Astrophysicists with polls running amok

Dear New York Times opinion editors,

Please don't publish op-eds from astrophysicists applying polling projection methods five months away from the general election:

If the general election were held today, Mr. Obama would win 252 electoral votes as the Democratic nominee, while Mrs. Clinton would win 295. In other words, Barack Obama is losing to John McCain, and Hillary Clinton is beating him.

Andrew Gelman provides the needed corrective:

Um . . . no, "if the general election were held today" is not a particularly interesting question. The polls can move a lot in 5 months. Remember President Dukakis? See here (from our 1993 paper):

The triangles on the right side of each plot are the actual election outcomes, and the little arrows on each graph show the dates of the Democratic and Republican conventions in each year. As you can see, polls this early are in many cases not even close to the outcome.

Thanks,
Brendan