Pundits go Home
At the NY Times, a very interesting summary of the development of pundit opinion after the race. I have often thought of the pundit panel as reactionary. In fact it seems they are not reactionary, just an echo chamber.
It was clear on Tuesday night the race was too close to call it a Clinton win (i.e. a split decision on the two states). And yet that’s what they did. No one had thought through to what would happen if Clinton lost. The echo chamber was resounding with “game changer”. Obviously the media has a vested interest in letting the race run as long as it can, and in not calling it too soon and being wrong. But more importantly it seems like they’re incapable of independent though. They have to hash it out and see what everyone else thinks first.
Why can’t a competent political analyst look more than 1 event ahead? It’s because they aren’t analyzing. If you asked an economic analyst for their opinion they could pretty easily give you chains of reasoning that stretched in to the future: “If A then B and C; If D then E. If F and G then H.” That’s the difference between analysis and opinion.
Yet these guys clearly can’t tie their own shoelaces without checking everyone else’s technique. They literally had not thought of what would happen in the 6 possible outcomes (the only possible ones I can see). And when one of the very likely outcomes occurred, an Obama win and a near tie (there would be very little political difference between Obama and Clinton winning any state by such a narrow margin). So they had to wait for somebody to break. Tim Russert in this case. Then thank god for Matt Drudge who linked off to Russert so the rest of the echo chamber could fall in line behind him. At least Russert have the capacity for original though.
The really frustrating thing about this is, it’s clear that they can’t do the job they’re employed to do, and yet they won’t shut up. People turn on the “news” and get “analysis” that is really a retread soundbites and retread ideas without any originality. Isn’t that the idea of political discussion? Make sure all the factors are weighed in? Rather than mindless repetition of a single unoriginal thought, which is what it seems blogs, CNN, MSNBC, Fox, and newspapers are capable of.
If the punditry’s ability to forecast this race is any indication, America has already given up on them, it’s just taking a while for the echos to die away.
UPDATE: The Daily Show (the way I get most of my Cable TV commentary since I don’t live in the US), has a great video of the some of the night’s commentary, which is if any thing, worse than I thought.
