I mean, I was looking forward to seeing how Scott Walker would fare, but I guess it’s all over now.
Why? Because Rolling Stone said so. Looky here:
The AFL-CIO leader just “destroyed” Walker in six words. Whoa! Those must be SOOOOME WORDS!!! What could he have said to “destroy” Walker’s campaign before it began?
Gasp! He said “Scott Walker is a national disgrace!”
Give it up now, Scott. You can NEVER come back from this.
Because if you can’t take Rolling Stone’s word as gospel, why, who CAN you believe?
He’s only a state-level disgrace. He needs to work hard to become a national-level disgrace. I’m sure he’s capable of it, but I’m certainly not giving him the title before he earns it.
Darn unions. Always spoiling America for the rest of us.
I have to sort of agree with the OP here. Rolling Stone’s article is ridiculous.
For good or bad (and the OP and I would probably disagree on this) there has been a strong anti-union message being put out for the last forty years. And the general public has accepted it.
So a condemnation from a major union leader is hardly something that will destroy a candidate’s campaign. For some voters, it would even serve as an reverse endorsement.
Are the quotes made up, the words were not spoken? Then how is it a “fabrication”? Their interpretation may well be exaggerated, perhaps even dishonestly so, but that is not the same thing as a “fabrication”.
Stringbean is probably referring to the UVA rape story scandal.
The linked article is pretty weak sauce. Real question: is that a blog? It looks like a blog. I sure hope it wasn’t published. It certainly needed editorial oversight. It would have been a lot better if somebody excised the first 3 paragraphs, the last sentence, the quote, and the sentence before that.
I don’t see how this is that much different from the likes of the New York Times or FOX News trying to predict the outcome of an election using “momentum” or tired baseball metaphors instead of reading polls and doing some statistical analysis. I give the Times credit for having once given Silver a platform, but as long as any news source tries to predict things without having some numbers and logic behind it, it’s on a par with this nonsense.
With numbers, there’s something to debate, instead of just, you know, feelings and momentum and whatever trendy New Journalism BS the Boomers rely on. Even if those numbers are wrong, as in the Unskewed idiocy from the last cycle, being wrong is better than being insubstantial. Being wrong about the facts means you at least admit the facts matter, as opposed to BSing your way through five thousand words of cloud interpretation.
Yes and no. Horse race journalism is ridiculous, true, but media falls back upon it because they have to fill column inches every single one of the next 481 days.
That does not in any way imply that poll analysis at this point is better or means more or should be given attention. Silver’s analysis in 2012 was wonderful overall but his early looks at primaries were all over the place for the obvious reason that primary voters don’t necessarily make up their minds until the last moment. His one success of lasting importance was to get at least some people to understand that any one poll is meaningless; only a trend line of polls over time has any meaning.
Good analysis of how campaigns work overall, how well they are working, the money involved, the individual state histories, the demographics, and the public turnout for candidates - none of which are well reflected in polls - are far more important and far more interesting. Those may not be facts to you but they trump bad data, and most of what you call facts is simply bad data. Using a number doesn’t make it a fact. That’s Silver’s worst legacy.
Of course you can make accurate predictions without numbers. I called the 2012 election halfway through 2011 because it was obvious that Romney would be the nominee and lose to Obama. This election doesn’t have such an obvious Republican candidate but I’m already on record as saying that Clinton will win over Bush, Rubio, or Walker and I’m confident that one of them will emerge as the candidate before the first primary. No media outlet could possibly say that for 481 days and retain readers.
I’m also going to stomp on your use of Boomers. I’d say that the vast majority of working reporters today are too young to be Boomers. And what the hell does New Journalism, which wasn’t invented by Boomers and hasn’t been seen since before Reagan, have to do with anything at all?
