However well — or poorly — young rebels in the heady '60s may have amplified and executed the promised shifts in race relations, music, politics and sexual mores, Mr. Kaplan maintains, "These cataclysms spring not from the impulses or ideals of the baby-boom generation but rather from the revolts and revelations of 1959".
Prediction markets have a lot of advantages when considering how the momentum might shift in a race — for instance, they can consider demographic data, or the edge that a candidate might have in advertising, in addition to the polls.
The problem with these polls being less recent is mitigated because the trend-line adjustment serves to make them more contemporary in the event that there has been a significant shift in the race).
But, with Mitt Romney's performance in last week's Presidential debate having led to a sudden shift in the race, the stakes were higher for the Vice-Presidential candidates than they normally would have been.
But many reporters were loathe to put too much stock in any polls showing a shift in the race because of the deliberative caucus system here, in which voters may arrive ready to support one candidate only to shift to somebody else if their candidates do not meet minimum thresholds of support.
There have been other points in the election cycle when the polls appeared to show a shift in the race but without much news to drive it; the model has been fairly "smart" about avoiding being taken by these false alarms.
If there had really been a shift in the race of the magnitude that the Real Clear Politics average implies — it has Mr. Obama gaining three points on Mr. Romney over roughly the past 10 days — we probably wouldn't be seeing these contradictory data points.
No single moment appeared to mark a significant shift in the race, though Mr. Murphy's strong criticism seemed to signal that he would no longer sit idly by as his opponent attacked him, as some have criticized his campaign of doing.
But it could signify a real shift in the race.
