"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." -Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
I have a message to all bloggers commenting on the 20th Congressional District special election. NO ONE CARES WHO YOU PREDICT WILL WIN!
The election is already over.
The votes are already cast.
The spinmeisters can't affect anything.
So whether you're spinning for Tedisco, relentlessly spinning for Murphy or journalistically neutral, PLEASE STOP.
(And if my appeals have any influence, I also beg 'news' outlets to stop doing almost daily stories about polls showing how unpopular Gov. Paterson is. Overreliance on polls and predictions is for the lazy.)
I have no problem with people commenting on the process of the voting counting. But these insufferable predictions are empty and pointless.
But if they can make a difference, here's my informed prediction: the race will end in a dead heat. A new election will be ordered. And Hawkeye, the old Glens Falls pro hockey mascot, will stun pundits by winning a write-in campaign.
So please keep your predictions to yourself until all the votes be counted, at least the ones not challenged by the two campaigns.
The reason these predictions are not just annoying and self-serving but potentially dangerous is this: the last thing we need are the partisans pushing for one of the candidates to bow out with a very narrow deficit and thousands of votes left to be counted.
Republicans tried that tactic in 2000 and Democrats spend the following eight years paralyzed with bitterness about it. It wasn't healthy for anyone.
21 comments:
The daily updates have become nauseating. I just want it be over!
Why it is never too soon to start a campaign post-mortem. Besides, the special election is as close to economic stimulus as we in the babbling class will get. Plus of all, it hones our skills for a career migration into carnival sideshow fortune-tellers. So have a little mercy.
This seems a pretty hostile post. Just because I voted for Tedisco doesn't mean I have been spinning for him. That implies dishonesty. I made an inaccurate prediction the day after the election, but I fail to see why there's something shameful about that. I didn't call for anyone to drop out. I have, as you are perfectly well aware, been highly critical of the Tedisco campaign. So why do you say I am "spinning" for him?
Bob,
It is a hostile post because I am pretty tired of reading these annoying predictions on the blogosphere and elsewhere on a daily basis.
What bothers me is not just the fact of these predictions or even whether the guesses are right or wrong but the self-assured in which so many of them are made.
You did not call for anyone to drop out. Will Doolittle, though not explicitly, implied it.
Perhaps, I should've referred to partisan advocacy rather than spinning. I don't know. The point is that the supporters of the candidates can no longer influence vote casting (and hopefully not vote counting).
And this barrage of predictions is not only annoying and pointless, but really boring. You can only read the same thing so many times before you get tired of it.
A little late on this (less flippant) response to the post, but I think it's a worthwhile discussion.
This post-election, pre-result back and forth is not entirely without purpose. From my vantage point, as close as the contest was the morning after the poll, the subsequent count of the absentee ballots show a convincing trend toward Murphy. When the count gets to a point (which it now has) where the only chance for Tedisco to win is if the GOP lawyers ineptly challenged and impounded a massively disproportionate number of pro-Tedisco ballots, or if they succeed in overturning a long-standing democratic tradition in this state (which heretofore they have not had a problem with), then the election should end. Tedisco and the GOP seem, for whatever reasons, to be prolonging the ordeal to the last court gavel at the expense of district representation.
While I believe in counting every legitimate vote, I also believe in mathematic probability and, superseding both of these, the importance of unimpeded Congressional representation. If the GOP has lost this race and knows it, but choose to hold on for political purposes (as I suspect), there is no reason interested parties should not call them to task and exert all public pressure to get them to quit.
Waiting for the count of each and every vote (past a reasonable threshold of probable outcome) to declare a winner seems an unnecessarily fundamentalist position.
My opinion, at least.
I don't think my blog is about partisan advocacy any more than your blog is. You, too, sometimes say which way you're going to vote, but I don't think that makes you a partisan hack and your entries "annoying," "pointless" and "really boring." I made one prediction about how I thought the election was "likely" to turn out, then reversed it, i.e. I now, like others, am predicting Murphy will win, even though the litigation is not over and it could conceivably go the other way. Do you disapprove of that prediction, too?
Bob: My blog is almost entirely about commentary and opinion, including at times electoral advocacy. I make no bones about that.
That's not the problem. Your blog has been All Tedisco All The Time since the race started and I haven't criticized that before and I'm not criticizing that here. It's your blog and if you want to do that, that's fine.
That's also not the point. My point is about these stupid, pointless predictions. My blog may be almost entirely opinion, but I haven't once made a pointless prediction about this race.
And no, I am not any more impressed by your prediction for Murphy than I was of your prediction for Tedisco. If anything, the flip flop illustrates how pointless the predictions are. If they're constantly changing, what value do they have? Your prediction will be right. But which one?
There are a lot of serious issues going on in New York. A controversial budget and the spending and tax choices contained therein. Gay marriage. Property taxes. These issues are a lot more important to me than which Congressman with no ideas and no power (one would be in the minority, the other has made it clear he'll just take orders from his party leadership) ultimately gets to serve 3/4 (or less) of his term.
The election is important too but if there's nothing newsworthy to write about in a day, then I'd rather commentators talk about some of these other important issues rather than the pointless predictions.
Until the election is over, I'm focusing my time more on blogs that put talk about these different issues in a proportion that I agree with. News first, informed analysis and discussion second, stupid predictions not at all.
People are free to do what they want but I'm going to start voting with my eyeballs.
Mark W,
As someone who's voted via absentee ballot several times (including last year due to an injury), I take exception to the implication that we should forget absentees and just use some sort of statistical model to distribute those votes. Surely that's not what you mean?
Last I heard, the candidates are separated by 150 votes with, I believe, thousands to be counted. And I'm not even talking about the challenged votes. It's insanely premature to declare a winner or push for that to happen.
I agree with the idea of a reasonable time frame to decide which ballots are "legal" and which aren't. But until that happens, I want the process to be allowed to play out.
Speaking as a frequent absentee voter, I share your pain. I hate the thought that by the time my vote is logged, most races are not only statistically over, but the losers have long-since conceded and moved along. Unfortunately, that is the reality of statistics, demographics and politics.
Dislike for the science of demography does not make it illegitimate. Each of us, no matter how idiosyncratic and unique we may believe ourselves to be, can be (and are regularly) reduced to bundles of statistics and vectors that become increasingly accurate as the field develops. Unlike many scientific pursuits, there is a hell of a lot of money to be made in this field which has fed its development and innovation.
Naturally, there will always be scientific margin of error, which is not at issue here. Races such as Florida 2000 (.0092% margin) or Minnesota 2008 (.0075% margin) were genuine toss-ups.
Even with the inherent confusions of a 10-county CD, this race at .17% margin after the unchallenged absentee votes have been counted (bearing in mind that the nature and comparative number of the challenges heavily skew those numbers in favor of Murphy) is eminently predictable.
Given the nature of this election--filling a vacant seat in the middle of an important Congressional session--any conscientious observer must draw a line somewhere to prevent an unnecessarily drawn-out period of non-representation.
Consequently, I feel public pressure is a legitimate response to prevarication.
Mark, as someone with a bachelor's degree in math and a concentration in statistics, I'm keenly aware of both the value and limitations of statistical analysis.
This is why once all the guessing (polling) is done, we have an actual vote of the citizenry where everyone is supposed to be heard, not just a tiny sample.
As I'm sure you've noticed, most polls have margins of error somewhere in the neighborhood of 3-5 pct., significantly higher than 0.17 pct.
This is why I don't think we should just ignore absentee and challenged ballots and allocate them based on an inherently imperfect statistical model.
Statistical models are good at giving you a general idea. But when the races are razor thin, even the tiniest variation from the inherently imperfect human devised statistical model can swing the race the other way.
As I pointed out earlier, if Tedisco got 50.1 pct of the absentees, he'd lose. If he got 50.2 pct, he'd win. That's how tiny the variation needs to be to change the result.
Of course, the line must be drawn somewhere. I just think you're drawing it way too early. No one wants it to reach Minnesota length, but the absentees were due not even a week ago.
And furthermore, my comments were premised on my belief that the unchallenged absentees hadn't ALL been counted. Is that premise incorrect?
As of Friday afternoon all unchallenged ballots have been counted.
Tedisco, whose camp has challenged more ballots than Murphy, is relying on having a judge accept challenges to absentee ballots from 2nd homeowners (I always assumed this group encompassed wealthy property tax protesters and skewed Republican. Apparently not so down in Columbia and Dutchess), and throw them out. This amounts to an after-the-fact rules change. Granted, this little side drama will not last long. Nor will the effort to extend the deadline for return of military absentee votes. But at the same time, I do not for a second believe that the GOP believes that anything short of disenfranchisement will turn the tide of this election (internal polling is more precise and predictive than the publicly-released ones). That they should—for whatever reason—continue this tactic strikes me as cynical and/or hypocritical for a party which promotes its reverence for the democratic process.
This is why I have no problem shedding light on their actions throughout the counting process: Acceptable tactics for future election cycles are being tested here.
Mark,
According to what I've read, Warren and another county (can't remember which) still have not finished counting unchallenged absentees and will do so on Monday.
I don't have a problem with mandating some sort of time frame to deal with challenged ballots and other complaints, say a week or two. But I do think the process should be allowed to play itself out within whatever that time frame may be.
My mistake. I was going by the chart at the state board of elections website which indicates that all absentee ballots including military had been counted as of 4PM Friday.
I am not seeking to "impress" you with predictions which I rarely make, and if you find my blog "stupid" and "pointless," feel free not to read it. The point, which you failed to address, is that in a race like this everyone makes a prediction at some point, or else waits until the last judge rules on the last ballot, which does not strike me as useful.
At least you haven't accused me of "vile bigotry" as you did the pope in a recent headline, so maybe I should count myself lucky. I find such abuse a lot closer to the unsupported hostility engaged in by the Tedisco and Murphy camps than the "informed analysis and discussion" you say you aspire to.
Yet another molehill transformed into a mountain...
(sigh)
"I am not seeking to "impress" you with predictions which I rarely make"
You asked me if I "disapprove(d)" of your Murphy prediction and I answered your question.
If you're not interested in my opinion, then don't ask it.
"if you find my blog "stupid" and "pointless," feel free not to read it. "
Probably in vain but I will ask you this. If you're going to get upset about my comments, please at least do so in context.
I did not call your blog in general stupid and pointless. I did not even mention you or your blog by name and only linked to one single article.
And even that minimality did not single you out as I linked to two other sources doing the same thing.
What I did call stupid and pointless was the post-election day predictions, particularly their frequency which, in many places, has taken over discussion of other issues.
Guess what? If you're free to criticize or otherwise comment about my entries, as you often have without objection from me, then I'm free to do so about yours. That's the way it works.
Yes, I do realize you are following the herd with these predictions. I was not criticizing you or your blog uniquely; I didn't even name you or your blog. The post was criticizing that herd.
As for your smokescreen in invoking my criticism of the Pope's anti-gay comments, you are free to further explain your disagreement (which you have chosen not to do), but please do so on the entry in question.
The difference is that I do not insult you with words like spinner, stupid, pointless, as you feel free to do with me (without in my view backing them up, or answering the points I have raised such as the necessity for anyone writing about this race at some point to make a prediction about who will win it). But since you are a fairly young contrarian,I am hopeful that you will in time come to better discern the value of civil discourse.
I would certainly be grateful for models to help me "discern the value of civil discourse." If you start to lead the way, I'd be happy to follow.
"The difference is that I do not insult you with words like spinner, stupid, pointless, as you feel free to do with me"
This is a general comment, personalizing it and then whipping up indignant outrage about it, implying I'm targeting poor you and you alone. Is this part of the "civil discourse" you're lecturing me on?
Frankly, I find it insulting that you take my comments out of context and then get unreasonably upset about your own misinterpretation. This is not the first time I've been absolutely baffled but what you've chosen to get outraged about. It's never the things I would expect.
This infuriates me even more than if you'd called me a moron because, as someone who's older and apparently wiser, you ought to know better.
I expect to have my comments taken out of context to whip up indignant outrage when I go to an online political forum because that's the culture of most. But you're not a partisan boor (or bore) and I expect better of you.
I find your lecture astonishing coming from someone who regularly peppers his own blog with complaints about "sleazy negative campaigns," "parroting (a) tired, nonsensical line" and "disingenuous ads" (all that in just one paragraph of one entry).
I'd love to know how sleazy, nonsensical, parroting and disingenuous constitute "civil discourse" in a way that stupid, pointless and spinning do not. Perhaps the gravity on Planet Albany is different than here. I don't know.
I have answered your points. Whether you accept them or not is another matter.
It's much like the way you've explained why you feel compelled to make the predictions. I find your explanation pretty uncompelling* but I have the decency to acknowledge that you've given one.
(*-Can I say 'uncompelling' or is that too insulting? I know you have different standards for your critics than for yourself so you'll have to guide me.)
In any case, for someone with such a sharp tongue, you show a surprisingly thin skin.
Actually, you have not backed up the words self-serving, stupid, pointless, spinning or partisan advocacy, all of which you applied to my blog along with others. I have not taken these words out of context. Words have meanings. Spinning, for example (the word that first got my attention) is what campaign workers do after a debate, saying their candidate won no matter what. I said Tedisco lost the first debate, and when his campaign said he hit a home run there, I said they were in denial. That's telling the truth, not spinning or partisan advocacy. None of the critical terms you just quoted from my blog was applied to you, and I am prepared to defend them all (although doing so hardly seems relevant and would take us far afield). I do not think your defense of the terms you applied to me is adequate, but am prepared to overlook your youthful enthusiasm.
You are obviously not "prepared to overlook your youthful enthusiasm" as you keep dragging this out.
After one entry, seven comments and hundreds of words, it is clear that you are reading only the parts you want to read. I'm not going to repeat myself yet again, for example, the difference between predictions being stupid and pointless and your blog as a whole being that way. I've shown patience to my elder but it's not infinite.
I do like how your commentary is "telling the truth," but mine is "insulting."
I also like how your "defense" of your insulting comments is essentially that you're not directing them at me so it's ok.
And I'm rather astonished that you don't recognize that your constant writing (not simply voting for him) about Tedisco, his strategies, his allies is as advocacy on his behalf. You infer this description as some grotesque insult. Is it because you're looking to be offended? I don't know. Far from being anything wrong with that, I think advocating for your candidate is the essence of how democracy is supposed to work. I advocated for Sundwall. Others advocated for their candidates. Why do you see this as an epithet?
I just think that making predictions after the votes have already been cast is pointless because there are no voters left to influence. It achieves no objective (unless you've placed a gambling wager on it), isn't even mildly entertaining (tiresome actually) and is anything but a "necessity," as you called it. Why not make a prediction on last week's Red Sox game?
You can do what you want but if you can criticize my opinions, then I can criticize yours. You can do what you wish but I'm allowed to "tell the truth" too. Or does respecting your elders (you're the one who keeps bringing age into this) mean giving them a free pass?
I will concede one point. While your blog does lately write about Tedisco 90+ of the time, I accept that you are not really spinning in the traditional sense. I retract that description and have removed said reference from this entry.
Still, I think it's remarkable that, if my young memory serves correct, you've never left one single positive comment about any entry I've written on this blog. But when I disagree with one thing you write, you become easily wounded and hypersensitive. If you want to lecture me about civil discourse, feel free to lead by example. Double standards aren't becoming of someone your age and wisdom.
Good day.
Allow me to clarify. I am not 100 percent certain that post-election day predictions are pointless, but I hope and pray that they are so.
It's a rather frightening prospect to contemplate the possibility that judicial rulings on challenged ballots might be guided by blogosphere predictions rather than by electoral law.
Ok, I've tried explaining this before but here's something that just came to mind and this is my last attempt. Maybe the fact that it's a sports analogy might help.
Let's say you're watching a football game with a bunch of people and a controversial play gets reviewed by instant replay. As you're watching the replay on television, it's not uncommon for people to shout out "catch" or "no catch" (or whatever). The ref at the stadium isn't going to be influenced by what the fans at home are shouting at their screens. He's going to make his decision based on what he sees happen and the laws of the game. The shouting of predictions may be harmless and may help bored people pass the time, but other than that, there is no point. It may be a release for enthusiastic partisans to do this, but it's certainly not a "necessity."
Furthermore, these predictions may not be a big deal made once. But if a few people keep shouting their predictions frequently or constantly throughout the review, it's likely get annoying for the others. Now imagine that the instant replay review lasts not a few minutes but weeks on end and that you hear some people make the same predictions over and over and others change their mind. Imagine that some of the fans are so single-minded in their focus that they become completely oblivious to everything else going on in the football world (for example, whether their favorite team spends ticket and TV revenues on raising the salary of the front office staff rather than on good players).
This is where I'm coming from.
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