nate silver sticks to his guns

.@joenbc: If you think it’s a toss-up, let’s bet. If Obama wins, you donate $1,000 to the American Red Cross. If Romney wins, I do. Deal?

— Nate Silver (@fivethirtyeight) November 1, 2012

It is incredibly refreshing to see somebody not only provide a solid methodology for aggregating various state and national polls, but also offer something besides a constant stream of equivocation. There’s been quite a bit of backlash from the Romney camp against FiveThirtyEight‘s election projections, which currently forecasts a 79% chance for a President Obama re-election. Either way, Silver seems to be one of the few making strong, credible, and data-driven (read: beyond ‘a gut feeling’) assertions in the news cycle.

If Nate Silver is correct once again this time around, I have to wonder how it might actually change the game of punditry and set off a chain of events that eventually renders his current methodology in need of heavy modifications.