Lies, Damn Lies, Statistics (and Karl Rove?)

I believe it was Mark Twain that gave such confidence to the “scientific” aspect of prognostication – statistics –  axiomatic skeletons underlying the interplay of formulae and numbers in an act of contemporary divination. This is the modeling process of political pollsters in myriad form touting numbers in multiplicity and degree giving reliable guesswork in confidence intervals and the all important Margin of Error.

There is an appreciable aspect to these calculations, a rote pedagogy, that, more often than not correctly maps what it thinks it’s mapping – unless, of course you’re an NCAA football team looking for a BCS bowl bid at the end of football season only to see an unlikely lower ranked contender get the cherry matchup –  or if you happen to be “Bush’s Brain”, aka Karl Rove, scrupulously attending to your own batch of numeric esoterica, menacingly guarding secrets only you can know, or in this case Karl can know.

At least this is what Karl says to us. He said it in an interview a week or so ago. An interview about the forecasting of the election and the chances of the GOP to which he opined: “...I add up to a Republican Senate and Republican House. You may end up with a different math, but you’re entitled to your math, I’m entitled to the math.”

This is troublesome. If Karl has “The Math” and no one else is privy to “The Math” then why bother contesting the forecast since Karl wins by using “The Math” over our stodgy, horribly misconstrued regular math.

Simplicity states that all who hear such a pronouncement can collectively chortle and chide at the infinite arc of Karl’s perpetual arrogance. Yet the truth is that Karl merely confused nouns a wee bit here. By “Math” he seems to have meant “Data” and “Data” is something that will change, not “The Math” but what “The Math” happens to tell you.

Significance? Perhaps none. Perhaps mere bloviate boisterosity to inspire confidence in the elephant herd. But maybe not. Maybe Karl does know. Maybe he has meat with his taters. This is doubt, albeit reasonable. Karl is a Force that absolutely belies his portly countenance and skittish persona; not to belabor the details of his political history but Karl is an architect of means, kinda like Ivo Shandor (in the movie Ghostbusters, Shandor was said to have designed the apartment building that Sigourney Weaver’s character lived in as an interdimensional conduit for the Stay Puft Marshmallow guy but I digress and I always wanted to find an excuse to use Ivo Shandor.)

Anyone in politics would tell you that Karl is capable of things, big things, he knows things, they fear him all the while abhor him as the “Turdblossom”– moniker bestowed by his own personal Frankenstein. All this leads to is next Tuesday. The deal goes down. “The Math” will be revealed. Democrats – watch out for Karl, he’s a crafty one, but assuredly one that doesn’t have all “The Data”;  else such omniscience would necessitate the issuing of religious doctrine about him…..oh wait that’s probably been done by a few, hasn’t it?