Berkeley prof. seeks vacation houses in Napa Valley and Palm Beach

Gee, I hate to bring this up again...

Blogger Chris Bowers at MyDD perhaps is the best example of how clueless some bloggers really are about politics.

Last summer, he penned a piece, "DCCC Not Aggressive Enough," in which he complained about his party's House campaign committee. Now, in a two-part series called "Taking Back the House," he insists "we need to attack everywhere."

"I want 80 serious challenges to GOP House incumbents every two years and a Democratic name on the ballot in all 435 districts," he demands. "I have had enough of just targeting the twenty or so top races - let's engage in a full-frontal assault. ... The first step is to identify eighty Republicans against who we could mount a serious challenge."

It is undeniably true that you can't defeat an incumbent if you don't run someone against him. So, yes, it's better for a party to field candidates in 435 districts, if possible.

But some Republicans didn't have Democratic opponents because they were unbeatable, and no Democrat wanted to waste his or her time (to say nothing about money) by running. You can't make a race competitive simply by putting a name on the ballot, and the Democrats would not hold even a single additional seat had they put a name on the ballot in every district during the past two cycles [...]

As for Bowers' assertion that he wants "80 serious challenges" to GOP incumbents next year, he might as well ask for 120 or 150. I want vacation houses in Napa Valley and Palm Beach, and I'd like to be 35 years old again. "If wishes were horses, beggars might ride," as the English proverb puts it.

But it's just too hard to resist, now that there's a new "clueless" kid in town:

"How’d we do? Not bad. Not bad at all," Rothenberg wrote in his Nov. 29 newsletter, the Rothenberg Political Report. He predicted that Democrats would gain six Senate seats, which they did, and 30 to 36 House seats (they won 29).  

But even legendary bookies are second-guessed. University of California-Berkeley political scientist Bruce Cain and his students at Berkeley’s D.C.-based program argue in a new study that the top political seers’ claims of accuracy are a bit inflated.

The study has infuriated the small but elite community of election prognosticators — Cook, Rothenberg, University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato and the political team at Congressional Quarterly — who have cried foul, citing flawed methodology and a deep misunderstanding of their jobs. Cook even called Cain "clueless."

What's all the hubbub, bub?

Well, seems Cain took a closer look at the prognosticators' craft, but not just at the overall numbers. Cain took his glass to the individual races, and to the overall methodology, too. After evaluating the predictions made in races the various pundits actually called, he pointed at something that's apparently a bit of a sore spot, though I'm not sure why:

[I]t is Cain’s criticism that the forecasters inflate their claims of accuracy by not predicting races placed in the "toss up" category that created the biggest uproar. Cook put 20 of the 29 seats that flipped in the "pure toss up" category, where he offered no predictions. Rothenberg, Sabato and CQ placed 11, 13 and 12 seats, respectively, in a similar category and offered no predictions.

"[If] you are trying to predict the total number of seats that would swing from the Republicans to the Democrats, the flipped seat totals are the key statistic," Cain wrote.

Now, nobody's saying that the predictions business is an easy one. And both Cook and Rothenberg provide reasonable defenses for the way they do their jobs. They're not in the business, they say, of predicting precisely which races will come out which way. Rather, they're in the business of rating the competitiveness of each race.

Which is a valuable service, no doubt.

Valuable enough, in fact, that they probably shouldn't be as disturbed by the fact that they didn't absolutely, positively nail it, each and every time. That, as they correctly argue, wasn't the point.

(Still true, though. And therefore worth pointing out, regardless.)

But look again at Rothenberg's jab at Bowers. Chris is "clueless" because he wants to see more serious challenges mounted, and a Democrat on the ballot in every district. Stu replies:

You can't make a race competitive simply by putting a name on the ballot, and the Democrats would not hold even a single additional seat had they put a name on the ballot in every district during the past two cycles.

Now consider the "defense" Rothenberg and Cook offer to Cain's criticism: that they're in the business of evaluating what's happening, not making predictions about what might happen.

What, exactly, was the point of Bowers' strategy? Well, among other things, it was that if you can't predict exactly where things will happen, but think the conditions are right for something to happen, then it pays to be everywhere you can be. To be sure, there was more to it than just that, most notably the hard-to-deny reality that mounting challenges to Republican leaders keeps them close to home, and out of the fundraising business. And really, these two strategies go hand in hand. Investing in the latter creates more favorable conditions for the former.

But beyond the question of whether or not the Bowers-backed strategy was effective, there's another question.

If your job isn't to make predictions, but rather to evaluate the results of objective reality on the ground, then what business have you in evaluating strategies aimed at changing those realities?

Maybe Rothenberg was just talking out of school.