Come, I will conceal nothing from you: I was surprised, too.
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s unexpected drubbing in the Virginia Republican primary, and the ensuing flood of breathless new stories, marathon TV talkfests and overdrawn analyses trying to explain it and its implications, laid bare a serious flaw in political news reporting these days: It is way out of touch with the average voter.
If it were in touch, many Washington reporters would have picked up pre-election clues from real people that Cantor was in trouble.
…but I at least saw the possibility of this race going to interesting place, thanks to the folks over at AoSHQ’s Decision Desk. While I thought to myself, Well, if Brat had maybe a week more he’d be able to pull it off, I was still made sufficiently wary enough that I didn’t go with my first impulse and call it for Eric Cantor the second the polls closed. Moral of the story: pay attention to @AOSHQDD.
Actually, @AOSHQDD *wasn’t* going to cover that Eric Cantor race. Even he thought it was a foregone conclusion. However Brandon Finnigan (aka @ConArtCritic, aka @AOSHQDD) was persuaded by a fan to give them the tools to cover the race if Brandon wasn’t going to do it. When data started coming in, it actaully shocked Brandon into thinking the person was imputing the data wrong. After confirming the first vote totals and after even more voting information came in, he called it.
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It is all covered in a recent podcast. I forget which one.
“… a serious flaw in political news reporting these days: It is way out of touch with the average voter.”
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Politics and politicians too.
“Conventional Wisdom” Is frequently half right. It is certainly always conventional.
I started following @AOSHQDD just before the Cantor thing .. and was completely blindsided by it as well.
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Happiest blindsiding I’ve had in years.
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Mew