Motley Moose – Archive

Since 2008 – Progress Through Politics

Self Doubt and the so called experts

I have always enjoyed the writing of Matt Taibbi from Rolling Stone (you can find his work “here” (sorry if my code doesn’t work I am out of practice due to my lab seclusion)…

But one point I thought was very poignant especially regarding the recent attitude of doom and gloom about Obama was the general cluelessness (that isn’t a word but I am using it anyways) of the vast majority of the experts about politics.  Not only with the punditocracy  but among bloggers as well.  One of the main causes of the doom and gloom attitude is the idea that the person making the proclamation is somehow smarter than the rest of us, whether it someone like Roger Simon over at Politico or Matt Stoller at OpenLeft.

If I may have your patience to quote from another doomsayer whose blog I have killed my account at from about a year ago:


“…it is obvious that the Obama campaign needs to shake things up. The inevitability of Clinton is stronger than ever; Edwards has been inching up in early state polling; Obama has been tanking on the Intrade charts for nearly a month…”

Here is the link from the August 18th 2007 article:  http://www.mydd.com/story/2007…

So what can I tell you about the Nov 2008 election?

1) Unless there are extreme (and I mean extreme [like a person surviving in a vacumn]) circumstances Obama will win MN and IA.  One big reason for this is McCain’s strong opposition to ethanol, as ethanol is a key issue to one element (rural farmers) of the traditional republican alliance in these farm states

2) I think Obama will win the election (I offer the surge of new voters who are less likely to be accounted for in polls as reasoning for my statement about this but I will not make a definite claim, we all have work to do to make sure this happens).

3) in my state, the democrats will hold from 5-8 house seats (6 is most likely with the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th. 7th and 8th being blue and the 2nd and 6th staying red barely).

Other than that I can’t proclaim with definitely that because of XYZ event ABC will happen.  I speak from my experience, I am not a operative, pundit or politico.  I am just a guy, trying not to sink into debt.

SG


Categories: Uncategorized.

/ 27 Comments

27 comments

  2. Reaper0bot0

    It’s important that Democrats learn to show some spine and stop wringing their hands.  We’re too quick to do that.

  4. Stipes

    Wow, his exposure to the professional political culture has really left him cynical, and somewhat angry.

    I can understand why.

  5. alyssa chaos

    my dad does this thing every election year where around this time he writes down what he thinks is going to happen and then he seals it and opens it on election day. He’s anti-Obama and so i asked him what his prediction was:

          Obama by a landslide.

    My prediction: Obama wins. We win NM, TX Sen stays republican [aww my poor Noriega. I want him to win so badly but the realist in me says its not likely] & TX district 78 goes Dem.

  6. sanguine giant

    Concern Trollery by people with poor track records UPDATED Add to Hotlist

    by Sanguine Giant, Fri Sep 12, 2008 at 11:32:54 PM EST

    This is most likely going to be my last entry here as I would wager that I will get hit with a warning for this diary demanding that I apologize to the people I mention in it.  There still are some good things happening here, but the tone is set at the top and the tone is not good here.

    UPDATE Oh this made the rec list with 3 recs, tell me is that a sign of an established community that has over 38000 members being healthy. It all comes from the top.

    To begin with let me say that this place has devolved considerably.  The origins of the progressive blogosphere had a deep reliance on accountability, but yet on this site credibility is given to those who have a very poor track record at predicting elections.

    Case one is Jerome Armstrong.

    This year he has been a comedy of errors, from his predictions of the Super Tuesday Primaries, to his near constant refrain that Obama is going to lose (this refrain goes back to before Aug 18 2007).  If you enjoy hypocrisy then I have an example for you.  Jerome made his name by taking up the insurgent mantle (along with Markos), but yet in this cycle he was want to be operative for a non candidate (Gov. Warner of Virginia [soon to be Senator Warner]).  To this distant and foolish observer it appears that Mr. Armstrong is trying to trade in his insurgent reputation in hopes of becoming a major player in 2012.

    So you might say that I am over exaggerating, after all I am just a faceless screen name who is insulting, nay even ‘slandering’ a ‘prominent’ figure.  But I can back up my words with truth.

    From Aug 18 2007 I would like to quote Mr. Armstrong’s diary entitled No Mas wherein he swore that Sen. Obama had no chance to become the democratic nominee let alone President:

       Only this time, the question would be something along the lines of asking the other candidates to raise their hand if they believe Obama is experienced enough to be President.

       These charts are nothing but conventional wisdom with money layered on top, but it is obvious that the Obama campaign needs to shake things up. The inevitability of Clinton is stronger than ever; Edwards has been inching up in early state polling; Obama has been tanking on the Intrade charts for nearly a month, closing at 20 today…

       Copied and pasted from http://www.mydd.com/story/2007… 50/677

    So he biffed one prediction, big deal right?  Only there is a pattern from his ‘amazingly accurate’ Super Tuesday predictions:

       Here’s my best-guess. I think so many of the states are so close, that its tough to make a ‘winner’ but here goes:

       States

       Clinton: CA, NY, NJ, MA, MO, TN, AZ, CT, AL, AR, OK, NM, DE, UT, AK

       Obama: IL, GA, MN, CO, KS, ID, ND

       I go with Clinton winning 15 and Obama winning 7 states. Where Obama could change the narrative, is with a win in California; that would make it a battle all the way to the convention.

       Copied and pasted from http://www.mydd.com/story/2008… 0/7064

    Jerome has been constantly negative about Obama from since he was able to prove himself a credible candidate.  I believe Albert Einstein who gave this definition:

    “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

    I am stealing a quote from one of my favorite internet users:

    Jerome’s next book:

    “Repairing the Gate: Really, We’re Terribly Sorry About All the Fuss”  (I wish I would have been clever enough to come up with this)

    With that kind of tone being set at the top no wonder that the site has become such an homage to the art of concern trolling.  

    So I guess I’ve gotten my venting off of my chest, I’ll be with the rest of the like minded collection of critters as I know I won’t be very long here before this gets the ban-hammer

    (Oh Jerome, banning IP addresses doesn’t work too well as there are 100’s of proxy services, but I commend you for blocking the IP of the wireless connection at my school (over 50k students and staff and pretty liberal).

    From someone who knows that they are a Fool.

  7. skohayes

    How goes the medical school slog? We missed your voice at the “other place”, I thought you’d actually gone back to studying for awhile. I kid, I kid, of course.

    Good to see even an overworked med student can multitask!

    This looks like it’s going to be a fun place to hang out, looks like most of my fav diarists have migrated here.

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