Nate Silver Not Much of A Political AnalystHe got a lot of attention for his interesting charts and graphs, but like a lot of math-oriented folks, he
doesn't analyze things other than numbers very well:
This might be the key passage of my interview with John Ziegler on Tuesday, for it is, in a nutshell, why conservatives don't win elections anymore. It is not that conservatism generally permits less nuance than liberalism (in terms of political messaging, that is probably one of conservatism's strengths). Rather, the key lies in the second passage that I highlighted. There are a certain segment of conservatives who literally cannot believe that anybody would see the world differently than the way they do. They have not just forgotten how to persuade; they have forgotten about the necessity of persuasion.
Perhaps Nate could provide us with a similar analysis for the question of why the New England Patriots don't win Super Bowls anymore. Hilariously, the exchange that leads to this observation is when Nate denies that Barack Obama launched his political career at Bill Ayers' house. He's just amazed that the guy he's interviewing seems to believe this nonsense, and concludes that it must come from listening to too much conservative talk radio.
Now, of course, Barack Obama
did launch his political career at Bill Ayers house. Now maybe Nate has some sort of definition of "launch" or "career" or "house" that enables him to deny it. Maybe there was a phone call that Obama did just before going over to meet Ayers that really is the official launch.
But Nate doesn't bother with that, because he doesn't see the necessity of persuasion. Everybody knows that Barack Obama didn't launch his political career at Bill Ayers' house. Ayers is just a professor of education who lives in his neighborhood.
