I haven't been dumb enough to offer a prediction this election season, although I long ago said that the economic fundamentals favor Romney, even after the most cynical, hollow campaign I have witnessed since Atwater's destruction of Dukakis. And every hack deserves a break in an election this close. But a few individuals have stood out for the sheer chutzpah of their certainty. If they were managing someone's money and were off by the amount they may be, they would be fired. And this does not count for those simply inferring results from all the polls, state and national. They're not predicting as such, based on their brilliant intuition. They're adding numbers up. If all the numbers are wrong, as so many among the GOP believe, then the pollsters will require a reckoning, not those simply taking them at face value.
But there are a handful whose predictions have been so out there, so beyond polling expectations, they either will deserve rapturous applause or, in my opinion, oblivion, if they are proven wrong. Dick Morris's clear prediction of a Romney 325 Electoral Vote landslide is the most obvious:
It will be the biggest surprise in recent American political history. It will rekindle the whole question on why the media played this race as a nailbiter where in fact Romney’s going to win by quite a bit.
If Obama wins, will Morris be fired by Fox? Markos Moulitsas predicts a similar 332 – 206 landslide for Obama:
Currently, national polling assumes a big drop-off from registered voters to likely voters. I don’t believe that’ll be the case, and we’re certainly not seeing it in the early vote—Democratic turnout is up. And the RV models have been more accurate historically.
Morris's theory is that the media have cooked all the polls, while Moulitsas is focusing on turnout. Morris's conspiracy theory deserves more opprobrium if he is proven wrong, it seems to me. He should be laughed out of the business. But Morris has never really pretended to be a serious analyst.
That's not the case for George Will or Michael Barone, predicting a 321 and 315 Romney electoral college landslide respectively. My own view is that it's too tight in the swing states to know with certainty what the result will be. But I doubt a landslide for either.
Dishheads are invited to go out and find more pundit predictions – on right and left – and help us hold every single one of the landslide-predicters accountable.
(Photo: Dick Morris, former senior advisor to President Clinton, signs copies of his book 'Condi vs. Hillary: The Next Great Presidential Race' October 13, 2005 in Chicago, Illinois. By Scott Harrison/Getty Images. He got that right too, didn't he?)
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