A more responsible race rating set is Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball. Yes it shows an Obama lead, but Larry has way better instincts and connections and usually sets the ratings about where the election is and is only off by a state or two in the electoral count. He has never called the race over, often offers historical nuggets of wisdom in his twitter posts and gives the most balanced view of the race you can get.
Doesn't Sabato strike you as kind of...dumb?
FiveThirtyEight cannot be trusted. One, Nate's an LGBT activist, and I'm sure there's no love lost on republicans. Nate Silver enthusiastically updates his model and writes an article as soon as better polls come in for democrats, but today, he didn't factor in all the Romney polls showing leads in Virginia and Florida and Ohio, which would change both the Now Cast and the November 6th results. It also doesn't consider intangibles like the Crystal Ball does. He was also purposefully late to the blowout in 2010.
I don't agree with your summary of Silver at all. I think it's incredibly unlikely he's picking and choosing WAA polls for that reason. I don't know why they don't appear to be factored in, but he hasn't engaged in that behavior in the past. You also are kind of reducing his very complicated model to several criticisms, which are very different in terms of the implications about his methodology, and coming to a pretty simple conclusion. That's not an unreasonable starting point, but it seems like a really broad, non-specific criticism (of outcome mostly) considering that -- love it or hate it -- his methodology is pretty damn detailed, meticulous and thoughtful.
Disclosure: I like Silver a lot, and it's not because strong polls for Obama send a thrill up my leg or whatever.
