Politics: The 2011 Pundit Audit

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Politics The 2011 Pundit Audit My four dumbest political predictions of the year. By David Weigel Posted Monday, Dec 26, 2011, at 02:50 PM ET For reasons that have never made sense to me, people seem to trust the instincts of political reporters. There's a whole industry—I'm part of it, as an MSNBC contributor—which puts reporters on television to predict what will happen next in situations that involve hundreds or thousands of players and countless unknowable facts. We're not always wrong, but we're wrong enough. In 2010, for the first time, I subjected myself to a round of pundit accountability, paging back through Slate's easily navigable archives to discover what predictions I'd blown. It was horrible, so I decided to do it again. Luckily, I didn't botch as many calls this year. One reason for that was I didn't make as many calls. In 2011, I tried harder to limit my chin-stroking to occasions when I'd reported out the details of something. A month before the special election for Anthony Weiner's seat, I acknowledged polls showing that Democrats could lose it. (No repeat of my 2010 mistake of quoting Democrats who were sure, 100 percent sure, that they'd elect Martha Coakley to the U.S. Senate.) I argued that Republicans "won" the debt limit fight, and I'd stand by that, even if their poll numbers have crumbled since then. No party's going to thrive in 9 percent unemployment; the GOP has extracted massive concessions. No, I only fumbled a few big predictions this year. Here they are. July 27: Rick ... To continue reading, click here. Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum What did you think of this article? POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES Also In Slate Fifteen Years Ago, Ron Paul Wasn't Claiming Somebody Else Wrote His Newsletters The Iron Lady Isn't Just a Terrible Movie About Thatcher—It's Terribly Sexist The Weirdos Who Collect Serial-Killer Memorabilia	Advertisement
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