Monday, January 21, 2008

Self Serving and Biased Analysis

Way too many blog pundits, just like their predecessors and cousins in the traditional media, are making claims and predictions about the Presidential primaries based more on personal hunches than actual facts.

I find the political analysis of others to be interesting, but I don’t find very many pieces on the internet to be any more insightful than what I am hearing on talk radio, or reading in traditional media; which isn’t very insightful at all. The predictions and analysis by the experts has been consistently wrong since the 2006 elections.

At this point, all of the caucuses and primaries have amounted to nothing more than a pre-season where a few of the non-serious candidates have folded their tents and closed shop. The real season starts in Florida and then continues on Super Tuesday. On February 6th we will have plenty of facts to analyze. Until then, political punditry is merely speculation; nothing more. Most of the speculation is self serving or biased anyway.

4 comments:

Count Grecula said...

Thanks for that selfless unbiased analysis David! How refreshing! Even the comments in your blog are fantastic.

David M. Smith said...

Thanks Count.

I’m sure I am just as biased as the next guy, but my bias is predisposed to be extremely cautious and extremely cynical of sweeping proclamations.

I’ve always hoped for more discussions in my comments, but I am glad we don’t just flame at each other.

Count Grecula said...

David- I share your bias. I think I may even welcome it. I like people to be more upfront with their biases. That's why Hugh Hewitt has never really bothered me.

What bothers me is when people try to present themselves as completely unbiased when they are full of it. I take it for granted that everyone is biased - ie has a framework of beliefs that color their interpretaton of the facts. More interesting to me is the discussion of why someone is biased one way or the other. That has proven to be a much more difficult conversation to have.

There's a saying here in hollywood "Nobody knows anything". I'm not sure it's much better in politics.

Buz said...

Wasn't that a quote from "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" ... about knowing nothing?

Actually, I think that there is a bit more than mere speculation going on ... we are a nation of followers ... we like to back a winner. If whosomever can convince enough people that their candidate is a winner, then perhaps they can get so many more people voting for their candidate because they want to vote for the winner. Sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Vote for the underdog ... shoeshine-boy for president!

Buz