Nate Silver emotionally snaps (Hey, buddy, I've been there)

Nate Silver, in his long suffering the frustrations of the logically damned, finally snaps:

What I find confounding about this ['tossup' dispute] is that the argument we’re making is exceedingly simple. Here it is:

Obama’s ahead in Ohio.

I love it.

I recall once writing a roughly 600-word column--consisting only of the same five words, repeated over and over--during the raging "public option" conflagration. For weeks I had defended, by way of a straightforward explanation, Obama's ultimate choice to cut the public option loose. He simply didn't possess the necessary votes in the Senate. That much was clear--absolutely clear. So, he could go forward with what he did have, or there would be no healthcare reform at all. Many readers, however, would have nothing to do with this "argument"; Obama, they said, should just fight, fight, fight for the public option, which, somehow, would magically make it so.

As stated, for weeks I argued in this way and then in that way, and then again in some other way, that President Obama had hit a legislative wall. Yet nothing, nothing I wrote seemed to get through to the above readers. So in utter frustration I one day just sat down and wrote, "Obama doesn't have the votes." Period. Then I reversed the sentence. Period. Then I scrambled the five words. Period. Then I capitalized one particular word component but not others--period--and then I italicized particular word components--period--but, essentially, the sentence always read the same: "Obama doesn't have the votes."

The entire column.

(By the way, it didn't help. Readers persisted in calling for Obama to just fight, fight, fight for the public option, and in calling me a corporate shill.)

My sympathies to you, Nate.

Comments

[Susan M.]

Nate Silver has kept me sane this election season. That and the Daily Show and Colbert Report, and sometimes Rachel Maddow, but only on good Obama news days.

[Peter G]

We've all been there. The progressive left has many fine people with noble ambitions or at least reasonable desires when it comes to social spending and programs. They also have a lot of people who have not the slightest clue about the American political system or how it works. They are, naturally, among the most strident and demanding and unforgiving of people who claim to be politically engaged. Personally, when I have had enough of stupidity, I resort to a standard argument which begins: Permit this Canadian to explain to you how your political system works. The rest is irrelevant because they never get past the first line. It is surprising how many committed lefties abandon their belief in the first amendment of your constitution, particularly the part about free speech, when so challenged. At CrooksandLiars, where they allow you to put people on ignore, it's like counting coup. It keeps track of idiots for you. Very convenient.

[shsavage]

The math makes it exceedingly difficult for Romney to win Ohio, given the percentage of people who have already voted, and the overwhelming lead Obama has among them. Romney would have to poll more than ten percentage points higher than the split that currently exists among the percentage of Ohioans who haven't yet voted. It's possible, but quite unlikely. Combine that with a single additional swing state (and Obama leads in all but one) and you have more than 270 electoral votes for Obama.

[Robert Lipscomb]

Firmly into 5 to 1 territory now.

http://www.oddschecker.com/specials/politics-and-election/us-presidential-election/winner

[Robert Lipscomb]

Obama is taking Romney (as we say in the south) "like Grant took Richmond."

[shsavage]

Well Robert, I prefer "Like Sherman took Atlanta" but Grant will do...

[AnneJ]

And my apologies to you, PM if I were one of those readers. But thank you for keeping my spirits up this election season. I don't know how I could have maintained my tenuous grip on reality without you.

[samcdc]

Robert and SH: I once wrote to then GA Congressman Bob Barr threatening to find a way to rename Atlanta Hartsfield "William Tecumseh Sherman" in retaliation for his defamation of Washington National by adding Ronnie Raygun's name to it. Then Maynard Jackson screwed up that idea with his untimely demise.

As to the "Public Option": That was my divorce from the fake progressives. Never could anyone in their ranting explain to me how you can be progressive while decrying progress. What in the definition of progress skips the process of movement toward a goal, imagining instead that progressing toward a goal and arriving at that goal are synonymous?

But when it became clear that the "public option" was not going to be in the final bill, some of those who made sure it would not be there, started a meaningless petition among Senators to stick it in at the end. Even that joke of an effort could not garner the signatures of even half the Senators. Forget that it would take 60 of them to insert anything in the bill. Unfortunately, to this day, if you go to some self-proclaimed (or is it self-delusional) "progressive" websites, you'll find the same strident group screaming "failure" because, I guess, progress doesn't mean progress.

[Chris Andersen]

There came a point during the healthcare debate where I realized that the fundamental disconnect on the left with regard to Obama was that those who hated Obamacare hated it because it didn't destroy the insurance companies. Their beef was that it wasn't anti-corporate.

The fact that it might help some people in need was irrelevant to the larger struggle to defeat the corporate interests.