeah, I 1:29:14.840 --> 1:29:17.320 kind of made my living mostly playing poker for a 1:29:17.320 --> 1:29:19.479 couple of years, so you did pretty well and otherwise 1:29:19.760 --> 1:29:23.000 I made a couple hundred thousand and then lost some 1:29:23.080 --> 1:29:24.760 of it, but enough that, you know, it was a 1:29:24.840 --> 1:29:27.880 very cool experience. But ultimately it was like, you know, 1:29:27.880 --> 1:29:30.439 it's kind of like the proverbial hundred dollar bills sitting 1:29:30.439 --> 1:29:32.240 on the ground. It kind of dried up once people 1:29:32.240 --> 1:29:36.000 realize that that's money to be made. It got arbitraged away. 1:29:36.200 --> 1:29:39.040 That's the famous quote, if if there ever was a 1:29:39.080 --> 1:29:42.559 magic formula, it would eventually be whittled away as everybody 1:29:42.600 --> 1:29:45.240 started using the formula, at least in the stock market. 1:29:45.320 --> 1:29:48.160 That's uh, that's that's how it works. Let's talk a 1:29:48.200 --> 1:29:52.840 little bit about hunches, right, And I don't know if 1:29:52.880 --> 1:29:55.320 if Malcolm Gladwell is the best person to use as 1:29:55.360 --> 1:29:58.000 an example for that, and I think he's sort of 1:29:58.040 --> 1:30:02.240 backtracked on on some of his early earlier statements. But 1:30:02.320 --> 1:30:05.040 when you look at the work he's done with outliers 1:30:05.680 --> 1:30:09.920 that after you've done something for ten thousand hours or 1:30:09.960 --> 1:30:14.639 some ungodly decade amount of time, you know enough of 1:30:14.720 --> 1:30:21.240 your you subconsciously recognize the statistical spread at the the 1:30:22.080 --> 1:30:24.800 probable outcomes that you could select the best just out 1:30:24.800 --> 1:30:28.120 of out of habit. How do you, um, how do 1:30:28.120 --> 1:30:31.400 you look at that sort of approach of intuition or 1:30:31.439 --> 1:30:33.840 haunches or what have you. I mean, I'm suspicious of 1:30:33.840 --> 1:30:37.760 the ten hour hypothesis. Right. Um, you know, but one 1:30:37.760 --> 1:30:39.760 experience is pretty new for me now is that now 1:30:39.840 --> 1:30:42.000 we have a whole bunch of employees, a whole bunch, 1:30:42.080 --> 1:30:44.599 but um, you know, two dozen at five thirty eight, 1:30:44.600 --> 1:30:47.800 and I often work with our our younger writers and 1:30:47.880 --> 1:30:53.160 analysts son on the problem. And um, you do see 1:30:53.200 --> 1:30:56.280 the benefit of experience there, right, where you're developing some 1:30:57.080 --> 1:31:01.160 little model or formulate to address like a question in baseball. Right, 1:31:01.520 --> 1:31:03.400 And even though the younger writer I might work with 1:31:03.479 --> 1:31:06.080 is like super smart, as smart as me. Um, I've 1:31:06.080 --> 1:31:09.240 just been doing this now for for ten or fifteen years, right, 1:31:09.280 --> 1:31:12.120 so I can say, you know what, you're unnecessarily complicating 1:31:12.160 --> 1:31:14.080 the problem. They're right, And that's just gonna make it 1:31:14.120 --> 1:31:17.040 hard to explain and make the model. Overfit is technical 1:31:17.120 --> 1:31:19.439 term or you know what oh here in other words, 1:31:19.479 --> 1:31:22.760 overfit meaning it's geared towards what happened previously, and you're 1:31:22.800 --> 1:31:25.519 making it. Yeah, it's like too rigid mask right or 1:31:25.520 --> 1:31:28.679 commercially like, you know what, you're making an approximation here 1:31:29.520 --> 1:31:31.800 that's just way too clumsy, right, and you're missing the 1:31:31.840 --> 1:31:34.240 whole gist of the problem. We're trying to solve here, right, 1:31:34.520 --> 1:31:39.160 Like that intuition for kind of which method works. Um, 1:31:39.200 --> 1:31:42.360 you know that's built from experience, I think, but you 1:31:42.400 --> 1:31:44.640 know what I mean, it's you know again, intuition kind 1:31:44.640 --> 1:31:46.120 of makes it seem like you're not spending much time 1:31:46.120 --> 1:31:48.200 thinking about the problem. It's kinda like you've invested that 1:31:48.320 --> 1:31:52.800 time before and developing some some expertise. Right. Um, So 1:31:52.840 --> 1:31:56.080 I softened on that a little bit. Um. But the 1:31:56.120 --> 1:32:00.679 problem is that you know, um, they're very any systems 1:32:00.760 --> 1:32:03.240 like politics, for example, where kind of it's are all 1:32:03.280 --> 1:32:06.960 the Daniel Kneman system one versus system two type of thinking, 1:32:07.520 --> 1:32:12.040 where the instinctual reaction is to overreact to things, right, 1:32:12.080 --> 1:32:13.760 and to say, oh, here's a new poll that came 1:32:13.760 --> 1:32:16.799 out that shows um, Bernie Sanders ahead of Hiller Clinton 1:32:17.280 --> 1:32:20.200 in New Hampshire. This is really dramatic, and all my 1:32:20.240 --> 1:32:22.000 friends are talking about this poll, right, and you kind 1:32:22.000 --> 1:32:23.680 of ignore the fact that there have been file other 1:32:23.720 --> 1:32:25.920 polls of New Hampshire in the past two weeks that 1:32:26.000 --> 1:32:27.920 show Clinton ahead, and also that New Hampshire is one 1:32:28.000 --> 1:32:31.000 state and pulls every other states so show Clinton ahead, right, 1:32:31.000 --> 1:32:33.840 And that this happens kind of in every election. Cycle. Um, 1:32:33.880 --> 1:32:35.559 so it's very useful to kind of, I think, slow 1:32:35.640 --> 1:32:40.000 down and and not overreacting in the market. We call 1:32:40.120 --> 1:32:43.799 that the recency effect, where you have this long series 1:32:43.840 --> 1:32:47.920 of of of long data series and a trend supporting it, 1:32:48.000 --> 1:32:52.600 and then you'll get something within a statistical range of possibilities. 1:32:52.880 --> 1:32:55.040 But that's off trends, and that's so much of you know, 1:32:55.080 --> 1:33:00.320 we aren't trying to predict what the polls will say tomorrow, right. 1:33:00.360 --> 1:33:01.439 You know, there's a lot of people who want to 1:33:01.439 --> 1:33:03.160 know kind of what's the mark are gonna do today? Right, 1:33:03.240 --> 1:33:05.280 We're kind of like, well, you know, here's your kind 1:33:05.320 --> 1:33:08.360 of not ten year time horizon, right, but here's your 1:33:08.439 --> 1:33:12.240 six month time horizon. Right. That we still think Hillary 1:33:12.240 --> 1:33:15.040 Clinton is very likely to be the Democratic nominee. That 1:33:15.120 --> 1:33:17.960 we're not sure who the GOP nominee will be, but 1:33:18.080 --> 1:33:23.240 we'd be short Trump stock as it were, right. Um. 1:33:23.360 --> 1:33:26.040 It also helps to quantify these things to some extent too. 1:33:26.040 --> 1:33:29.040 So in some sense it's kind of like, um, if 1:33:29.040 --> 1:33:31.519 you ask me what's your chance of Trump winning? We 1:33:31.560 --> 1:33:34.479 don't have a model yet, we probably will at some point, right, 1:33:34.840 --> 1:33:39.400 but you know the nomination I say it's two percent. 1:33:39.560 --> 1:33:41.400 I mean, it's kind of a spit balled estimate, but 1:33:41.439 --> 1:33:43.760 it's useful to have to put at least the order 1:33:43.760 --> 1:33:48.200 of magnitude on the table, you know, a small, non 1:33:48.320 --> 1:33:52.120 zero chance, because there are journalists who will say, you know, right, 1:33:52.160 --> 1:33:54.000 an article and say, oh, of course Trump is unluckily 1:33:54.000 --> 1:33:55.200 to win, but here are all the reasons he has 1:33:55.200 --> 1:33:57.640 momentum blah blah blah. Right, you know, and if you 1:33:57.640 --> 1:33:59.479 read that article, the sense you might get is that, 1:33:59.680 --> 1:34:01.920 you know, kind a pretty decent shot, right, you know. 1:34:01.920 --> 1:34:04.640 But if you actually kind of actually had them say 1:34:05.080 --> 1:34:07.320 we think the chances about two percent or say zero 1:34:07.360 --> 1:34:09.240 to five percent, at least the order of magnitude, right, 1:34:09.280 --> 1:34:11.840 and that would be useful, right, you know, because in 1:34:11.880 --> 1:34:13.679 some sense, if we say a lot of our calls 1:34:13.680 --> 1:34:16.120 that are like, oh, you know, no one gives Bernie 1:34:16.200 --> 1:34:18.280 a chance, but but he could win. It's like I 1:34:18.320 --> 1:34:23.519 give a chance, you know, five percent or whatever. But 1:34:23.600 --> 1:34:26.519 the journalists or Pundy who writes a column saying, you know, 1:34:26.600 --> 1:34:29.160 Hillary is not inevitable. I mean, in a literal sense, 1:34:29.240 --> 1:34:31.200 I agree with that. It's not a percent. It's not 1:34:31.280 --> 1:34:34.479 quite close to say it's a rounding error, right, But 1:34:34.760 --> 1:34:37.439 you know, it's pretty low and to actually say is 1:34:37.439 --> 1:34:40.360 there a real beef here or not? You know, my 1:34:40.439 --> 1:34:42.960 view is at five eight, if we think a candidate 1:34:42.960 --> 1:34:47.040 has a chance of winning, then most of our coverage 1:34:47.080 --> 1:34:49.519 should reflect the reasons why she probably will win, and 1:34:49.560 --> 1:34:52.680 occasionally we would have a piece saying that here's something 1:34:52.720 --> 1:34:55.439 of her to be really worried about. Right. The ratio 1:34:55.520 --> 1:34:59.120 in the mainstream media is like almost the reverse, right, 1:34:59.200 --> 1:35:01.320 where it's like they're so many reasons why the percent 1:35:01.400 --> 1:35:04.080 might come through and there's very little, just a perfunctory 1:35:04.120 --> 1:35:06.680 reminder that, oh, by the way, she's leading in the 1:35:06.720 --> 1:35:08.720 national polls by thirty points and no kind has ever 1:35:08.720 --> 1:35:11.680 done that before, right, you know, without being nominated. Right, 1:35:11.760 --> 1:35:13.920 you know, so the ratio is a little bit askew, 1:35:14.040 --> 1:35:17.479 even though I'm not sure there would really be a beef. 1:35:17.520 --> 1:35:20.080 If I if I, you know, sat down with the 1:35:20.200 --> 1:35:22.880 calumnists that I read a sarchastic tweet about, right, you know, 1:35:23.000 --> 1:35:25.759 he or she might agree that, yeah, Bernie Sander's chances 1:35:25.800 --> 1:35:28.559 are you know, five percent or ten percent just kind 1:35:28.600 --> 1:35:31.400 of in you know, I want the thrust and the 1:35:31.439 --> 1:35:33.960 kind of tone of the articles, you're right to kind 1:35:34.000 --> 1:35:37.400 of reflect that reality, not just as a caveat in 1:35:37.439 --> 1:35:40.639 the fifth paragraph that the that's the problem with narrative 1:35:40.880 --> 1:35:44.439 and the problem with human speech, which developed around a 1:35:44.520 --> 1:35:48.800 time when there was no written language, that narratives are 1:35:48.800 --> 1:35:52.679 more memorable, the more exciting, and the greater the horse race. 1:35:53.439 --> 1:35:57.479 What you give up in accuracy, you gain in page views. 1:35:57.479 --> 1:36:01.640 And that seems to be my gross It seems like 1:36:01.640 --> 1:36:05.479 there's some reduction that can occur. You know, we're lucky 1:36:05.479 --> 1:36:07.760 in the sense that kind of because everyone else is 1:36:07.760 --> 1:36:09.000 saying one thing that we can get a lot of 1:36:09.640 --> 1:36:12.519 attention by kind of saying no, this is probably pretty wrong, 1:36:12.560 --> 1:36:14.439 you know. But you know, I think there's also something 1:36:14.479 --> 1:36:17.880 mathematically accurate, right, um, But I think there is also 1:36:18.320 --> 1:36:21.639 there is also a group think that sets in apart 1:36:21.760 --> 1:36:25.439 from just a page viewing everybody on the same bus 1:36:25.439 --> 1:36:27.599 here in the same nonsense and having that's and that's 1:36:27.640 --> 1:36:30.559 somewhat literally true. So I went to literally Yeah, So 1:36:30.600 --> 1:36:33.799 I went to New Hampshire for a week or so 1:36:33.920 --> 1:36:36.240 in two thousand and twelve, right, and for the first 1:36:36.240 --> 1:36:39.200 time in my life, I went to um a presidential debate, 1:36:39.280 --> 1:36:41.840 one of the primary debates, right, And I kind of thought, 1:36:41.960 --> 1:36:43.640 you go to the debate, and you have credential and 1:36:43.680 --> 1:36:45.840 you're in the debating hall, you kind of see how 1:36:45.920 --> 1:36:48.880 things play in the room. No, it says you're heard 1:36:48.920 --> 1:36:52.520 it in this giant gymnasium with two thousand other journalists 1:36:52.600 --> 1:36:55.280 all checking one other Twitter feeds in real time. It's 1:36:55.280 --> 1:37:00.240 like the literal definition of group think being being manufactured. UM, 1:37:00.320 --> 1:37:03.559 And so I want to emphasize that line, the literal 1:37:03.680 --> 1:37:06.800 definition of group think being manual. And so we're talking 1:37:06.800 --> 1:37:09.080 about kind of the conventional wisdom. You know, sometimes in 1:37:09.160 --> 1:37:13.160 markets you embody the convention wisdom with what the market prices, right, 1:37:13.200 --> 1:37:16.679 but there's some separation. You know, if you look at UM, 1:37:16.720 --> 1:37:18.840 I mention there are betting markets where you can go 1:37:19.439 --> 1:37:23.240 and UM by Stock so to speaking Bernie Sanders Hiller Clinton, 1:37:23.560 --> 1:37:26.880 and they have not seen Clinton's odds changed very much, right, 1:37:26.920 --> 1:37:30.200 whereas the tenor of the news coverage has changed quite 1:37:30.240 --> 1:37:32.519 a bit. That that's fascinating. I'm gonna shift gears on 1:37:32.560 --> 1:37:36.000 you again. UM. So, who are your early mentors that 1:37:36.240 --> 1:37:39.919 you kind of come out of Chicago and you create 1:37:40.200 --> 1:37:45.200 or at least amplify a form of statistical analysis. Apply 1:37:45.320 --> 1:37:49.760 it to baseball, Apply it to UM campaigns, and elections. 1:37:50.240 --> 1:37:53.320 Who who motivated this? I mean, you know, Bill James, 1:37:53.439 --> 1:37:56.800 kind of the guyfathers stuff and in terms of not 1:37:56.960 --> 1:37:59.360 just having the satistical child to being able to communicate 1:37:59.400 --> 1:38:01.920 it to white all agins and kind of ask essential 1:38:02.040 --> 1:38:06.320 questions about about baseball. Um, you know, I looked up 1:38:06.320 --> 1:38:08.080 to some of the guys that work with a baseball perspectives, 1:38:08.080 --> 1:38:12.439 but I'm pretty self motivated on the whole. You found 1:38:12.439 --> 1:38:15.800 your way into this basically, Hey, here's something that's not 1:38:15.920 --> 1:38:17.360 being done right, and here's a bit of way to 1:38:17.360 --> 1:38:19.800 do Yeah. Like, boy, I think, you know, I think 1:38:19.840 --> 1:38:22.120 the coverage I watched on TV during two thousand and 1:38:22.120 --> 1:38:25.479 seven is very frustrating and so um so boy, I'm 1:38:25.479 --> 1:38:27.920 gonna have to do it myself, right, you know I 1:38:27.960 --> 1:38:29.880 kind of if no one else is gonna do it right, 1:38:29.920 --> 1:38:31.599 you might as well step up. That's challenge me now, 1:38:31.680 --> 1:38:33.360 right where I have a bunch of great people I'm 1:38:33.400 --> 1:38:35.120 working with, right, and it's kind of like, you know, 1:38:35.160 --> 1:38:37.400 how can I figure out not to do everything well? 1:38:37.840 --> 1:38:40.280 It's a challenge learning how to delegate that stuff. Let's 1:38:40.360 --> 1:38:43.840 let's you mentioned, um, Bill James, Let's talk about books. 1:38:44.200 --> 1:38:49.479 So obviously Kamon's book very influential to thinking about thinking. 1:38:49.800 --> 1:38:54.800 What other books have really uh, either inspired you or 1:38:54.840 --> 1:38:57.920 you've really enjoyed fiction non fiction that doesn't matter. I mean, 1:38:57.960 --> 1:39:02.479 there's a very wonky book called UH by Phil Tetlock 1:39:02.640 --> 1:39:05.720 was press new book coming out and new becoming out soon, right. 1:39:05.800 --> 1:39:09.320 It was called Expert Political Judgment explic Forecast. So that's 1:39:09.320 --> 1:39:11.960 a good kind of te temic book about about forecasting. 1:39:12.040 --> 1:39:16.640 But um, and how the experts are indistinguishable from a 1:39:16.760 --> 1:39:20.280 random person in public when it comes to making these 1:39:20.439 --> 1:39:23.439 predictions and forecasts a year out. Um, they're like barely 1:39:23.439 --> 1:39:27.040 even better than undergraduates. I think was the most amazing Um, 1:39:27.080 --> 1:39:28.640 you know, I mean, I don't know. In terms of 1:39:29.200 --> 1:39:33.120 UH storytelling, I think Michael Lewis is a terrific storyteller. 1:39:33.120 --> 1:39:36.559 I guess my answers are quite conventional and boring. Here. 1:39:36.640 --> 1:39:40.920 Did you ever read James Glick's The Information? I've read 1:39:41.040 --> 1:39:44.000 parts of it? Yeah, dude, that is so up your alley. 1:39:44.080 --> 1:39:46.120 I will check. I you know, I love his stuff. 1:39:46.360 --> 1:39:49.560 Do you want to talk wonky? So my undergraduate was 1:39:49.600 --> 1:39:52.600 applied math and physics before I switched to Polly say 1:39:52.680 --> 1:39:54.840 and so his book. I found him because of the 1:39:54.880 --> 1:39:58.439 book Chaos Making of a Science, and it's you know, 1:39:59.040 --> 1:40:02.799 way into the weeds on physics. But few people can 1:40:02.840 --> 1:40:07.280 take hard science and make it a narrative. That's interesting. 1:40:07.840 --> 1:40:09.800 I read that on a beach one summer and found 1:40:09.800 --> 1:40:15.120 it absolutely information just absolute fascinating. Diet Tribe on the 1:40:15.200 --> 1:40:18.519 history of of information science. Yeah, I mean, I think 1:40:18.560 --> 1:40:20.680 all these things are you know, kind of history of 1:40:20.800 --> 1:40:23.000 nala tripe. But I know, you know, to be honest, 1:40:24.320 --> 1:40:26.320 I traveled quite a bit and I used to catch 1:40:26.400 --> 1:40:30.920 up reading on planes, and now that I have people 1:40:30.920 --> 1:40:33.080 to manage and there's Internet connections on the planes and 1:40:33.080 --> 1:40:37.880 stuff like that, reading for pleasure has has declined. Unfortunately. 1:40:38.800 --> 1:40:43.120 Um so the net. A related question, what other mathematicians 1:40:43.200 --> 1:40:47.479 or statisticians either influenced you or influenced your approach to 1:40:48.400 --> 1:40:52.839 looking at at what you do? You mentioned Tetlock. Anybody 1:40:52.960 --> 1:40:56.599 who's really a political scientist, anybody else really leap out. 1:40:57.240 --> 1:40:59.439 I mean, there a couple of guys like Colombia whose 1:40:59.479 --> 1:41:02.120 name is and be familiar, but you know, Andrew Gelman 1:41:02.200 --> 1:41:05.040 is a guy there, Bob Arricks, and who are political scientists, 1:41:05.520 --> 1:41:07.960 um who have still at elections for a long time, 1:41:08.080 --> 1:41:12.960 and and we're helpful. But you know, um, you know, I, 1:41:13.120 --> 1:41:15.720 like I said, I'm pretty self taught for for the 1:41:15.760 --> 1:41:18.840 most part. I picture you as a lonely mathematician, light 1:41:18.920 --> 1:41:21.960 burning in the window, and uh, working by yourself. Is 1:41:22.280 --> 1:41:24.720 that kind of how this all came about? Sort of? 1:41:24.800 --> 1:41:26.439 It's different. I mean, I live with a partner and 1:41:26.479 --> 1:41:28.280 I manage people at work, right, so I don't have 1:41:28.320 --> 1:41:35.040 as much, um much alone time as as the old days. Right. Um, 1:41:35.120 --> 1:41:36.479 you know, I'm one of those people who's kind of 1:41:36.600 --> 1:41:40.320 very much in the middle of the extroversion introversion curd. 1:41:40.400 --> 1:41:45.360 I can go, I can go crazy on either extreme. Um, 1:41:45.400 --> 1:41:48.439 but um, but you know, yeah, some of this pursuit 1:41:48.520 --> 1:41:53.280 is pretty pretty solitary inherently, I think, right, uh, sure, 1:41:53.360 --> 1:41:59.320 you're thinking about what the status quo is doing wrong, right, 1:41:59.400 --> 1:42:02.000 and trying to come up with ways of thinking about 1:42:02.000 --> 1:42:05.719 it that makes more sense and as more probitive value, 1:42:05.760 --> 1:42:08.920 more statistics. It seems like if you kind of start, 1:42:10.120 --> 1:42:14.680 you know, so I think about this Clinton versus Sanders thing, right, Um, 1:42:14.720 --> 1:42:17.479 you know, before the campaign began, if you kind of 1:42:17.560 --> 1:42:21.040 had told yourself, well, you know what, no matter what happens, 1:42:21.080 --> 1:42:25.320 there's gonna be a strong incentive for for the media 1:42:25.479 --> 1:42:27.640 to make it seem like the race is really competitive 1:42:27.720 --> 1:42:31.880 and it will be exceptionally clever in UM. In ways, 1:42:31.920 --> 1:42:34.000 almost all this is unconscious, by the way, Right, I'm 1:42:34.000 --> 1:42:36.400 not saying they're deliberately putting their finger on scale. Right. Well, 1:42:36.439 --> 1:42:39.240 you're boards are doing the same thing every day. You're boring. 1:42:39.560 --> 1:42:41.800 There's so many polls, so many indicators to look at, 1:42:41.840 --> 1:42:44.639 so many ways you can Um, it's a very large 1:42:44.680 --> 1:42:48.320 constellation of information, right, so many ways you can draw 1:42:48.920 --> 1:42:52.559 threads together that inevertly. You'll see some stories written about 1:42:52.560 --> 1:42:56.679 how quote unquote unexpectedly you know, Bernie Sanders is doing 1:42:57.200 --> 1:42:59.880 is doing well, right, and you can kind of brace 1:43:00.000 --> 1:43:04.439 yourself for that in in the abstract, UM, but it's 1:43:04.479 --> 1:43:06.559 kind of hard to do that when you're confronted with it. 1:43:06.600 --> 1:43:11.280 Another example is that almost every year, there are some exceptions. UM, 1:43:11.439 --> 1:43:14.559 a candidate gets a boost in the polls after the convention. Right, 1:43:15.080 --> 1:43:20.320 so the bump Rubio, Bush Walker, whomever, Trump, Um, we'll 1:43:20.320 --> 1:43:23.160 have his convention, Uh, get a five point bump in 1:43:23.200 --> 1:43:26.760 the polls and it'll fade, right, And this is you know, 1:43:27.320 --> 1:43:31.640 pretty predictable. Um, it's gonna be really hard when a 1:43:31.720 --> 1:43:35.200 Democrats experiencing that not to think it's something new and 1:43:35.280 --> 1:43:38.280 different this time, and the press will event all types 1:43:38.280 --> 1:43:41.400 of reasons why you know this time is different and 1:43:41.400 --> 1:43:44.559 it it probably won't be. You know, debates can produce 1:43:44.600 --> 1:43:46.400 little bumps too, but it's kind of like you're about 1:43:46.400 --> 1:43:50.000 to go on on a roller coaster. You can kind of, um, 1:43:50.080 --> 1:43:51.559 you can say, well, I know we're gonna go up 1:43:51.600 --> 1:43:54.000 this hill and then come down it really fast, right, 1:43:55.479 --> 1:43:57.200 and there's and I'd relate to it, but you know, 1:43:57.439 --> 1:43:59.560 it doesn't. You can still kind of suspend your disbelief, 1:43:59.720 --> 1:44:02.639 and of course, if you're an roller coaster, you want 1:44:02.640 --> 1:44:04.400 to suspend your disbelief and have a lot of fun 1:44:04.439 --> 1:44:07.000 with it. Right. But you know, my job as someone 1:44:07.040 --> 1:44:10.519 who covers campaigns, someone who's more empirical but also critical, 1:44:10.600 --> 1:44:13.040 is to kind of stay at a distance and say, 1:44:13.160 --> 1:44:15.600 you know what, I know, you guys think that this 1:44:15.680 --> 1:44:18.160 Trump thing is new and different, and by the way, 1:44:18.240 --> 1:44:21.960 it probably won't evaporate tomorrow. Right, it might take some time, 1:44:22.280 --> 1:44:25.639 but um, the odds of a guy who basically isn't 1:44:25.640 --> 1:44:28.559 a Republican being dominated by the Frolican party is pretty 1:44:28.640 --> 1:44:32.080 darned low. So on a related note, I have to 1:44:32.120 --> 1:44:34.680 share a funny story with you. So we just this 1:44:34.800 --> 1:44:37.880 past weekend. We we had family members in from Chicago 1:44:38.400 --> 1:44:41.760 and I remember No. Eight them saying, I know you 1:44:41.880 --> 1:44:45.719 think Hillary is going to be coronated, but this Barack guy, 1:44:45.880 --> 1:44:49.800 who we've seen in town for years, don't underestimate him. 1:44:49.840 --> 1:44:54.639 He's he's got something and he surprises Hillary. He gets 1:44:54.640 --> 1:44:58.880 the nomination and then Lader in the year. As as 1:44:58.960 --> 1:45:03.000 the election move forward, I want to say August September, 1:45:03.640 --> 1:45:08.160 October of eight. Um, my sister in law, we we 1:45:08.280 --> 1:45:11.320 just had this conversation this weekend. I mentioned I'm gonna 1:45:11.439 --> 1:45:13.800 be seeing Nate Silver on Monday. She goes, oh, he 1:45:13.920 --> 1:45:17.719 made my oh eight so much better? Why she goes, well, 1:45:17.800 --> 1:45:22.639 I really thought there were big Obama supporters. I really 1:45:22.640 --> 1:45:25.920 thought he was gonna lose. But every time I'm sorry, 1:45:25.920 --> 1:45:31.840 in every time they went to they said, you were 1:45:31.880 --> 1:45:35.800 reassuring that here's what we are statistically, and while it's 1:45:35.840 --> 1:45:40.120 not impossible for him to lose, you know, the electoral 1:45:40.120 --> 1:45:43.439 College makes it really hard for Mitt Romney to garner 1:45:43.439 --> 1:45:46.519 two seventy votes and and here's the likely and she 1:45:46.560 --> 1:45:50.439 said it was a despite the media drumbeat despite how 1:45:50.800 --> 1:45:53.920 how close this was. So so she credits you for 1:45:54.040 --> 1:45:56.960 making her two thousand twelve much better, and I get 1:45:57.000 --> 1:46:01.599 that coming a lot. Yeah, that exact kind of sentiment. 1:46:01.720 --> 1:46:03.880 That because you can kind of lose yourself in the 1:46:03.920 --> 1:46:09.040 media coverage and because yeah it's weird, like I, um, 1:46:09.080 --> 1:46:13.160 in our election coverage, we kind of always wind up um. 1:46:13.280 --> 1:46:16.639 Incentive wise, We're always kind of rooting for the favorite, 1:46:17.240 --> 1:46:18.840 which is I'm not that kind of guy, right, I'm 1:46:18.840 --> 1:46:23.120 like an underdog, unpredictable kind of guy. Um. But you know, 1:46:23.640 --> 1:46:27.479 the media will take a race where one can it 1:46:27.640 --> 1:46:30.000 kind of objectively quote unquote has a nine chance of 1:46:30.000 --> 1:46:33.160 winning and really really sell the case that it's neck 1:46:33.200 --> 1:46:37.799 and neck. Right. Um. Papers, Yeah, it's how you sell papers. 1:46:37.800 --> 1:46:40.840 And so I kind of always wind up um, you know, 1:46:41.560 --> 1:46:44.000 being the person who says, you know what, this is 1:46:44.040 --> 1:46:47.120 not that schucking and prediction. But Donald Trump probably not 1:46:47.160 --> 1:46:49.720 going to be Republican nominee, Bernie Sanders probably will not 1:46:49.720 --> 1:46:53.040 be the Democratic nominee. And we will, believe me, one year, 1:46:53.080 --> 1:46:54.599 we'll get one of those things wrong. I mean we've 1:46:54.640 --> 1:46:58.120 had cases where um, where another context sports and whatnot, 1:46:58.160 --> 1:47:02.840 where you know, unluckily things have happened. But um, but 1:47:03.560 --> 1:47:06.240 you know, it can really throw people for for a loop. 1:47:06.520 --> 1:47:09.000 Um but you know, the fact is also in fourteen 1:47:10.600 --> 1:47:12.400 we had from the very first time a couple shift 1:47:12.400 --> 1:47:16.080 forecast the GOPS favorites to pick up the Senate from 1:47:16.320 --> 1:47:19.960 from Democrats, and a lot of people were not remotely 1:47:20.000 --> 1:47:22.720 close to seeing that. No. No, it really depends on 1:47:22.760 --> 1:47:25.400 the presidential coattails, and it depends on this Yeah, and 1:47:25.439 --> 1:47:27.880 people you know, and you saw it quite a bit 1:47:27.880 --> 1:47:30.559 of it in in reverse. I think like Harry Reid, 1:47:30.800 --> 1:47:32.960 you know, he's like, this guy's an idiot. He always 1:47:33.160 --> 1:47:35.720 under said, well democrats would do see, you do get 1:47:35.760 --> 1:47:39.840 it from from both from both sides a little bit, right. 1:47:39.880 --> 1:47:41.680 I'm not saying this is you know, we're not going 1:47:41.720 --> 1:47:43.439 to burn another hour here. I'm not saying the parties 1:47:43.439 --> 1:47:47.760 are exactly identical. But um but you know you would 1:47:47.760 --> 1:47:51.640 get comments like how did Nate Silver turn into a Republican? Right, 1:47:51.680 --> 1:47:53.960 It's like my views haven't really changed that much, right, 1:47:54.040 --> 1:47:57.160 just like I think, you know, here's where the polls 1:47:57.200 --> 1:47:59.080 and the fundamentals point is that you have, you know, 1:47:59.520 --> 1:48:03.080 last year's mid terms, howquckly we forget right that, you know, 1:48:03.400 --> 1:48:07.640 with this big blowout for the GOP just last year. Right, Um, 1:48:07.680 --> 1:48:09.560 but you know, all these states are being fought for 1:48:09.840 --> 1:48:13.880 in red states, and Obama's unpopular and democratic turnout looks 1:48:13.880 --> 1:48:16.360 like it might be bad. Right, It's not that complicated necessarily, 1:48:16.520 --> 1:48:19.640 So I would be remiss if I didn't mention unskewed 1:48:19.680 --> 1:48:25.640 polls dot com. Yeah, I found that horribly, horribly amusing. Basically, 1:48:26.240 --> 1:48:29.200 the media is biased. Nate Silver doesn't know what he's 1:48:29.240 --> 1:48:33.040 talking about. We're gonna skew the polls or we're gonna 1:48:33.120 --> 1:48:36.400 unskew the polls, and Romney's gonna you know, he's gonna 1:48:36.479 --> 1:48:43.120 run the table. How often does something that blatant obvious 1:48:43.920 --> 1:48:47.800 concerted that was really like a How often does that 1:48:47.840 --> 1:48:50.679 sort of stuff pop up? Oh? No, I mean it'll 1:48:50.720 --> 1:48:54.040 be there'll be versions of that, probably on both sides 1:48:54.040 --> 1:48:56.559 by the time we get to next year, Right, and 1:48:56.600 --> 1:48:59.519 the more dangerous versions of versions where like, you know 1:49:01.040 --> 1:49:02.920 that guy, I've never met him personally, Maybe he's a 1:49:02.960 --> 1:49:04.559 nice guy to have a beer with, right, he seemed 1:49:04.560 --> 1:49:07.439 a little bit kind of screwy in the head, right, 1:49:07.960 --> 1:49:11.880 just just enumeroate, But it will not be that guy. 1:49:12.040 --> 1:49:17.480 It'll be someone who, um has sort of a sophomore 1:49:17.520 --> 1:49:22.200 acknowledge of statistics, right, who can actually kind of make 1:49:22.479 --> 1:49:28.920 superficially persuasive arguments for why, um, why my hypothesis is true, 1:49:29.040 --> 1:49:31.400 and you absolutely will see that, and I know there's 1:49:31.439 --> 1:49:34.000 a market for you know, one of people I'm realized 1:49:34.000 --> 1:49:36.519 about five thirty eight is there are now six or 1:49:36.520 --> 1:49:39.800 seven websites that do a forecast similar to rors, right, 1:49:40.160 --> 1:49:42.760 and we're always kind of somewhere in the middle of 1:49:42.760 --> 1:49:44.719 the consensus, which I think is usually a good place 1:49:44.760 --> 1:49:50.240 to be consensus of consensus analysis. Yeah right, Um, but 1:49:50.280 --> 1:49:52.599 there will be someone let's say we have Rubia with 1:49:52.680 --> 1:49:56.639 a seventy chance to win the GP nomination, and that's 1:49:56.640 --> 1:49:58.920 where the average is, right roughly, I can guarantee you 1:49:58.960 --> 1:50:03.519 le'll be someone who says, no, it's s Hillary, Um, no, 1:50:03.680 --> 1:50:09.160 it's Rubio right, right, Um, so they look like a 1:50:09.200 --> 1:50:12.880 genius even though statistically their their work is so that 1:50:13.000 --> 1:50:14.800 be someone who looks like yeah, right. And if there's 1:50:14.840 --> 1:50:18.200 someone who um, you know, it's the same problem with 1:50:18.200 --> 1:50:22.000 with Wall Street analysts, I guess right, you know, on average, 1:50:22.040 --> 1:50:24.519 the person someone who makes an outlandish forecast will be 1:50:24.880 --> 1:50:28.479 in first place, even if their meetian outcome is worse 1:50:28.560 --> 1:50:30.960 than the person who makes like a more kind of 1:50:31.000 --> 1:50:34.559 lower case could see conservative going back to Tetlock and others, 1:50:34.600 --> 1:50:38.120 when you look at punditry and people go on TV. 1:50:38.840 --> 1:50:41.960 Someone who goes on television and says, you know, the 1:50:41.960 --> 1:50:44.720 future is inherently unknowable. I don't. I can't tell you 1:50:44.720 --> 1:50:46.960 whether dow will be in one year and someone else 1:50:47.000 --> 1:50:50.200 says it will be at nineteen thousand seven fifty. Not 1:50:50.320 --> 1:50:54.040 only is that person less likely to be accurate, but 1:50:54.160 --> 1:50:56.960 they're more likely to be believed and and so that's 1:50:57.040 --> 1:51:00.400 the enhancement I did. I did a program for the 1:51:00.439 --> 1:51:03.479 BBC on the UK election and we had some guys 1:51:03.479 --> 1:51:07.480 we hire really smart guys and like everyone, they way underestimated, 1:51:07.800 --> 1:51:11.160 uh how well Tories would do. Right, But this BBC 1:51:11.200 --> 1:51:14.160 program was there for a week and my personal take 1:51:14.280 --> 1:51:16.599 was like, you know what, this is a really weird election. 1:51:16.640 --> 1:51:20.040 There are four parties or five parties that are assailiant 1:51:20.200 --> 1:51:22.840 and and um, there's not a lot of agreement in 1:51:22.880 --> 1:51:25.280 the polls, and like so I was fighting so hard 1:51:25.320 --> 1:51:28.680 to avoid how we go to commit to anything, And 1:51:28.720 --> 1:51:32.639 of course their whole stick was brilliant genius stistition comes 1:51:32.640 --> 1:51:35.000 from the United States, and was your you know, like 1:51:35.040 --> 1:51:36.880 tells us exactly what's gonna happen the elections. There was 1:51:37.080 --> 1:51:39.600 there was tension there, I think, right, it was like 1:51:39.640 --> 1:51:42.800 a week of trying not to answer this question. Um, well, 1:51:42.880 --> 1:51:45.920 the data is uncertain. Using a methodology, that data is certain. 1:51:45.960 --> 1:51:47.320 But in the end we published a model on five 1:51:47.360 --> 1:51:49.880 thirty eight and like everyone else, it blew it. So 1:51:50.400 --> 1:51:53.519 but you know, um, but yeah, it's a tricky thing 1:51:53.600 --> 1:51:56.400 to do. And that's a much shorter election, and that's 1:51:56.439 --> 1:52:00.200 a a very different process than in the United States. 1:52:00.240 --> 1:52:02.960 It's a much shorter election. It's only it's only six weeks, 1:52:02.960 --> 1:52:06.040 but when you add multiple parties to the race, it 1:52:06.080 --> 1:52:09.760 gets much more complex, like really fast. Um. But you know, 1:52:09.760 --> 1:52:11.120 we haven't talked about this. I know, we don't have 1:52:11.320 --> 1:52:13.280 too much more time. But the fact that, you know, 1:52:13.640 --> 1:52:16.680 the polls aren't as reliable as they used to be, 1:52:16.800 --> 1:52:20.160 at least in some non US context. So more cell phones, 1:52:20.240 --> 1:52:24.439 less reliable polls. Yeah, you know, Israel and in Greece 1:52:24.520 --> 1:52:26.280 and whatnot. We have a Canadian election. We'll see how 1:52:26.280 --> 1:52:28.960 the polls do there. They've had trouble in some Canadian 1:52:28.960 --> 1:52:35.080 parliamentary elections and whatnot, or provincial elections. Um. But you know, UM, 1:52:35.320 --> 1:52:39.280 polling is not fool proof either, and that's why it's like, 1:52:39.840 --> 1:52:42.360 you know, that's why I say we got lucky in 1:52:42.400 --> 1:52:45.680 part in two thousand and eight. The polls in two 1:52:45.680 --> 1:52:50.639 thousand twelve were okay but not great. Actually, Obama beat 1:52:50.680 --> 1:52:53.439 his polls by an average of three points? Is that 1:52:53.520 --> 1:52:55.880 unusual for the victors who have won by that? It's 1:52:55.880 --> 1:52:58.599 about It's about average. You know, a three point miss 1:52:58.600 --> 1:53:00.640 is about average. The thing is, if you'd had that 1:53:00.640 --> 1:53:04.040 three point miss any other direction, then Romney would have 1:53:04.040 --> 1:53:06.800 won the election, or at least made it really really close. 1:53:08.000 --> 1:53:09.280 All Right, I know we only have you for a 1:53:09.320 --> 1:53:11.519 few more minutes, so let me get to my last 1:53:12.080 --> 1:53:16.120 two questions. Um. This is the millennial question that that 1:53:16.160 --> 1:53:19.960 I we talked about earlier. So you've carved out your 1:53:20.000 --> 1:53:24.120 own kind of unique career by taking a couple of 1:53:24.120 --> 1:53:27.559 subjects you really liked and applying it in a in 1:53:27.600 --> 1:53:31.840 a unique and useful way. What would you what sort 1:53:31.840 --> 1:53:35.760 of advice would you give to millennials who are just 1:53:35.840 --> 1:53:38.120 coming out of school now or whatever we want to 1:53:38.160 --> 1:53:41.280 call this generation? What sort of career advice would you 1:53:41.320 --> 1:53:45.920 give the recent graduating class. I mean, you know, learn 1:53:45.960 --> 1:53:48.599 how to code if you want to become a journalist. Right, 1:53:48.680 --> 1:53:54.280 that's pretty more more important. Um. But you know, I mean, uh, 1:53:54.479 --> 1:53:57.800 it's a combination I think of of working really hard, 1:53:57.920 --> 1:54:03.320 but um, but not tolerating yourself being bored at work. Right, 1:54:03.400 --> 1:54:08.000 I think that's pretty that's pretty important. Um, it makes 1:54:08.000 --> 1:54:12.680 a lot of sense. Um, I mean, you know, uh, 1:54:14.280 --> 1:54:18.400 learning to critique the conventional wisdom, including the wisdom that 1:54:18.439 --> 1:54:22.280 your friends might have. Right. Um, did you get a 1:54:22.280 --> 1:54:24.639 lot of pushback on on what you were doing from 1:54:24.680 --> 1:54:26.840 from friends and colleagues. No, I mean they always know 1:54:26.840 --> 1:54:28.559 me as someone who did different things, so I don't 1:54:28.600 --> 1:54:32.080 think there was ever that much pushed back from it, exactly. 1:54:32.120 --> 1:54:33.640 But I do worry that we kind of enter a 1:54:33.720 --> 1:54:37.000 universe now where, um, where it's kind of so easy 1:54:37.120 --> 1:54:40.880 for an opinion to form on social media or whatnot. 1:54:40.920 --> 1:54:43.760 There's so much kind of communication and sharing that I 1:54:43.800 --> 1:54:47.800 think that can be a little bit dangerous, right. You know, 1:54:47.880 --> 1:54:50.920 I don't think I'm thirty seven. I don't think any 1:54:50.960 --> 1:54:53.040 thirty seven year old should say I have the whole 1:54:53.040 --> 1:54:55.800 world figure out, you know, certainly not any twenty seven 1:54:55.840 --> 1:54:59.040 year old or seventeen year old should say, you know, um, 1:54:59.080 --> 1:55:02.000 you know, my beliefs about the world are just the 1:55:02.040 --> 1:55:04.880 way things are, you know. I think I think there's 1:55:05.360 --> 1:55:09.400 there's that tendency a little bit um, not just with millennials, 1:55:09.440 --> 1:55:11.840 but with everyone now kind of the age of of 1:55:11.880 --> 1:55:15.440 social media. You can kind of feel for rocket bear 1:55:15.520 --> 1:55:18.480 term kind of smug about your view in the world. Um, 1:55:18.480 --> 1:55:20.800 and that can be a dangerous thing. Enough people, there's 1:55:20.920 --> 1:55:25.360 enough selective perception and enough things around that reinforces your views, 1:55:25.840 --> 1:55:29.040 especially with the Balkanization of the Internet that yeah, you 1:55:29.080 --> 1:55:32.440 could you could find applause for just about any opinion 1:55:32.440 --> 1:55:34.480 on the spectrum. Yeah, it's really easy to you know, 1:55:34.480 --> 1:55:37.080 it's part of part of what Trump's doing is you know, 1:55:37.120 --> 1:55:39.400 I sold Julier. He's not actually that popular, but the 1:55:39.920 --> 1:55:42.160 twenty five or the country that really likes him, he 1:55:42.200 --> 1:55:44.880 can kind of wallow in their world, right, I Mean, 1:55:44.880 --> 1:55:47.040 Trump is I'm kind of going on attention here. He 1:55:47.200 --> 1:55:49.960 is incredibly entertaining for sure to write like so one 1:55:50.000 --> 1:55:53.040 thing that I think does separate him out from um, 1:55:53.080 --> 1:55:56.240 from say, the harmon kines the Michelle Bachman's of four 1:55:56.280 --> 1:56:00.560 years ago. Was the guy has real talent for or something? 1:56:01.360 --> 1:56:06.760 Is it politics exactly? Your showmanship or demagoguery or somewhere 1:56:06.760 --> 1:56:10.200 in between those three things. I'm not. I'm not quite sure, right, 1:56:10.320 --> 1:56:13.760 but you know there's a charisma there. He's hosted or 1:56:13.800 --> 1:56:19.560 at least he's been significant in a television show very 1:56:19.640 --> 1:56:22.400 very fast. He has a sense for for theater. He 1:56:22.440 --> 1:56:25.800 can poke the eye. I mean, you know, um, I'm 1:56:25.840 --> 1:56:29.360 not that's a he's got a natural gift for that. 1:56:29.440 --> 1:56:31.720 I'm not saying I like Trump. You know, I wouldn't 1:56:31.760 --> 1:56:33.040 vote for him, but I love the fact that he 1:56:33.080 --> 1:56:35.760 had his helicopter around the Iowa State Fair because it's 1:56:35.880 --> 1:56:39.520 all these rituals that are silly in some ways. Right, 1:56:39.520 --> 1:56:40.640 He's gonna be like, I want to be the evil 1:56:40.680 --> 1:56:42.920 villain and just kind of circle my helicopter around the 1:56:42.920 --> 1:56:46.520 state fair grounds and like driver one's attention, right, And like, um, 1:56:46.760 --> 1:56:51.400 was he giving kids, healthy kids helicopter riots and telling 1:56:51.440 --> 1:56:56.360 them he's he's Batman? Literally? Right? Um? That's great. So 1:56:56.400 --> 1:57:00.000 I like people are willing to defy connection a little 1:57:00.000 --> 1:57:03.160 little bit, right, and he certainly he certainly has done that. 1:57:03.360 --> 1:57:05.040 But you know the reason why we kind of get 1:57:05.680 --> 1:57:07.520 end up as being perceived a very anti trumpet just 1:57:07.560 --> 1:57:10.760 because you know, we think the media takes this fascinating 1:57:10.760 --> 1:57:13.280 story and trumps up so to speak, the chance will 1:57:13.280 --> 1:57:17.280 actually be nominated by the GOP right and also great narrative, 1:57:17.320 --> 1:57:21.920 but also the fact that it is August, right, the 1:57:21.960 --> 1:57:25.440 polls you see in August aren't measuring anything real in 1:57:25.480 --> 1:57:28.800 a sense, people are hypothetically thinking about a vote they're 1:57:28.800 --> 1:57:31.160 going to make in six months when half the candidates 1:57:31.200 --> 1:57:34.840 will have dropped out, right, Um, when they'll have four 1:57:35.080 --> 1:57:37.960 times as much information. The idea of all you have 1:57:38.000 --> 1:57:40.720 a national primary, you don't actually vote kind of one 1:57:40.800 --> 1:57:44.280 state at a time, and so you know, um, some 1:57:44.320 --> 1:57:47.920 people kind of point, um, the Trump's polls as kind 1:57:47.960 --> 1:57:50.800 of self evident evidence that he's succeeding. Then I'm a 1:57:50.880 --> 1:57:56.040 little bit suspicious of that. But he certainly is ah 1:57:56.280 --> 1:57:59.920 entertaining in a way that I think raises some questions 1:58:00.000 --> 1:58:04.600 about the way campaigns are are covered. Right well, there 1:58:04.640 --> 1:58:07.680 certainly raises questions about the way they're run. But the 1:58:07.760 --> 1:58:10.720 coverage is part and parcel of that. The coverage is 1:58:11.960 --> 1:58:15.840 not not necessarily doing democracy any uh any favors. I 1:58:15.880 --> 1:58:18.360 think I mean, you know, kind of I guess the 1:58:18.440 --> 1:58:20.960 two grand thesis about Trump are that, you know, kind 1:58:20.960 --> 1:58:23.440 of Trump reveals what's wrong with the GOP, or that 1:58:23.480 --> 1:58:26.480 he reveals what's wrong with the media, right and kind 1:58:26.520 --> 1:58:29.240 of being Yeah, there some combination thereof I mean kind 1:58:29.240 --> 1:58:31.120 of you know, kind of an amateur media critic, I 1:58:31.200 --> 1:58:35.000 kind of lean towards that explanation more. But there's you know, 1:58:35.680 --> 1:58:39.520 there's something he's tapping into. I think I would resist 1:58:39.520 --> 1:58:42.840 the implication that he's all that popular or that people 1:58:42.840 --> 1:58:46.800 are responding, um, all that literally to the substance of 1:58:46.840 --> 1:58:51.360 his policy proposals. I think there responding to the affect 1:58:51.520 --> 1:58:55.680 to the you know, kind of he to the nerve. Yeah, 1:58:55.760 --> 1:58:57.880 I think that's I think. And certainly if you look 1:58:57.920 --> 1:58:59.520 beyond the poll's terms of is he popular or not, 1:58:59.600 --> 1:59:02.480 people like him or not, there's no doubt that there 1:59:02.520 --> 1:59:06.920 is enormous interest in Donald Trump, right. Um. You know, 1:59:07.000 --> 1:59:09.600 I think we did read some metrics from Google, like 1:59:09.680 --> 1:59:12.320 six of the news coverage of the GP campaign has 1:59:12.320 --> 1:59:15.760 been about Donald Trump. That's amazing, But the Google searches 1:59:15.760 --> 1:59:17.360 for the campaign have been about him. So the public 1:59:17.440 --> 1:59:21.680 is even more obsessed with So you know, you know 1:59:21.840 --> 1:59:23.920 that won't translate into support. Yeah, I want you to 1:59:23.960 --> 1:59:26.840 be president, but there certainly is a fixation with him 1:59:26.840 --> 1:59:30.320 that is not purely a media creation. So last question, 1:59:30.560 --> 1:59:32.400 because I know you have other places to be and 1:59:32.480 --> 1:59:35.080 I've kept you here for a long time. Um, what 1:59:35.160 --> 1:59:41.600 do you know about politics, campaign, sports statistics today that 1:59:41.680 --> 1:59:44.080 you wish you knew fifteen years ago when you were 1:59:44.160 --> 1:59:46.440 starting and you could pick any of those fields to 1:59:46.520 --> 1:59:52.040 work with? Oh gosh, um, I mean there are technical 1:59:52.080 --> 1:59:54.760 answers to this, right, kind of wish I wish I 1:59:54.840 --> 1:59:57.360 had when they took me a while to understand it's 1:59:57.400 --> 1:59:59.000 like really fundamental, but I think it takes other people 1:59:59.000 --> 2:00:02.560 a while too. Is that um, is that a Cisco 2:00:02.680 --> 2:00:06.880 model is built on past data and you're making a 2:00:06.880 --> 2:00:10.720 big assumption to therefore say the model is predictive? Right? 2:00:11.320 --> 2:00:15.280 Sometimes that's true. In baseball, the conditions are so stable 2:00:15.680 --> 2:00:17.960 that if you build a modle that explains the past, well, 2:00:18.560 --> 2:00:21.680 you're kind of, by definition usually predicting the future. Well, right, 2:00:21.840 --> 2:00:24.920 you can extrapolate better with that stable set up than 2:00:25.000 --> 2:00:28.200 you can perhaps with politics. But in politics, you know, 2:00:28.560 --> 2:00:32.320 not always true, and you get into areas like finance, right, 2:00:32.360 --> 2:00:34.760 and there used to be a correlation between which conference 2:00:34.760 --> 2:00:37.120 on the Super Bowl and how the stock market did. Right, Yeah, 2:00:37.160 --> 2:00:40.440 but that was always so I understand. My job has 2:00:40.480 --> 2:00:44.240 always been to point out that's a correlation without a causation, 2:00:44.360 --> 2:00:48.000 and whether it's crazy things like the Hindenburg almen or 2:00:48.040 --> 2:00:50.520 the death Cross, my job is to go back and 2:00:50.560 --> 2:00:53.400 look at these things historically and say, well, here's the 2:00:53.440 --> 2:00:57.200 net result of it, and this doesn't work this, this 2:00:57.280 --> 2:01:00.920 has a strong correlation, but it's a random accident. And 2:01:00.960 --> 2:01:04.400 here's what we get out of this. Um. But the 2:01:04.440 --> 2:01:07.240 leap of you are making a leap of inference. I 2:01:07.280 --> 2:01:09.440 was gonna say leap of faith. That's not really about faith, right, 2:01:09.800 --> 2:01:12.600 but a leap of inference where you say, okay, I 2:01:12.720 --> 2:01:15.520 fit a model the past data, therefore I'm predicting things 2:01:15.560 --> 2:01:17.440 like no, you fit a model of the past data. 2:01:17.560 --> 2:01:19.640 And then there are a lot of factors you have 2:01:19.680 --> 2:01:22.480 to consider in terms of how well that model will 2:01:22.520 --> 2:01:27.040 predict going forward. Right. Um, So you know, whenever I 2:01:27.080 --> 2:01:30.400 see you know, I think a lot of academics make 2:01:30.440 --> 2:01:33.040 this mistake, just like anyone else does. Right, But they'll say, 2:01:33.080 --> 2:01:37.080 you know, I've developed a model too to predict campaigns 2:01:37.120 --> 2:01:39.360 right and perfectly predicts every presidential election. It's like, no, 2:01:39.400 --> 2:01:41.920 you didn't predict anything right. You know, if you publish 2:01:42.000 --> 2:01:44.760 a mouth for the first time in and you say, 2:01:44.880 --> 2:01:48.080 perfectly predicted all fifty two presidential elections, however many there 2:01:48.120 --> 2:01:50.480 are in the past, Like, no, your record is zero 2:01:50.560 --> 2:01:54.720 for zero forfeited, what not? Not fifty two? That that 2:01:54.840 --> 2:01:59.040 was might be with Anthony Robbins model that was heavy 2:01:59.080 --> 2:02:02.360 on gold, have on bonds after a ten year gold 2:02:02.400 --> 2:02:05.160 bull market and a thirty year bond will market, both 2:02:05.160 --> 2:02:08.080 of which were unlikely to continue going forward. It was 2:02:08.120 --> 2:02:13.200 that overfitting predicting the past as opposed to looking forward. Um. 2:02:13.240 --> 2:02:15.160 You know, in the whole question of fascinated by is 2:02:15.240 --> 2:02:18.800 kind of you have this um tension between the fact 2:02:18.880 --> 2:02:23.760 that on the one hand, um, you know, the consensus 2:02:23.840 --> 2:02:27.840 is usually better than an individual forecast. It's very hard 2:02:27.880 --> 2:02:30.720 to beat the market when there's a robust market, you know. 2:02:31.480 --> 2:02:35.080 On the other hand, you know, understanding that there's group 2:02:35.160 --> 2:02:38.560 think and that everyone can kind of be delusional together, 2:02:38.800 --> 2:02:41.880 and that pension I'm kind of I'm kind of fascinated 2:02:41.920 --> 2:02:45.120 by as as we all are. Nate, thank you so 2:02:45.240 --> 2:02:48.120 much for being so generous with your time. Definitely this 2:02:48.120 --> 2:02:51.800 This has been really just an absolutely fascinating conversation. We've 2:02:51.840 --> 2:02:55.240 been speaking with Nate Silver of five thirty eight. If 2:02:55.240 --> 2:02:58.520 you enjoyed this conversation, look up an Inch or Down 2:02:58.600 --> 2:03:01.360 an Inch on iTunes and you can see all of 2:03:01.400 --> 2:03:03.960 the rest of our conversations. If people want to find 2:03:04.520 --> 2:03:07.640 your work, you're at Nate Silver five thirty eight and 2:03:07.720 --> 2:03:12.240 at spelled out five eight dot com. I want to 2:03:12.240 --> 2:03:15.320 thank Mike Batnick, who did a yeoman's job as our 2:03:15.360 --> 2:03:20.000 head of research, and Charlie Bohmer as as my producer. Um, 2:03:20.080 --> 2:03:23.640 you've been listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio