Paul Krugman- Trivial Stakes

No, not the election as a whole — the stakes are huge: whether near-universal health care finally comes to America, whether we get any kind of tightening of financial regulation after the bankers destroyed the world economy. But there are a couple of trivial things I probably shouldn’t care about given the really important stuff, but can’t help thinking about.

One is the battle of the nerds versus the traditional pundits. The outpouring of Hate for Nate has been awesome to watch; much of it is coming from the right, but a fair bit also from mainstream pundits who rely on their ineffable sense of “momentum” or whatever rather than polls.

Obviously I side, professionally and temperamentally, with the nerds here — not just Nate Silver, but Sam Wang, Drew Linzer, Pollster, and more. I’d like to think I’d be on their side even if the numbers were pointing the other way.

The point is that relying on data rather than hunches is my style; I’d hate, professionally, to see the voices in the air people get this right, simply because the polls were wrong.

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http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/06/trivial-stakes/