The Third Variable Problem, the Red Phone, and the Sham Science of Polling
Wednesday, March 12th, 2008 Posted in Punditry, polling, pundits | No Comments »We get more speculation on the effectiveness of the red phone ad. Did it work, the way pundits assume it worked in Texas and Ohio? There's no way to know. Ever. There are too many other variables. That's a classic problem of ...
The Intellectually Vacuity of New York Times Political Analyses
Thursday, March 6th, 2008 Posted in Obama, Punditry | No Comments »Here's the New York Times, an "analysis": After Tuesday’s primary victories for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, her focus is momentum; for her Democratic rival, Senator Barack Obama, it is math. Math vs. Momentum: it's a simple opposition, and it alliterates. That's why ...
The Momentum Fetish — taking entirely predictable results and pretending they’re shocking
Wednesday, March 5th, 2008 Posted in Punditry | No Comments »Momentum: the idea is that if a candidate wins in one state, he or she will win in others. It is premised on the idea that voters are lemmings. It is a really dumb idea, and one that the press keeps ...
Bill Kristol: You Can’t Just Suddenly Use Force
Sunday, February 25th, 2007 Posted in Iraq, Of Interest, Punditry | No Comments »I just heard Bill Kristol use the phrase "you can't just suddenly use force", talking about Iran and the recent Bush administration rhetoric trying to lay the foundation for a bombing campaign. He said it of course, with that usual smugness: ...
