John F. Harris, editor-in-chief of
Politico,
writes about the "dark art" of political punditry:
A lot of what political journalists write as we try to divine larger meaning from election results involves a whiff of bovine byproducts.
The "bovine byproduct" he references is often abbreviated as B.S. Harris later adds in a much more serious tone:
Elections have become grievance derbies: Which party can do a better job of fomenting disgust toward the opposition and mobilizing turnout of sympathetic voters, often by exploiting whatever transient controversies are in the news at a particular moment? This is an inherently unstable climate—one ill-suited to long-term forecasting.
I wish Harris sounded less like a Democrat trying to explain the 2014 election outcomes. That doesn't make him wrong, just suspect. Harris also defends the existence of places like Politico:
Having reasonably intelligent and fair-minded people work hard thinking and talking about politics with intensity, often over many years and election cycles, is good for something. The fact that understanding is frail and fragmentary doesn’t discredit sincere efforts at understanding.
COTTonLINE makes that effort too, and honors it at
Politico.
