Legal Commentary

More On Pundits Bloviate, Voters Decide

By Big Tent Democrat

By Big Tent Democrat

Via Glenn Reynolds and PW, Jay Cost of RCP explains that pundits bloviate and voters decide:

I agree that Clinton is more likely to lose than win. I also do not necessarily disagree with these low estimates. However, I disagree with the way these estimates are occasionally presented. There is sometimes an implication that these are precise predictions - when in fact a prediction like this must be very imprecise. This is why I was so vague in offering my own estimate last week.

There are reasons to expect imprecision in this kind of situation. Precision depends in part on the number of variable factors that create that which we are predicting. The more things that must happen for the prediction to come true, the less precise it is. . . . We can make a prediction of what will happen, and we should predict that Obama is more likely to win than Clinton. However, there are so many factors that will go into who wins the nomination that speaking more precisely than this becomes quite problematic.

Exactly.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on March 27, 2008 (boomark / email).