Showing posts with label Mea Culpa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mea Culpa. Show all posts

Monday, April 17, 2017

Six pundits and one poll that got the election right and what they've said since - seriously & literally.

 They got it right. 
Let's get this out of the way: The Dividist got the 2016 Presidential election wrong. It is not unexpected for the Dividist to advocate for a continuing divided government state and vote. That is, after all, the raison d'etre for this blog. But the Dividist went beyond advocacy in 2016. We confidently predicted that we would continue to see a divided government in 2017 and into the foreseeable future. The Dividist even considered declaring victory and shuttering this blog post-election. We fantasized about triumphantly proclaiming "Our job here is done".  Yeah, that didn't happen. We now have One Party Republican Rule, a Unified Government and the Dividist has work to do.

With the passage of time, and with judicious use of Third Person Plural, the Dividist has created enough distance from the election to get back to work and begin posting again.

Misery loves company. Company is comforting. Who else got it wrong? Besides the Dividist, pretty much everybody:


 They got it wrong. 

The reader may recall that in the closing days of the election the most respected polling analysts in the country were fighting flame wars over whether Clinton had a 71%, 85% or 99% chance of being our next President. In case you didn't notice, she finished with a 0% chance of becoming President. We'll let Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball represent all the failed pundits, pollsters and prognosticators with this straightforward Mea Maxima Culpa:
"We heard for months from many of you, saying that we were underestimating the size of a potential hidden Trump vote and his ability to win. We didn’t believe it, and we were wrong. The Crystal Ball is shattered. We’ll pick up the pieces starting next week as we try to unpack what happened in this election, where there was so much dramatic change from just four years ago. We have a lot to learn, and we must make sure the Crystal Ball never has another year like this. This team expects more of itself, and we apologize to our readers for our errors."
Credit where it is due. Not everybody got it wrong. There were more than a few voices from across the political spectrum that saw the writing on the wall. Those of us who "knew" Trump was going to lose either dismissed or laughed at them when we should have listened. So let us listen to a few notables who got it right. Let's listen to what they said before the election and what they've said since.