Jonathan Alter (Newsweek): The New Law of Uncertainty

"Game over," an Iraqi on the streets of Baghdad told CNN. Maybe. More likely, the game is just beginning, and not only on the ground in Iraq. The American presidential campaign, connected at the hip this year to foreign policy, will now move in a different direction. Toward a Bush landslide? Not so fast.

The biggest fallacy in forecasting of any kind is to take current conditions and extrapolate forward as if those conditions won't change. President Bush could still be vulnerable politically. Same for Howard Dean in the primaries, regardless of how positive the news climate may be for both of them right now. Even with good odds, the shoo-in doesn't fit.

That's because the media-political universe adheres to two strange laws simultaneously. The first is the Law of Premature Predictions. It's a dinner party or chat-room thing. "Stick a fork in him" sounds confident and smart. "Who knows?" sounds boring and lame. So people look at the latest news--Saddam captured, Al Gore endorses Dean--and ignore other inconvenient variables.

Then there's the Law of Media Oscillation. The process invites--no, demands--a series of sine curves to keep everyone interested. Up one week, down the next. The only safe prediction is that a static, unchanging political narrative is impossible. As we're seeing, stuff happens in war and politics, and when it doesn't, the media will half-consciously rearrange all the atoms of emphasis and particles of story choice to make it seem so.

more...

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3710931/

"The Dean phenomenon is empowering for the hundreds of thousands of people who suddenly feel a connection to politics; it's invigorating for a process that seemed as if it were destined forever to be run by big money; it's inspiring for a Democratic Party that has traditionally trailed far behind the GOP in attracting small donors, and it's intriguing to see how far it goes. Might the movement grow large enough to fire Bush? It sure doesn't look that way this week. But the only certainty of American politics is that its quantum physics will continue to confound us."

but as a physicist, I wish journalists would stop misusing the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle in order to make themselves look educated. To be fair, Alter mangles it less than some I have seen.

Close observation by the media may fail to detect both the position and motion of the campaign, but unfortunately it also greatly affects the outcome.

Media reports on the horse race, and in the process they handicap the candidates by declaring presumptive winners. How many voters will ignore Kucinich (or other also rans) because they've been told he has no chance? In a close race, how much influence does media prognostication have?

My hometown paper (Chicago Tribune) has been doing a weekly series on each Dem candidate; basically in-depth biographies with some focus on their campaigns. But not on the issues -- which is barely even mentioned. I learned a lot about the life of John Edwards, but next to nothing about what he proposes to do as president.

I take the time to research positions before I vote, but I'll bet that a large number of ballots are cast on the basis of superficial impressions fostered by the media rather than an understanding of the qualifications, political acumen, and policy vision of the candidate.

The media takes much of the uncertainty out of the election by certifying who will win or who has a chance, well in advance.

Wew have a presumptibe primary winner, and not one vote has been cast.

I don't know where he stands anymore. I wonder if he's a "sell out" or just sick and tired and will take money from whomever will hire him, and his true thoughts are so hidden by his sell out that they can be read by both sides as "fair."