The Dreamwork of Humanity

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Live from the Roasterie: It is very interesting: now that Nate Silver is no longer writing for the New York Times, the incompetents within the DC media bubble no longer feel that they have to respond to his calm, reasoned pointing-out that they have no clothes at all. The Halperins, the Milbanks, the Montgomerys, etc. are back in their groove, spouting their rapidly-changing-horse-race bullshit, unashamed and unmoved:

: The Media Underestimated Hillary Clinton, But Overestimated Her Debate: "I suggested the media was likely to emerge with one of two narratives about...Hillary Clinton...

...mounting a comeback, or she was in a downward spiral. ‘It may not take all that much,’ I wrote, ‘for the media to choose one narrative over another and then find all sorts of ‘evidence’ to reinforce it.’...

Clinton gave about the performance that might reasonably have been expected from a frontrunner who gained a ton of experience... during... 2008 Democratic primary: pretty good. Poised, polished and highly competent at appealing to various segments of the Democratic electorate. But also risk-averse.... The media judged Clinton’s night to be way better than ‘pretty good.’... Van Jones declared Clinton’s performance... ‘flawless’.... Mark Halperin gave Clinton a perfect A. The New York Times.... So you can expect the ‘Clinton comeback’ narrative to prevail over the ‘Clinton in disarray’ narrative....

The difference between FiveThirtyEight’s view of the debate and Mark Halperin’s or The New York Times’ is that we’ve been skeptical of the ‘Clinton in disarray’ narrative.... Clinton’s nomination isn’t ‘inevitable,’ [but] she has a lot... going for her... the Democratic establishment, high favorability ratings among Democrats... a solid lead in national polls.... Nor are her opponents in much of a position to topple her.... Declaring a ‘Clinton comeback’ is a bit like declaring Tom Brady or LeBron James to be the comeback player of the year. Clinton didn’t have anything to come back from; she was winning the nomination race before last night’s debate--by a lot.

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