GOLD STAR AWARDS, January, 2010

Times running out in the month, so I figured I better do this one today.  I could have justified putting this off a month or two, since we're up to 1940, and no one was inducted that year, nor in 1941.  But there's a site I really wanted to let you all know about, so we're skipping to Hall of Fame Election of 1942.  That year saw no Verternas Commitee picks and a single BWAA pick, so this will be a pretty short one.

The Rogers Hornsby GOLD STAR #14: Election-Projection

Now, first things last, let me say that I do not read this blog for the commentary.  The Blogging Ceasar is a Big-Red Conservatitve Republican and makes no effort to hide that. (He earned kudos from Hugh Hewitt for cripes sake!)  The reason that this site is so important to me is that he has, what I believe to be, the single best poll-data, number-crunching operation on the web, bar none.  During the 2008 elections I not only contributed funds, so that I'd get full access, but I was there every single day.  And compared to other poll data sites, his was consitently the most inclusive, the most up to date and had, again in my humble opinon, had the best method for breaking all that data down state by state to predict the outcome of the House and Senate races as well as the Electoral College results in the Presidential Race - by state.  He did this in 2004 and missed the call on, like, two states.  He was every bit as good this time around.  He uses National Polling Data and all available Local polls.  He accounts for the bias of the polling organization, as well as their pedigree. He weights recent polls more heavily and let older ones fall of after a certian period of time.  He uses each state's recent election trands and compares their Red/Blue leaning to the National Average.  And he takes all this info and chrunches it down to not only predict the result, but also estimate the margin of victory, in each state.

So if any of you are serious about following the upcoming elections or the 2012 race, assuming he's still doing this two years from now, I highly recommened checking this out, and even contributing some $$$ to get full access.  I gave him, like, five bucks, and it was WELL WORTH IT.  His site, and the information presented, are why I always say that Senators McCain and Obama were neck-in-neck, essentially tied until the day AFTER the 700 point plunge in the DOW, which happened the day AFTER McCain gave his now infamous "Fundmentals of the economy are strong" speech.  (Senator Obama then asked him, after the crash, "Senator McCain, which economy were you talking about?!")  So it's thanks to this tried and true Conservative blogger that I can say, with absolute certainly, that Obama's pending election didn't cause the economy to tank.  Rather that it was the tanking economy which put Obama over the top.  (In the week following the crash, and ensuing fallout, there were like 8 states that went from "too close to call" to "weak Obama" and several more that went from "weak McCain" to "too close to call."  Like I said, in the end he missed the call on just two states. (One Obama call that went McCain, and one McCain call that went Obama, IIRC.)

Anyway, he's got a good method and he's well worth checking out, even if we do disagree on partisan policy issues.

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For reference, previous inductees include:
Ty Cobb's GOLD STAR #1: Media Matters for America
Babe Ruth's GOLD STAR #2: The Skeptic's Dictionary
Honus Wagner's GOLD STAR #3: Snopes
Walter Johnson GOLD STAR #4: Armchair Subversive
Christy Mathewson GOLD STAR #5: Humanism by Joe
Cy Young's GOLD STAR #6: The American Prospect
Nap Lajoie's GOLD STAR #7: The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity
Tris Speaker's GOLD STAR #8: Rational Wiki
Pete Alexander's GOLD STAR #9: Republican Offenders
George Sisler's GOLD STAR #10: Newshounds
Willie Keeler's GOLD STAR #11: Newscorpse
Eddie Collins' GOLD STAR #12: Wikipedia
Lou Gehrig's GOLD STAR #13: FactCheck.org
- and -
Hoss Radbourne's SILVER STAR #1: FAILBlog
Cap Anson's SILVER STAR #2: Some Grey Bloke
Buck Ewing's SILVER STAR #3: Sore Thumbs