After establishing that Republican operative Karl Rove is a terrible political prognosticator, Dana Milbank (Washington Post, 11/2/12) does the false-balance thing and attacks polling blogger Nate Silver:
Dana Milbank (photo: Matthew Bradley)
Rove is an easy target because his motive—conveying a false sense of momentum for Republicans—is so transparent. But he has plenty of company among prognosticators who confidently predict that which they cannot possibly know.
There’s Nate Silver, a statistician-blogger at the New York Times, who predicts with scientific precision that President Obama will win 303 electoral votes and beat Romney by 2 percentage points in the popular vote. He gives Obama an 81 percent likelihood of winning.
I give Silver a 50 percent likelihood of being correct.
The truth is anybody who claims to know what is going to happen on Election Day is making it up and counting on being lucky.
I suspect that for a lot of media figures—think Joe Scarborough—the same attitude that makes them think that their gut feeling about the election is more valuable than analyzing polling results is the same attitude that makes them not bother to go and check out how Silver’s predictions have played out in the past. He’s been doing this for two election cycles now, and the fact is he’s got a pretty good track record. (By the way, Silver certainly does not “claim…to know what is going to happen on Election Day”; when he says there’s an 81 percent chance that Obama will win, he really means that he thinks there’s about a 1-in-5 chance that Romney will be elected president—though right now that’s down to a 1-in-7 chance.)
Nate Silver (photo: JD Lasica)
In 2008, Silver correctly picked which candidate would win all but one state: Indiana, which he thought would go narrowly for John McCain (538, 11/4/08).
In 2010, he predicted that the Republicans would pick up 54 or 55 seats, depending on whether you wanted his average or median prediction (538, 11/1/10). The actual number was 63. (Looking at his projection for each race individually, he came up with a 59-seat gain for the GOP, but he thought the odds were that the model would be off in some of these races.)
But Milbank did go and actually check to see how often Rove’s predictions turned out—a courtesy that he didn’t extend to Silver. I’m just guessing here, but maybe he didn’t want to spoil the symmetry.
After spending quite some time looking for a way to offer my viewpoint to Newsweek, I am resorting to this blog.I, as a teacher of Business Communications, gave an assignment in every class of this type to offer me a business report. When asked where to find the best in required sources, I would tell each of my classes to NOT use Newsweek or any magazine like it, since FACTS are not the first priority of these publications, and selling magazines is what their primary objective is. I now feel that I am vindicated, since your obvious right slant–slant??–has offended me and led the American people even further from the truth concerning Obama and “Why we need a new President”. You people should hang your heads in journalistic shame at your bias reporting and lack of facts. Please DO NOT report to me your negative coverage of Mitt Romney, since I am smart enough to know that timing is everything, and your timing in this case, albiet ineffective ,obviously, was strategically planned in order to discredit the President, sell your magazines, and help capture the Presidency for the callus business community. In short, you people are a piece of work, as my son would say, and I look forward to talking to my classes about how they should never buy OR believe anything that comes from Newsweek, since fact-checkers, like those employed by the Republican Party, (there were some of those for your now-defunct party??)are basically non-existent. Journalism is CERTAINLY not what it used to be, and nothing epitomizes that more than Newsweek’s current brand of “say anything if it contributes to our dollar bill”.
Deborah: did you post to the wrong window? This is the FAIR blog, not Newsweek; neither does the subject of the blog, Dana Milbank, work for Newsweek. ??
I would imagine he’s feeling fairly foolish at this point. Writing inane, pseudo-fair talking head pieces isn’t what Nate Silver is doing, so he probably won’t say anything in print about Milbank’s phony premises or blatantly ridiculous comparison of a number crunching analyst to a policy spouting conservative activist. I hope someone with a lot of literary clout, however, takes Milbank to task in a major publication that will embarrass him sufficiently to make him rethink his bullshit approach to “fairness”.
Adam, I doubt that Milbank ever feels foolish, because he continues to be paid, probably quite handsomely, for his false equivalencies and bad reporting. I doubt he reflects much on what he has written, for if he did he would learn from his mistakes. Remember that the Washington Post/Newsweek/Kaplan Testing, and all the other big corporations that make up Mailbank’s employer, do not want to tell the truth, they want to elect someone who will be good for big business.
When does Mr. Milbank make his apology to Nate Silver? Oh, I forgot, they NEVER admit an error-just move on, nothing here. Of course he now works for the Washington Post. Several years ago, during the Apollo Eleven Recovery, I was part of a Navy Wardroom group that got to hear from a senior Post executive about how they were changing their news system, to ensure that pieces relating to various key players in Government/business were accurate before they were released. He assured us they had a strong firewall between the businss office/Newsroom. This very conservative audience had to be reminded that he was our guest and it was not polite to laugh.
Milbank is being paid because he says what he is told to say, and he is watched because he is so cute.
Dana is just jealous that he’s not as smart as Nate. It’s kinda funny (in a sad sort of way) that people condemn or criticize what they don’t understand.
Considering there is more than two view points or analysis we need real diversity. That includes MSNBC.
Ya gotta give it to him.Silver is pretty good.As far as people like Rove staying on point even to the edge of reality…..Yeah and so what else do we need to know about politics?It is like when you see the libertarian leader saying to his crowds that WE CAN WIN THIS THING.No ,no you cant.Remember Clinton ‘i did not have sex with that woman”?Bushes die hard belief in WMDs far along in the war?Obama trying to paint the economy as anything but a terminal disaster?Lets face it……if politicians know the truth- they will only put their voice to it if it benefits them.Otherwise back on point..back with the stone face.