Two months of studying have finished, so all NES students got a consultation week (it is also known as week without classes but the week with too much homework) and a little time to relax. However, I didn't want to relax and decided to spend my time efficiently. The most appropriate thing was a lecture about United States presidental election in 2012 which were being gone to talk by Konstantin Sonin, who is NES prorector. Two months at NES helped me to realize that I should always be interested in all what surrounds me. Moreover, I wanted to know about USA election more that I had known before, so I instanly decided to attend it.
The lecture was planned to be told at general office of a news portal "The Russian information agency. When I came here, I was too surprised to realize that lecture would be told at very comfortable auditorium with real TV presenter. (It is worth saying that when I was in Kansk I liked to watch lectures like this and wanted to be in an auditorium, not behind the screen)
I'd like to tell some information, which were new and interesting for me, that I knew at the lecture. Firstly, it doesnt't matter who is a presidential candidate: an acting president or not, because an active president's chances to win are the same as he wouldn't be a president. According to statistics, acting president wins elections as often as a candidate who isn't a president. It was a surprise for me because I always thought that acting president won in most cases (Hmm, may be because I live in Russia?).
.jpg)
Secondly, sometimes it doesn't matter who of candidates received a majority of votes. There is an electoral college where candidates struggle for votes of electors. Total votes are 538. These votes divided in proportion to the population of USA . In case one candidate received a majority of votes, even a small margin, then he got all votes of this state. So the most important goal for candidate is getting majority of votes in the electoral college.
Finally, I knew one detail of election that I hadn't noticed before. At the beginning of election company each candidate choose strong position of policy that they try to lead during the company. For example, in USA one candidate is republican and a second candidate is a democrat. Their policy's positions called "left" and "right". When the election company starts, the republician begin advocating for a tax decrease, less state intervention to national economy, and so on. At the same time, the second candidate defends the opposite position. Why do they do it? Among voters there are people with different ideologies. Some people think that government should control all aspects of society, some people don't think so. Some people thing that decreasing of taxes will help national economy, some people think that won't. At the same time, there are people with ideology between "left" and "right".Because of this, each candidate should firstly get support of electors with strong "right" position, and then the support of electors with position between "right" and "left". Otherwise the candidate risks to lose votes of electors with strong position. When I realised it, I noticed that before elections were ten days, Mitt Romney began doing little changes in their policy so that to be near the position between "left" and "right". For instance, Romney said that his attitude towards Russia will be more flexible, but a week before he had said that he would be strong with Russia.
The lecture about United States presidental election in 2012 was very interesting for me because I knew some facts that I hadn't know before. I think, attending lectures like this is great experience, and I'm going to continue doing it. But now let's wait for the outcome of the elections and make our predictions!
The lecture was planned to be told at general office of a news portal "The Russian information agency. When I came here, I was too surprised to realize that lecture would be told at very comfortable auditorium with real TV presenter. (It is worth saying that when I was in Kansk I liked to watch lectures like this and wanted to be in an auditorium, not behind the screen)I'd like to tell some information, which were new and interesting for me, that I knew at the lecture. Firstly, it doesnt't matter who is a presidential candidate: an acting president or not, because an active president's chances to win are the same as he wouldn't be a president. According to statistics, acting president wins elections as often as a candidate who isn't a president. It was a surprise for me because I always thought that acting president won in most cases (Hmm, may be because I live in Russia?).
.jpg)
Secondly, sometimes it doesn't matter who of candidates received a majority of votes. There is an electoral college where candidates struggle for votes of electors. Total votes are 538. These votes divided in proportion to the population of USA . In case one candidate received a majority of votes, even a small margin, then he got all votes of this state. So the most important goal for candidate is getting majority of votes in the electoral college.
Finally, I knew one detail of election that I hadn't noticed before. At the beginning of election company each candidate choose strong position of policy that they try to lead during the company. For example, in USA one candidate is republican and a second candidate is a democrat. Their policy's positions called "left" and "right". When the election company starts, the republician begin advocating for a tax decrease, less state intervention to national economy, and so on. At the same time, the second candidate defends the opposite position. Why do they do it? Among voters there are people with different ideologies. Some people think that government should control all aspects of society, some people don't think so. Some people thing that decreasing of taxes will help national economy, some people think that won't. At the same time, there are people with ideology between "left" and "right".Because of this, each candidate should firstly get support of electors with strong "right" position, and then the support of electors with position between "right" and "left". Otherwise the candidate risks to lose votes of electors with strong position. When I realised it, I noticed that before elections were ten days, Mitt Romney began doing little changes in their policy so that to be near the position between "left" and "right". For instance, Romney said that his attitude towards Russia will be more flexible, but a week before he had said that he would be strong with Russia.
The lecture about United States presidental election in 2012 was very interesting for me because I knew some facts that I hadn't know before. I think, attending lectures like this is great experience, and I'm going to continue doing it. But now let's wait for the outcome of the elections and make our predictions!
Now after I read your blog, I ask myself what did you learn with professor Bremzen? Most of time spent on our Sonin's lectures we were talking about the market of political predictions and US politics more than about economics itself)
ОтветитьУдалитьI'm amazaed about your social activity, and I'm glad that you enjoyed the lecture. I have nothing to add to your post, except one thing. The point which you discuss in second body paragraph has a lot of disadvantages in my opinion. For exmaple, on our Computer Studies class we've talked about the error which ocurred on 2000 elelctions. Because of the bug in computer counting system, Al Gor received the negative score in Florida, and thus, he lost the elections. The majority principle reinforces the errors which could happen I think... Do you agree?
PS. You found a nice map)