This post is jointly written with Anton Strezhnev, a very bright Georgetown undergraduate.

One of the challenges in forecasting elections is that economic data are often inaccurate when first released. Some of the adjustments are substantial.  Just to illustrate this point, the image below (source) shows the change from original issue to current estimate in a composite index of economic performance: the Chicago Fed National Activity Index (CFNAI).

My call last week for bizarre political ads from across the globe received a fair number of peculiar and sometimes downright frightening examples. Especially popular were singing politicians, like these German Social-Democrats and Iceland’s Best Party, which actually won the mayoral election for which the ad was made although, according to commenter Sona, they failed to deliver on their campaign promise to bring a polar bear to Reykjavik’s zoo. The prize in this category, however, goes to this Polish politician who “sang” his campaign message accompanied by a death metal band.