I laughed long and hard at this epitaph of the Village:
By tomorrow night we’ll likely know the name of the next president. But we already know the loser in this election cycle: political reporters. They’ve disgraced themselves. Conservatives have long complained about liberal bias in the media, and with some justification. But it has finally reached the tipping point. Not in our lifetimes have so many in the press dropped the pretense of objectivity in order to help a political candidate. The media are rooting for Barack Obama. They’re not hiding it.
By the next presidential cycle most of these people will be gone. They’ll have moved on to academia or think tanks or Democratic senate campaigns, or wherever aging hacks go when their union contracts finally, inevitably get voided. They’ll be replaced by a vibrant digital marketplace filled with hungry young reporters who care more about breaking stories than maintaining access to some politician or regulator.
All of this was probably inevitable, but it came faster than expected. Through their dishonesty the legacy media hastened their own end. Their moral authority has evaporated. So has their business model. Wave them goodbye on the way out.
Drudgebart clowns predicting that only the Drudgebart clowns will remain by 2016. “Hungry” young assholes penning slag stories in all caps on anyone to the left of Paul Ryan versus the Village Idiots begging for their own demise by repeating the propaganda, and then wondering why their customers have vanished. I’m not sure who’s being Darwined out faster. I’m rooting for both of them.
Scott S.
Someone please tell Tucker Carlson that he can get Breitbart-levels of fame by overdosing on cocaine and Everclear.
fubar
Not gonna click on that link, you can’t make me read that level of stupid this early in the morming. Have to be pretty *&%$faced before I would read crazy bowtie man.
dmsilev
The world would be a better place if Tucker Carlson was found dead with two wetsuits and a dildo.
StringOnAStick
If anyone would know about personal behavior trashing their media career, it would lil’ Tucker Carlson. FSM bless Jon Stewart for slapping that little prick with the Backhand of Righteousness.
The Moar You Know
Tucker Carlson got fired from CNN when a comedian came on his show and pointed out the obvious fact that he was an asshole.
How’s that for a fuckin’ epitaph?
Cassidy
Some people just scream “not in the face”.
Odie Hugh Manatee
I’m also rooting for crippling injuries on both sides but I hope Tucker the Fucker goes down first.OK, he already goes down.
On the GOP.
WTF is that CNN hack Jeff Greenwood doing on MSNBC? He should be wearing janitors coveralls and pushing a mop.
feebog
The only one the media was cheering for in this race was the horse.
proterozoic
I hope I’ll get to show Tucker my special sticker: http://i.imgur.com/oZzS9.png
Montysano
Hacks have their own union? I’m obviously behind the times.
Howlin Wolfe
I heard a part of a report on NPR about a Mitt Romney rally where Mittens was anxious to get out his “new” message and show everyone the moderate Mitt. As if this is totally acceptable and normal. As if the same Nice Polite Republicans hadn’t dutifully repeated the smears against Kerry as a “flip-flopper”. As if they wouldn’t have lambasted Obama if he had changed his positions entirely from the last 4 months.
And F*cker Carlson has the gall to bleat his complaint to the world that the “liberal” media is in the tank for the President?
It’s snake oil, all the way down.
General Stuck
The real winner today is the gap tooth numbers whiz, who is driving nails into the punditocracy coffin by voting for Ebola above those clowns. I just hope he is right with such high odds for an Obama win.
And the beat goes on, Nate and his hammer keeps on pounding the wingnuts. Must be making them crazy, more than they already are.
Suck on that Carlson.
I love number Geeks with ‘tude and a gambling habit. Go Nate.
Death Panel Truck
Fixed.
Ben Franklin
The Media disgraced themselves by casting this as horses running neck-to -neck.
Now, the walkback is to regain what’s left of their bona fides. I still predict a landslide.
TheMightyTrowel
it’s embarrassing how shite the US media is. It’s even more embarrassing having to explain to foreigners that, yes, those are lies and, no, the journalists aren’t reporting them as such even though, yes, the US is ostensibly a democratic nation despite, no, not everyone is able to vote and, yes, the governments of several states actively try to prevent voting by specific people.
Violet
Tucker Carlson, please be first.
Enhanced Voting techniques
While the press certainly an’t pro-Obama like conservatard mythology claims they clearly don’t like Romney. Then again a lot of Republicans don’t like Romney ether.
scav
I am reminded that being able to recognize that thing in the mirror as yourself is a test for (animal) intelligence.
shortstop
@Cassidy: Crying with laughter.
Robin G.
I just snorted coffee out my nose laughing.
Possibly Jon Stewart’s greatest gift to the nation (of a long, long list) was getting this clown off the air.
“You’re wearing a bow tie.”
GregB
Tucker is still bitter about being called a dick on the air by Jon Stewart and having his bowtie mocked relentlessly.
NotMax
This made me grin quite a bit.
kurtyboy
Fox just ran video (and a scary chyron) of a “New Black Panther” (yes, singular…) engaging in “voter intimidation” in Philladelphia. The lone gentleman in the shot opens the door for two voters entering the polling place. That’s it.
This is going to be a long day.
Violet
Today Show was still pushing horse race. Matt Lauer to pundits: “Show of hands. How many of you thought it would be this close on election day? That we would have no idea how it would turn out?” Only Dancin’ Dave raised his hand. Not sure if that meant that Dee Dee Myers, Tavis Smiley and Steve Schmidt didn’t agree with the “it’s too close to call!” crap, but wouldn’t be surprised.
Mark S.
Isn’t Tucker already gone? Trolling for hits from memeorandum.com is a long way from having your own show on CNN.
freelancer
@Violet:
I saw that too. Myers raised her hand and said she expected to know the winner by the end of tonight.
Lurking Canadian
@Death Panel Truck: This.
I agree wholeheartedly with the first three sentences of the post. The journalists have disgraced themselves. But they have disgraced themselves primarily by insisting that the election was “too close to call” and that Romney had the surging momentum in the complete absence of, and usually completely in opposition to any evidence.
When I was a kid, I was taught that journalism was about Who? What? When? Where? Why?
Turns out it’s actually all about reporters’ feelings and instincts, when it’s not about the entrails of a chicken.
JPL
Has Sully made it back from Calcutta? I sure hope he has so he can vote.
Cassidy
@shortstop: True story. I make a point to not treat teachers like shit. I recognize the difficulties of the job and don’t want to be one of those parents who makes (what I assume to be) a miserable job worse. My daughter’s Social Studies teacher is a small guy, very slight in stature and I’m not a small person at all. I went in to talk to him to check up on my daughter after me and him talking about her not doing her homework. Every time I spoke, I felt like he was cringing, like I was going to pounce on him any moment. I felt horrible. I couldn’t help but feel like I was intimidating the hell out of him despite every effort on my part to be polite and reasonable. His mannerisms, his whole body movement just screamed “please don’t hit me”. It was so bad, I consciously made sure to not move my hands as much when talking just to appear less threatening. I felt like a really bad person even as I was thanking him for giving my daughter a chance to catch up and for making me aware of the problem.
Shrillhouse
CARLSON: You need to get a job at a journalism school…
STEWART: You need to go to one.
‘Nuff said.
presquevu
At my polling place the line for A-K was 0 people long, as compared with 8 for L-Z. Must be all the German names starting with S or something. Empty booths once I had ballot in hand. The Diebold machine that swallowed my paper ballot looked kinda smug.
One electioneer outside the K of C Hall, holding a sign for a state rep and looking cold. Lowest energy outside the polling place I have seen here in 7 years.
handsmile
@General Stuck:
One trouble with being an atheist is that I really shouldn’t want to canonize people (maybe it’s the vestigial Catholic in me).
But if today concludes as Nate Silver and Sam Wang have predicted, then they really should be declared saints. Simply for all the healing they’ve brought to troubled souls, the good they’ve done.
RSA
The comments on Carlson’s piece are unintentially funny, I think–a good third of them say, “I’m old and I agree with you. Go Romney!”
Scott S.
You know, the only reason I’ve ever wished I lived in NYC is that there’d be a chance I’d run into one of these media asses in the street somewhere, and could then beat them with an anvil.
NotMax
Suggested for endless loop on Mr. Carlson’s iPod is Brando’s dialogue from On The Waterfront.
“I could’a had class. I could’a been a contender. I could’a been somebody. Instead of a bum – which is what I am.”
RedKitten
Oh FFS, seriously? The “liberal” media who has let Mitt Romney basically get away with not releasing his financials, choosing instead to focus on who might have hurt Ann Romney’s fee-fees on any given day? THAT liberal media?
Rosalita
Pundits have disgraced themselves, and it’s not about bias, its about their own perceived sense of celebrity. The worst part of tonight will be having to listen to the gasbags. I think I’ll just follow Twitter.
EconWatcher
@handsmile:
Nate really put it on the line with his 92% probability this morning. While technically, theoretically, he wouldn’t necessarily be proven wrong if Romney won, that’s not how it’ll play, and he knows it.
He bet his career on it. He must be pretty damn sure.
Brachiator
Thanks. I needed this bit of comedy relief.
I have been hearing this morning how the election is too close to call, how electoral vote rich is leaning toward Romney, and how lawyers (especially GOP attorneys) are getting their lawsuits ready.
No point in worrying. It’s time to vote.
Berial
You know what, I hate to say it, but the people declaring that the ‘Right Wing Media’ will outlast anything the left throws at them is probably correct. The RWM’s audience aren’t thinkers, it attracts ‘feelers’. It attracts people that ‘decide with their gut’, and ‘know in their heart’.
The reason the RWM will last isn’t because they have a better message or a clear message or hell, A MESSAGE. NO. It’ll last because it’s audience are suckers that the advertisers know they can suck dry. The people that listen or watch RWM make the supporters of RWM RICH, and THAT is why it keeps growing.
Anyone that can willingly accept the idea that a man would run and become president just so he can let terrorists attack an embassy, so he can ‘support terrorism’ aren’t anything but a mark to be conned.
Rosalita
@Scott S.:
I ran in to David Gregory once at Rock Center…but that was before we knew how much of an asshole he is…
John D.
@EconWatcher: Saying “he must be sure” is *entirely* the wrong way to look at it. His model spat out that number, so he published it, no matter how strongly he feels about it. He is sure his model is accurate, and statistically valid, so in that sense he is sure.
Napoleon
@EconWatcher:
Since even if Nate treats Fla as a pure toss up he has 303 EVs in the BO column that really gives the BO campaign a lot of wiggle room. Polling this year would have to be catastrophically inaccurate for Romney to win. At this point with recent polling 92% sounds very defensible.
Per this it seems both campaigns are telegraphing that they agree with Nate:
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/11/mitt-romney-is-running-out-of-time.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+nymag%2Fintel+%28Daily+Intelligencer+-+New+York+Magazine%29
Mr Stagger Lee
@Ben Franklin: I think Kos should invite Chuck Todd next year for the Netroots Nation, for a public shaming, bring tomatoes and rotten lettuce!
SFAW
Now if we could only get Tucker to convert (posthumously or not) to either Somalianism or some monastic order with a vow of silence.
Paul
@Brachiator:
I keep hearing this how close it is. But if it truly was why would overseas bookmakers have Obama in an easy win?
For example right now Ladbrokes has Obama at 1/5 while Romney is at 7/2. This is not close.
http://sports.ladbrokes.com/en-gb/politics/us-presidential-election/2012-us-presidential-race-e212304268
Cassidy
@Napoleon: I mentioned in another thread that today in Duval and Clay counties(FL) the weather is shit. It’s rainy and cold. These are two very conservative counties. If any votes are supressed, it will go against Romney.
Didn’t someone mention that early voting in FL has overwhelmingly supported Obama?
jibeaux
@RSA: Oh my Lord, they’re all giving their birthdates and they all think he’s going to win because the polls are so skewed oversampling Democrats. It does not occur to them that there are more Democrats.
The Moar You Know
@Cassidy: My wife’s a high school teacher. You’ll have to take my word for it that teachers have every reason to be afraid of parents. On her campus, about a dozen parents a year are banned, with restraining orders filed, due to threatened or actual physical violence.
This in one of the wealthiest districts in the entire country.
psycholinguist
Anybody want to bet that Tucker’s parents were grade A aholes?
To be published in Psychscience:
Developmental Antecedents of Political Ideology: A Longitudinal Investigation From Birth to Age 18 Years
R. Chris Fraley, Brian N. Griffin, Jay Belsky, and Glenn I. Roisman
Although researchers have studied the precursors of political ideology, most of these studies have been retrospective. In this study, the researchers examined this question by using data from the Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development. Mothers’ attitudes toward parenting were assessed at 1 month, and children’s temperament was assessed at 4.5 years. At age 18 years, the children reported their political ideologies. The researchers found that authoritarian parenting attitudes and higher levels of fearfulness in childhood were associated with more conservative ideology at age 18. Egalitarian parenting attitudes, higher levels of activity, and higher levels of attentional focusing in childhood were associated with more liberal ideology at age 18. This study helps shed light on some of the early influences of political ideology.
SFAW
@handsmile:
Making a Jewish kid into a religious icon? Seems kinda far-fetched to me.
(Disclaimer: I do not know that Nate actually is, of course.)
Bill E Pilgrim
I think it’s been pretty clear for some time now that the only objective, mature, professional pundit out these days is Tucker Carlson.
So here’s an example for Tucker: Last night I tuned in Charlie Rose (sort of by mistake) and he had Cokie Roberts, Matt Dowd, a guy from Bloomberg, and several others including Mark Halperin. They all had this very hangdog, depressed look, you could turn the sound off and catch that much, it was obvious. The general gist was that Obama was very likely to be reelected, and that means that
obstruction“gridlock” won’t be broken in Washington.So there was lots of talk of Bowles-Simpson that now tragically would never be passed, and with this “razor-thin” tie race that no one has any idea who will win because it’s so tied even though they all clearly thought Obama will win, there will be no mandate when he does.
The overall point here being that were Romney winning by a hair their mood would be entirely different, full of excitement and talk of a new conservative millennium, even though they might not entirely approve, mind you (well Halperin would) but it would all be basically terribly positive and thrilling, and the reason that we know this is that this is exactly how they were when George W Bush won reelection and started claiming mandates and political capital based on winning by a sliver.
And this is the liberal side of the spectrum, at least in Tucker Carlson/Daily Caller right-wing mediasphere terms, full of a bunch of East Coast NY/DC intellingensianistas.
Oh and Halperin claimed that Obama being ahead in the polls by so much was good news for
McCainRomney, and that Romney would win instead. But then, he would.Cassidy
@The Moar You Know: Wow. I am amazed and horrified. I guess I figured that happenned in places, but I didn’t ever think it was part of the day to day considerations of the job. That’s shitty.
LD50
This is another really good example of Republicans just repeating what Democrats have been saying and switching the names. I half expected him to mention ‘moonbat welfare’.
Ben Franklin
@Mr Stagger Lee:
Ooooh….pillories and stocks should make a comeback…
Villago Delenda Est
Isn’t it long past time for a piano to accidentally fall on top of Tucker Carlson?
aimai
@dmsilev:
But think of the poor wetsuits and the dildo!
aimai
Ben Franklin
@Villago Delenda Est:
..or a house, my pretties.
Amir Khalid
@Villago Delenda Est:
This Tucker Carlson fellow might deserve such a fate, but no piano foes.
xian
@Napoleon: but Peggy Noonan read their sces and sees serenity on Romney’s– surely not the acceptance of a religious person about the inevitable, but instead a manly caucasian confidence.
Cassidy
Another OT anecdote, I got two Obama stickers and my daughter asked for one. She wanted to put one on a notebook and we jokingly talked baout her Civics notebook; her teacher is a winger. Anyway, she’s had another student who has been picking a fight with her daily (multiple times) over politics, constantly trying to start arguments about why Obama sucks. My oldest is pretty bright and she understands the girl is just repeating her parents and has no idea what she’s talking about. Initially, I told her to call her out and even embarass her, demand she support her positions with specifics, facts, etc. Then, after thinking, I told her to just tell the girl she doesn’t want to discuss it with her and she’s not going to as the girl clearly has no interest in having a discussion and just wants to berate someone for not thinking like her. I don’t know if she’s done that, but the girl keeps seeking her out to argue. I’m starting to wonder if I should go up there or let her handle it. I’m not concerned she’s being bullied. I am concerned that she will get sick of it and start a significant emotional event for all involved. Or, will it blow over after tomorrow when my daughter gloats all day.
Amir Khalid
@Villago Delenda Est:
This Tucker Carlson fellow might deserve such a fate, but no piano does.
Frankensteinbeck
I just got back from voting. I am sufficiently paranoid that instead of ticking off ‘Straight Dem’ I went down and filled out each Democrat individually, in case I somehow misunderstood the form. But that’s not important, it’s just my itchy feelings.
While I was in the booth, I saw that my Kentucky voting form had a bubble to vote straight ‘Descendents of African Slaves’ party. They had no candidates for any position. Is this a well-meaning but counterproductive fringe party, or a straight out Republican ratfucking operation designed to shave off the AA vote? Green, Libertarian, AND an Independent presidential candidate were all on the ballot.
To the OP, I realized something while voting, and now I’m kicking myself for not seeing it earlier. All this talking up of Robomentum means that no matter who wins, the pundits get to declare a Come From Behind Victory. I’m not sure it’s even deliberate, just a perfect example of self-fulfilling prophecy. My Celestia, these people are lazy.
Violet
@Berial:
Berial Says:
The way to deal with this nonsense is with people like Nate Silver. When data and information beat “feeling the news” again and again, eventually the “feel the news” people become less relevant. Who cares what David Gregory or Chuck Todd feels about the race when Nate Silver and Sam Wang have the actual data?
This sort of outcome is what Gregory, Todd and their ilk are afraid of. And it’s part of why they’ve done their very best to ignore Nate and Sam this election. That kind of ignoring won’t work forever. As more and more people realize that data is where it’s at, they won’t waste their time listening to pundits. And if they want a job, they’ll have to adjust.
hep kitty
What a relief it was to finally cast my vote this morning, although it will make absolutely no difference in my state.
kindness
Vote early and often. Thank you Acorn for the advice that keeps on giving.
Me? I think I’m gonna crash me a couple Romney/Ryan ‘Victory’ parties tonight. Get real lit and obnoxious and get thrown out before Obama is declared the winner.
PreservedKillick
@EconWatcher:
No, he really did not. He put his model on the line, but he’s not personally making any call – he’s just running numbers. His career is as on the line as it always has been.
The various pundits, basing their predictions on feelings and inside information, those guys are putting their careers on the line.
Except they aren’t.
Because, you know, shit floats.
xian
er faces. stupid ipad!
Cacti
@Mark S.:
Tucker’s media gigs were never more than a highly-compensated hobby for him.
He’s the heir to the Swanson Foods family fortune.
chopper
@Ben Franklin:
that’s part of the fun. they get to cast it as a horse race, and when O wins pretty decisively they get to run on ‘shenanigans’ for the next 2 months. meanwhile, the assist gives the GOP the space to investigate whether the president took a dump before or after his morning coffee.
scav
Logically, if all the bow-tie of punditry sees are well to the left, then his opinions must be far to the right, so we may be able to deduce what they are. Most of the media have not come out strongly in opposition to women’s suffrage, child labor, the poor house, cannibalis, removing lobster from the marketplace nationally as it threatens religious freedom, the National Day of pledging Merry CHRISTmas and immediate conversion to flaming plum pudding for all those that fail same, the Pantone(tm) Candidate Card for judging the first stage of candidate worthiness, the Mandetory National Tattoo of the Sainted Ronnie on the right cheek . . . .
Berial
@Violet:
I certainly hope so, but I think there is no saving the Tucker Carlson, George Will, Rush Limbaugh type of audience.
Cassidy
God I despise these people.
Frum writes an editorial on how our voting system is a disgrace because other countries have a central, objective group of people who run the elections. He usees France as an example. Do we like France again? I can’t keep up with these fuckers. Anyway, he uses an example from 2000 and doesn’t even mention all the bullshit that’s going on right now.
First against the wall, I swear.
russell
To the degree that political reporters exhibit a bias toward Obama, maybe it’s just because they think he’s a better candidate.
Some questions have really, really simple answers.
dr. bloor
@EconWatcher: Lol. Nate and his career will be just fine even if Romney pulls off the upset.
Brachiator
@Paul:
While I give a lot of credence to poll analysts like Nate Silver, I don’t give any credence to bookmakers, foreign or domestic.
Btw, if Silver’s analysis that Obama is likely to win with more than 300 electoral votes matches actual results, I will greatly enjoy watching the gnashing of teeth of conservatives. Fox News pundits might actually fall on the floor and have fits on the air. Peggy Noonan will be shown on the air drinking vodka and sniffing glue.
@Bill E Pilgrim:
Sounds like the new conventional wisdom that the Village will use to rationalize GOP obstructionism, should Obama win. What a bunch of dopes.
catclub
@SFAW: “Seems kinda far-fetched to me.”
So, Mary was a shiksa, who knew?
schrodinger's cat
@Cassidy: That bastard will be the first one to oppose it, if Obama for example had suggested such a centralized system.
burnspbesq
The Republican War on Knowledge and Information continues.
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/06/republicans-censor-what-they-cant-refute/
Keith G
Zandar and other FPers, Can we please not care about what the usual suspects say or do today – and maybe for the rest of the month? It’s not up lifting and is actually getting boring to read the same basic “Look what stupid just said” post time after time. I know they are stupid/evil and I know they say outrageous shit. It’s not edifying or energizing, in fact it is kind of depressing to see the same things over and over.
How about writing about policy and reporting about what our government is actually doing instead of what some cold, moldy turd is saying.
At least for a few weeks.
Cassidy
@schrodinger’s cat: Oh god. It would have been wingnutageddon if had proposed that.
Southern Beale
Someone in the liberal media Tweeted this photo of the long, long line Mitt Romney cut to vote because he’s special and not like everyone else who has to be flipping burgers in an hour or they’re fired.
burnspbesq
@xian:
Lraen ti typw
Cassidy
@schrodinger’s cat: Oh god. It would have been wingnutageddon if had proposed that.
Seanly
Voted! Hoping that Idaho 2nd can send Nicole LeFavour in place of Mike Simpson and that we also defeat the Luna laws (props 1, 2 & 3). I now we don’t stand much of chance of getting ID to for Obama, but a guy can dream.
Southern Beale
Someone in the liberal media Tweeted this photo of the long, long line Mitt Romney cut to vote because he’s special and not like everyone else who has to be flipping burgers in an hour or they’re fired.
Frankensteinbeck
@Cacti:
Oh. Well, seen from that perspective, his opinion is perfectly reasonable. Only one candidate in this election intends to repeal the estate and capital gains taxes. The other might even increase them. The irresponsibility of the media portraying this as anything but a white and black, good and evil, existential choice must shock him to the core.
Violet
@Berial: There are some people that will always be impossible to reach. There’s a reason why 27% is constant across time, culture and country. And there will always be a Limbaugh or Hannity for them to follow.
But the goal is to keep the percentage of the people who believe the snake oil salesmen at 27% and maybe even pick off a few of those if possible. After all, when W. left office, his approval ratings were at 22%, so a few of them are get-able.
Frankensteinbeck
@Cacti:
Oh. Well, seen from that perspective, his opinion is perfectly reasonable. Only one candidate in this election intends to repeal the estate and capital gains taxes. The other might even increase them. The irresponsibility of the media portraying this as anything but a white and black, good and evil, existential choice must shock him to the core.
scav
@scav: Mr ipad likes and supports the cannibalis option, which must involve cannibalism by cannabis. I am entirely unable to suggest which part of the political spectrum he is from based on this. Luckily, I used the Kindle while standing in line and nearly went paper trail with a object with spine.
also,
How many cans can an ibis can,
if a cannibal ibis can can?
hueyplong
“Peggy Noonan will be shown on the air drinking vodka and sniffing glue.”
If all begins to go well, I want to partake of some Schadenfreude. Anyone know which networks (if any) will be showing any of the following?
Peggy Noonan
Jennifer Rubin
Tucker Carlson
Erick Erickson bin Erickson III
Mark Halpern
George Will will be on ABC. Oddly, FoxNews doesn’t seem to list Charles Krauthammer on its election night lineup.
Violet
@Berial: There are some people that will always be impossible to reach. There’s a reason why 27% is constant across time, culture and country. And there will always be a Limbaugh or Hannity for them to follow.
But the goal is to keep the percentage of the people who believe the snake oil salesmen at 27% and maybe even pick off a few of those if possible. After all, when W. left office, his approval ratings were at 22%, so a few of them are get-able.
Grumpy Code Monkey
@Bill E Pilgrim:
You’re shitting me. Seriously?
Uncle Cosmo
@Mr Stagger Lee: Hell, if Kos can get Chuckie Toad there, I’ll spring for a dumptruck full of sand & a hill full of fire ants, in exchange for full rights for the HD video, which progressives everywhere will want for their collection.
blingee
The good news is their heads will be exploding all over the twitter tonight when CNN calls it around 8:30pm EST. I plan to be there to rub salt in the wound as much as possible. I was thinking of trolling drudge, redstate, and brietbart but too much work just to get banned after 1 or 2 comments.
I was tweaking a few wingnuts last night and I gotta say I was impressed at the level of their dillusion. They are absolutely convinced Romney is going to win. Boy are they in for a surprise.
Uncle Cosmo
@Mr Stagger Lee: Hell, if Kos can get Chuckie Toad there, I’ll spring for a dumptruck full of sand & a hill full of fire ants, in exchange for full rights for the HD video, which progressives everywhere will want for their collection.
Villago Delenda Est
@Cacti:
More than reason enough to have a 16 ton weight fall on him.
These assholes have never figured out that those who inherit fortunes are the very definition of “entitled”, and are the beneficiaries of the greatest entitlement program of them all.
Violet
@Southern Beale: The only reason I can think to let people like Romney cut the line is that the security issues around him standing in line would make things worse for everyone.
Where does Mitt vote anyway? Doesn’t he have houses everywhere? If he’s voting in MA, most of those people are voting against him. Hilarious.
dmsilev
Nifty visualization from the NY TImes letting you play with who wins what state and seeing how many alternate routes to victory (or perhaps I should say VICTORY!1!) there are left.
scav
@burnspbesq: n9t enuf r@nd7m sw,tch)ng frm n’mbr:s andnnospacesnbutmmsninstead for my new beast’s native vocabulary.
rlrr
@Violet:
Where does Mitt vote anyway?
The planet Kolob.
Brachiator
@Violet:
Again, Nate Silver is a very good analyst, not a prophet. He cannot guarantee any particular result, and his numerical analyses complements good journalism, but does not supplant it.
Problem is, there is so little good journalism.
There is also the curious example of conservatives, who used to claim how hard headed and rational they were, who now desperately resort to lies, fraud, foolishness and outright denial. If it weren’t for reprehensible conservative plutocrats with tons of money to throw around and gullible voters who insist on voting against their own interests, we might be looking at an Obama landslide.
Violet
@hueyplong: Erikkkk has a gig with CNN–he’ll probably be there. Tucker showed up on Hannity’s show when he had that secret video tape that he himself had shown on his own show five years ago. Check Fox for him.
The Moar You Know
@Violet: Feelings trump rational thought every time, especially feelings of fear. If I were to tell you the many reasons Obama’s the better candidate after I’ve set your house on fire, you’re not going to listen to a single word I say. If Mitt Romney comes along and promises to put it out in exchange for your vote, you’ll pull the lever without noticing that the fine print states that he has the right to kill all your cats.
Data and information can only work when people are calm. The media knows this, hence the constant struggle to keep viewers, listeners and readers whipped up in a froth of emotion. Ray Bradbury described this quite nicely in Fahrenheit 451 a long time ago.
Nate Silver will always lose out to David Gregory, because Gregory makes his viewers feel better.
Punchy
In 2 diff books:
Book 1: Obama started minus 475, down to minus 400 now
Book 2: Obama started minus 400, down to minus 360 now
So he started pretty high, but for whatever reason, peeps are banging Romney pretty hard all morning. I’m guessing/hoping this is all just lost money. If/when I see that number drop to minus 200 or less, then I’ll freak out.
Paul
@Brachiator:
Well, the bookmakers are basically using the same data as Silver is. I have been following it pretty closely. When Silver started to drop Obama’s numbers after the first debate, the bookmakers quickly followed suit. And as Silver started to increase Obama’s numbers the last week, the bookmakers once again followed suit.
So, I give a ton of credence to Silver but also to the bookmakers.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Grumpy Code Monkey: Well I didn’t hear him say it outright, I was sort of flipping by because it was too infuriating to just sit and watch, but at one point I tuned in and he was going on about “and if you look at those hidden trends, this polling might actually be better news for Romney” or something along those lines. I just laughed. I tune in for two seconds and there he is, true to form.
Eric U.
Bookmakers give odds to balance their win/loss, so the line mostly reflects what their customers are thinking.
Tucker is a pure nepotism hire.
I didn’t give my ID, screw that racist law and the racist PA legislature that passed it.
Paul
@Punchy:
Do you by any chance have a link? I’d be curious to look at it.
Roger Moore
@SFAW:
I’m thinking we want him to convert posthumously, preferably in the next couple of days. This should start with him DIAF.
BTW, I just got back from voting. We had four precincts at one polling place, but the confusion was kept under control because everything was color coded. The lines weren’t too bad- maybe 25 people for my precinct when I got there- and we were moving through as fast as they could find names in their registration book. I think most people had their sample ballots marked, which kept movement through the voting booths brisk. Nice to see a competently managed operation.
Villago Delenda Est
@Brachiator:
For one thing, they’re not conservatives. They’re something else altogether. Call them neo-feudalists, or regressivists, or something besides their self-chosen label that mocks the very English language in its degree of doublethink.
These people advocate policies that work against stability, which is the exact opposite of what an actual conservative in the traditional sense seeks to do.
The maggots deserve tumbrel rides.
Sly
Tucker Carlson was once falsely accused of rape by a mentally ill woman and said it nearly ruined his life. Now he runs a hatchet blog dedicated to ruining the careers of others by trumpeting the paranoid conspiracy theories of the mentally ill.
Oh, how the not-mighty have fallen even further.
quannlace
And why is MSNBC inflicting Joe and Mika on us, beyond their usual three-hour dreck fest?
Yutsano
@Seanly: FWIW I know at least a couple of blue voters in Ada county who might help out there some. I think teh Mormon is too much to overcome though.
Enhanced Mooching Techniques
@Lurking Canadian:
And it turns out any random collection of Internet trolls can do the same job of button pushing better than these so called professionals. Sooner or later the Infotament industry is going to understand this and outsource the drama queening.
That’s really all the American news is now, push their audience’s buttons to get the strongest reaction from them.
Cassidy
@quannlace: Mika has nice legs.
Violet
@Brachiator:
Of course what Nate does isn’t journalism. We don’t have a lot of journalism being done in our mainstream media these days. It’s always a shock when it breaks out.
But my point was that if Nate makes predictions and election after election he’s right, eventually people will start paying attention more to him than to pundits who feel the momentum, or whatever. People generally want to know what’s happening–except for the 27% who just wants to be deluded–and if Nate can provide them with accurate info, they’ll go to Nate. And Sam. And anyone else like them. Why watch David Gregory and Chuck Todd blather about “feeling momentum” when Nate Silver says there isn’t any? Why read Peggy Noonan wax lyrical about yard signs when Sam’s data shows real voters will vote for the other candidate? Ultimately, people won’t read or watch those folks. Why waste time with them when a quick trip to Nate’s and a 60 second study of his current results tell you the state of the race?
That loss of authoritah and viewers/readers scares the mainstream punditocracy, and rightly so. They can see that Nate can make them less relevant and there go their cushy jobs and high salaries and invites to the best parties. No wonder they’re studiously ignoring him.
trollhattan
Republicans: sore winners, even sorer losers.
It’s that second that gives me joy. Does that make me a bad person? (shrugs)
cckids
I’m watching CNN, & they are showing President Obama dropping in on the GOTV field office in Illinois, making some calls to Wisconson. The type of personal, casual contact you just cannot imagine Romney doing. The first person he contacted didn’t recognize his voice/name at first; he just repeated it & complimented her on how polite she was. I just love our President as a human being.
I think he is very confident in todays outcome.
Roger Moore
@The Moar You Know:
I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that it’s more common in wealthy areas. Rich people are used to being able to get away with being assholes to lesser mortals. They’re a lot more likely to see teachers as flunkies who are overstepping their bounds by criticizing their spawn, while poor people are more likely to see teachers as authority figures worthy of respect.
aimai
@Southern Beale:
We let a little old lady in a walker cut in line at our polling station. And we didn’t even ask her who she was voting for. But then, that was cambridge.
aimai
Brachiator
@Paul:
So, the bookmakers are following Silver.
Kinda makes them less relevant. Doubly so since any independent analysis they might be doing is not readily open to inspection or independent evaluation.
It might be interesting if the judgment of the bookmakers significantly differed from that of Silver and other pollsters, and if the bookmakers turned out to be more accurate in their conclusions.
Violet
@The Moar You Know: I heard where you’re coming from, and certainly politics is an art and takes both data and feeling. People choose who to vote for for any number of reasons including they like one candidate better, even if they don’t like his or her policies.
I was thinking more about the punditocracy and their relevance. Their job is to explain what’s happening in politics, and if they get it wrong over and over, when this kid with a computer and a bunch of data gets it right, eventually that will seep through and affect their authority. I think they know that, which is why you rarely hear “Nate Silver” being mentioned on the mainstream news shows.
Roger Moore
@Violet:
Or were angry at him for failing to stick it to the liberals hard enough.
priscianusjr
Fair and balanced as always.
I think The Village is genuinely split on this one. WaPo endorsed Obama, etc.
chopper
@Southern Beale:
see, this is why barack and michelle voted early, or sent in an absentee ballot.
Punchy
@Paul: Both are off-shore books, and you’d have to set up an account to see the odds….I think. Maybe the odds can be seen without a sign in. What’s reassuring is that both books had Obama around a minus 200 after the third debate, so starting today at minus 475 is a huge move towards Obama. I just worry about who knows what to drive that number lower, unless it’s just Obama supporters “covering” (so either candidate being elected is a “win” for them).
Book 1 was 5dimes.com, and Book 2 is Sportfanatik.com.
eemom
@Villago Delenda Est:
As an ancient English major who frequently weeps over the bastardization of word meanings, this disturbs me to no end as well.
On the lighter side, my husband just told me that the labels “left” and “right” originated with the French Parliament. I did not know this.
Captain C
@Scott S.: I live in NYC (Brooklyn). You’re going to have to get in line.
Paul
@Brachiator:
I am assuming bookmakers (or people betting money) use the same data as Silver, ie polls etc. How else would they know who to bet on. They shouldn’t be much different than each other.
But what do I know. I haven’t placed any bets on either candidate.
danimal
Also re: Nate Silver. He does good work and has created a unique way of understanding electoral trends. He will also become deeply, deeply unpopular amongst liberals if his projections tilt red in future elections.
We like Silver and Sam Wang because the facts they are reporting support our desired outcome, but that won’t always be the case.
Bokonon
Shorter Carlson – “I am destroying the moral authority of mainstream media pundits that TRY to be objective … so they can be replaced by overtly partisan hacks and operatives! Just like me!”
Objectivity is dead! And we killed ’em!
Cassidy
@danimal: I don’t agree with that. I think at this point his methods are accepted enough to where we’d only be distraught, emo, and suicidal.
LD50
@Roger Moore: Completely true. My wife is a teacher, and the big downside to working in a rich district is that the parents are by and large entitled assholes who act like they’re going to sue you if you don’t give little Zack or Madison an A. In ‘rough’ neighborhoods the kids are a lot more challenging, but the parents are usually on the same side as the teachers — if their kid is skipping class 85% of the time, they come down hard on the kid. They don’t blame the teacher.
chopper
@Captain C:
good luck at the polls today. my site in boerum hill was a mess.
Villago Delenda Est
@eemom:
The French Revolutionary assembly gave us “left” and “right”. The royalists/monarchists/ancien regime fans sat to the right of the central podium, the radicals/republicans to the left. Thus political left and right.
blingee
@danimal: I hated Nate during the 2010 elections but the accuracy of his predictions then made me a believer. Never followed Sam until this election but looking at his track record in 2004 and 2008, his results are just as impressive.
Bill Arnold
@danimal:
Not sure what you mean by “tilt” here.
Some of us appreciate, a lot, people who intelligently aggregate the numbers/honestly work their model. I personally don’t want a hint of tilt in the model.
LD50
@danimal:
Perhaps, but I don’t think liberals will respond by calling Silver effeminate, or creating entire alternate polling websites with imaginary numbers.
Bill E Pilgrim
@eemom: It’s fun to see it in person, I once sat in Victor Hugo’s chair in the Sénat (possibly the actual chair, the friend who was giving me the private tour told me).
The first thing that struck me though was wait, I’m on the right. Except it’s right and left from the point of view of the President, of course. The tradition didn’t start in the Senate, but sort of continued and got entrenched there. They give public tours I think, makes a good visit if you’re ever there, great building.
Villago Delenda Est
@LD50:
Nope, they won’t. They’ll just say that they hate the results that he’s predicting. Silver himself isn’t an object of derision because we actually follow the numbers and draw conclusions from them, not have preset conclusions and try to massage the numbers to fit them.
Paul
@danimal:
That’s exactly what happened on this very website about a week after the first debate. At that time Nate Silver started to drop Obama’s number and a number of posters were not happy. Some claimed Silver’s reputation would be damaged etc etc.
And now when he has Obama’s numbers up again, these same folks are singing a different tune.
Hungry Joe
Suggested quotes re Tucker:
O chickenshit new world, that has such people in’t!
and…
Will no one rid us of this troublesome dweeb?
More?
Eric U.
I am assuming that Silver and Wang will not pull a Rassmussen on us. I think we will still like Silver if he correctly predicts Republican wins, I know I will. Republicans keep talking about past elections where the polling was wrong. But it was only wrong because the pollsters didn’t analyze their own data properly. Now we have people looking at the data that just want to properly predict election outcomes from it. That’s a big improvement.
burnspbesq
@scav:
Exactly!
Brachiator
@Violet:
What would you have done if Silver had consistently “predicted” a Romney victory? Would you have thrown up your hands and not done anything to try to get out the vote for Obama?
What would it have told you about the state of the race?
It’s funny how some people who decry the horse race meme that the media quickly latches onto actually want a horse race and the certainty of knowing whether the candidate they back will be a winner.
I listened to a radio talk show host who had been pro Romney announce this morning that he was going to vote for Obama this morning, on the station that carries Limbaugh later in the day. Yeah, this has got nothing to do with phony crap about momentum, but it has everything to do with individual voters making up their minds.
Silver offers a good snapshot summary of the sentiment of likely voters at given points in time, and he provides a welcome antidote to idiot pundits, but the value that he provides needs to be put into better perspective.
But it won’t be, and people who should know better will continue to treat him as an infallible shaman.
El Cid
Tucker Carlson’s experience with journalism is overwhelmingly being proven to be wrong by actual journalists.
However, he’s also prone to losing jobs because a comedian points out how full of shit he is.
negative 1
@Paul: remember that bookmakers aren’t in the prediction business, however. An instructive example is scorelines in football. They aren’t predicting the score, they are finding the even money point that interests people in betting. So, technically, they are picking lines based on the perception of the final tally, not the final tally. Often times, the two are the same — but not always.
Uncle Cosmo
@Roger Moore: Nothing new under the sun. A true story from over 40 years ago:
A few years after I had had Ed for “core subjects” in 8th grade, I heard that he’d quit teaching. I was completely gobsmacked–the guy was born to teach, one of the best I’d ever had (& I had some true gems, including one finalist for National Teacher of the Year), and he loved it. So I called him up & asked him what the heck had happened.
“Cos,” he said, “most teachers don’t realize how wonderful it is to teach in [the blue-collar Baltimore suburb where I grew up] until they go somewhere else. Your parents wanted something better for you than they had, & they knew the only way out was education. They trusted us to see that you got one, & they supported us in how we did it–even when you kids weren’t all that happy about it.
“When they transferred me to [an upper-class suburb] I kept teaching the best way I know how, but those kids looked at me & said, My father makes more in a month than you make in a year–who the hell do you think you are to tell me what to do? And their parents supported their kids & made sure to blame the teacher for any problems they had learning.
“So I said the heck with it.” He’d become the manager of a warehouse for a large corporation. “It’s not as demanding as teaching, & the pay is better.” He ended up a corporate VP. But it was society’s loss. I think of the kids he might have inspired as he inspired us & I want to scream…
scav
@danimal:
speak for youself. I’ m a modrlling nerd first and to the bone, I follow elections when I have time influenced by how important they are. Truth, integrity, logical chains and peer review first. Satisficing over optimization, etc. D v. R is way down the list, albeit over broccoli v. brussels sprouts.
Punchy
OK, odds going up (getting more in O’s favor) now. Punters are again banging Obama…maybe there’s some tweets of early results posted somewheres?
scav
@Punchy: or, they need the churn to lure in the last minute betting. Horses again!
Patricia Kayden
@Scott S.: Oh Snap!
You liberals are brutal.
***clutching furiously at pearls and fainting***
celticdragonchick
@Amir Khalid:
Make it an old washing machine instead of a piano.
celticdragonchick
@Amir Khalid:
Make it an old washing machine instead of a piano.
LAC
The only thing that preppy douchewad got right was that the media embarrassed themselves – with their horse race, false equivalency bullshit. But getting a scolding from that ratings killing piece of George Will shit is hilarious. The closest Carlson came to journalism is whatever news intern he sucked off at CNN back in the day.
celticdragonchick
@eemom:
Yep. As noted earlier, that is a relic of the pre-radical phase of the French Revolution. Unfortunately, Robespierre and the sans-cullotes and Hebertists came from the left…which has been used to tar “lefties” and progressives ever since.
Hungry Joe
Here’s something odd and interesting and inevitable about Nate & Sam’s work: When they report a 90/10 aggregate, people assume they’re saying it’s a slam dunk for the candidate who has 90%, when in fact Mr./Ms. 10% will win one time in ten. That is to say, every tenth 90/10 “prediction” (though Nate and Sam do not in fact predict anything), in which the candidate at 10% wins, will be seen as a huge, embarrassing fail — when in fact Nate and Sam will be, in a sense, correct.
handy
@scav:
Yes it happened here. For a minute the popular theme became Nate Silver the villager who sold (us) out.
Cris (without an H)
HA HA HA HA HA yeah right.
Bixby
@Frankensteinbeck:
No, the Descendants of African Slaves are a real party, at least in the Louisville area. The guy who seems to be its leader is a preacher who also owns a liquor store and charges that
the long-serving and effective black state legislator he’s running against is really an insufficiently radical Uncle Tom. I thought they were only contesting that single legislative race, though. I don’t know our election laws well enough to know what it would take to say you have an actual ticket to vote for straight.
LurkingSomali
@SFAW
Uh, uh, No, please keep him.We have more than enough arseholes, and we suffered enough.
sm*t cl*de
They’ll have moved on to academia or think tanks
Are there any left-leaning think tanks? IIRC the majority exist as corporate mouthpieces.
SectarianSofa
@zandar
Crap. Accidentally clicked on the link.
Other than that, I think it was a perfect post.
Tucker Carlson. FSM. I really can’t tell whether he knows what he’s doing, or if he’s losing himself in a persona, or what. I’ll assume right wing derangement, since it seems to become stronger each year as it passes from host to host. (pun not really intended)
SectarianSofa
@sm*t cl*de:
Brookings Inst. has been called liberal, though I believe it’s only because it’s left of Joe Scar et al.