The Clairvoyance of Robert Farley

This is all very true. What's more, it points toward a serious objective difficulty with our understanding of electoral politics. The "the major party nominee who lost was obviously deeply flawed" school of election analysis is clearly flawed, but fundamentally the n for presidential elections is so tiny that unless you overinterpret the available data, you wind up not being able to say anything at all. That, in turn, might be a good idea except I have the traffic stats to prove that nothing gets you, the audience, interested in political commentary like a good ol' fashioned presidential campaign. Thus, there will be election-related commentary. "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent" works well if you were "born into one of the most prominent and wealthy families in the Austro-Hungarian empire" but some of us need to work blog for a living.

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http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2008/02/the-clairvoyance-of-robert-farley/48592/