How Pwonkies Make It Sound Like They Know It All: Ignore History
Politicians aren't the only folks who like to change history in order to justify what they say in the present. Pwonkies (political wonks) are also guilty. Here's an example from Stuart Rothenberg posted on RealClearPolitics, February 05, 2007 (italics mine):
So what gives?
Those of us who live in Minnesota and who witness the political scene firsthand — especially blogs like A Bluestem Prairie, Minnesota Central, MNPublius, Minnesota Campaign Report, Evil Bobby and others — view this part of the world as people not numbers or neat little pigeonholes. Yes, numbers do count, and yes, assumptions can be made, but they don't tell the whole story; they only give an inkling.
That said, at least we can credit Mr. Rothenberg for being one of the few pwonkies to actually predict — albeit late in the campaign — that Minnesota's CD 1 had a chance of going over to the Democrats. For example, he departed from most of his fellow analysts by moving the Gutknecht-Walz contest from "Republican favored" to "lean Republican" in his October 20th Report, and then to "pure toss-up" right before the election on November 2nd.
But in the end run, CD 1 turned out not to be a toss-up at all as Mr. Walz won by nearly 6%. So there you are, folks: If you want to know the truth, the closer you get to the source, the better off you're going to be. Let's hope that the pwonkies in Washington remember this 18 months from now.
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*NOTE: The author was the DFL candidate in 2004.
Former Republican Congressmen Charles Bass (N.H.), Jeb Bradley (N.H.), Michael Fitzpatrick (Pa.), Gil Gutknecht (Minn.), Nancy Johnson (Conn.), Sue Kelly (N.Y.), Jim Leach (Iowa), Anne Northup (Ky.), Rob Simmons (Conn.) and Clay Shaw (Fla.) didn’t lose [in 2006] because they were terrible candidates. They lost because they were in marginal seats or in districts carried by Al Gore in 2000 and Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) in 2004.Here are the facts: George Bush carried Gil Gutknecht's Congressional District by 2% in 2000 and 4% in 2004. Gutknecht himself took the district by 15% in 2000, 27% in 2002 and 24% in 2004.* So obviously Gutknecht, who was first elected in 1994, was not a terrible candidate, nor was he in a marginal seat, nor was he in a district carried by Gore or Kerry.
So what gives?
Those of us who live in Minnesota and who witness the political scene firsthand — especially blogs like A Bluestem Prairie, Minnesota Central, MNPublius, Minnesota Campaign Report, Evil Bobby and others — view this part of the world as people not numbers or neat little pigeonholes. Yes, numbers do count, and yes, assumptions can be made, but they don't tell the whole story; they only give an inkling.
That said, at least we can credit Mr. Rothenberg for being one of the few pwonkies to actually predict — albeit late in the campaign — that Minnesota's CD 1 had a chance of going over to the Democrats. For example, he departed from most of his fellow analysts by moving the Gutknecht-Walz contest from "Republican favored" to "lean Republican" in his October 20th Report, and then to "pure toss-up" right before the election on November 2nd.
But in the end run, CD 1 turned out not to be a toss-up at all as Mr. Walz won by nearly 6%. So there you are, folks: If you want to know the truth, the closer you get to the source, the better off you're going to be. Let's hope that the pwonkies in Washington remember this 18 months from now.
___________________
*NOTE: The author was the DFL candidate in 2004.
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1 Comments:
Rothenberg may not have called this race until it was late, but that did not mean that Gutknecht didn’t know he was in trouble.
We learned from the film, All the President’s Men, “follow the money. FYI- it’s a Hollywood quote that does not appear in the book.
Gutknecht spent $1,723,707 to defend his seat while leaving $1,184 left in his treasury – and almost $440,000 more than Walz. Compare that to the previous election, where he spent $666,410 and left $360,410 that was used against Walz. So he spent almost three times what he had to previously. Pretty pathetic for an incumbent who did not need any name/image building machine.
At least Gutknecht was smart enough to try to spend all his money unlike JD Hayworth who also lost his seat and left $201,130 in his treasury or Jim Ryan who left $115,457.
All that money and it still did not help. Gil, and other fiscal conservatives, got beat because they failed to address the issues that got them elected in prior elections – deficit spending, earmarks and lobbying influenced corruption.
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