A numerological statistical analysis of the numerical compatibility between number crunching geeks Nate Silver and Karl Rove

While Rove is a Republican spin doctor and Silver a "rational progressive," there is substantial and surprising overlap between the two.

^{* Nate Silver, if you're reading this, could you please calculate these?}

Based on their surprisingly high commonality levels, I tested their compatibility and determined that, based on numerology, the two have a compatibility of between 25 and 79%. As a control, I used both the subjects' given full names as well as the names they go by…

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Nate Silver uses his magic powers of statistical computation to uncover a hidden truth of the universe: Women are more likely to be elected in male-heavy districts…

Although women are still having a relatively tough time getting elected in general — they represent just 17 percent of the members of the U.S. Congress — Congresswomen, as opposed to Congressmen, are more plentiful in areas where the male-to-female ratio is higher… Nine of the 25 most male-dominated districts (36%) most recently elected a woman to office, as compared with 4 of the 25 most female-dominated districts (16%).

This alone is somewhat interesting — however, it actually conceals the strength of the relationship because female-dominated districts are more likely to vote Democratic, and Democratic-leaning districts are more likely to elect women to office regardless of their sex ratios.

If that last part confused you, this chart here should help things up…

You see? There's nearly a 50 percent chance of a woman being elected in districts in which 110 percent of the men are women. Wait, that doesn't make sense. Let's try that again.

In districts in which almost fifty percent of the men elected to Congress are women, 110 percent of them are more inclined than 30 percent of moderates? No?

More than 45 percent of Democrats will vote for 110 percent of all the women in Congress?

Anyway, it's impressive. Apparently.

If I'm kinda late getting this up, it's only because I've been pretty much laughing non-stop and unable to type anything since I first read it earlier this afternoon.

Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight was invited to interview John Ziegler, former radio talk show host and current man behind the ingenius website IfYouVotedForBarackObamaYouAreAnAsshole.com (or something), which — through the amazing powers of selective polling (via John Zogby, of course), fairy dust and black bile — makes a undeniable case for the argument that all Barack Obama voters are stupid, uninformed, mentally disabled and 7/12ths black.

I digress.

You have to read the interview. No, you have to. This is not a request or a suggestion. You're not allowed not to. Even if you don't care about (or agree with) Ziegler's findings, his manner during the phone interview is spectacular in the scope of its unbridled anger and amazement that anyone could possibly disagree with his one-sided polling techniques.

For what it's worth, I'd imagine that there were a slightly higher percentage of uninformed Obama voters than McCain voters. Which is not at all to say the same thing as there being more uninformed Obama voters than McCain voters. I'd guess that Obama pulled in more uninformed and informed voters over all.

And I say this for two reasons, with the first being admittedly very cynical:

1) I think that all elections are largely won by the guy who manages to pull in more stupid people than the other guy. Let's face it, those are the people who decide elections. That's why television ads tend to work. Because they're aimed directly at the stupid people.

2) Obama recieved a lot more first-time voters. Of course first time voters are gonna be less-well-informed than longtime voters.

Unfortunately, Ziegler did not administer his poll to a single McCain voter, so we have no way of how they would have faired under the same conditions.

To quote Ziegler's own closing argument: "Go fuck yourself."