2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumKrugman: You're Stupid If You Think It's Close
This is the title RealClearPolitics gave this piece...
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/03/reporting-that-makes-you-stupid/
Reporting That Makes You Stupid
Paul Krugman
snip//
Worse yet, some reporting tells readers things the reporters have to know arent true. How many stories have you seen declaring that both sides think theyre winning? No, they dont: the Romney campaign is visibly flailing, trying desperately to find new fronts on which to attack Obama. They clearly know that it will take a miracle sorry, a last-minute surge to prevail on Tuesday. Its OK, I guess, to report campaign spin; but surely its not OK to report campaign spin as the truth, which is what these stories are doing.
Again, as Nate says, its definitely possible that the polls are systematically wrong. The obvious ways they could go wrong, cell phones and Latinos, favor Obama rather than Romney; but maybe pollsters are overcompensating for these factors, or maybe theres a large Bradley effect distorting poll responses. Reporting about these possibilities would be interesting.
But reporting that suggests that this is a too-close-to-call race doesnt get at any of this; its just lazy, and a disservice to readers.
grantcart
(53,061 posts)And anybody who thinks that NC is 80% probablility for Romney is probably going to look stupid.
Comrade_McKenzie
(2,526 posts)ProfessionalLeftist
(4,982 posts)...are trying to STEAL it for Rmoney in FL and Ohio.
Raster
(20,998 posts)...miserably. We need a NATIONAL ELECTORAL INITIATIVE to guarantee that all citizens of the United States of America are allowed to cast their legal and lawful ballots, AND THAT THOSE VOTES ARE FAIRLY COUNTED!
Not only do we need this, we need the DNC to push voters in the midterms to push a connection between these Secretaries of State who attempt to purge and disenfranchise voters and voting these people out. If Ohio and Florida both had Democratic S.O.S, I know my mind would be much more at ease, and we would see early voting days brought back to where they need to be (5-7 hour lines to vote? and nothing being done about it? Despicable.)
Raster
(20,998 posts)reusrename
(1,716 posts)They flipped votes to get Romney thrrough the primaries and the cover story was that his money bombs took out each frontrunner, one by one, in consecutive races.
It was all a lie, just like now!