Slate’s Dave Weigel puts himself through the paces of a self-audit: What did he get right and wrong in a year seemingly full of twists and turns (but not really, when you think about it)? Since I think it should a best practice for pundits, I thought I’d undergo the process myself.
My first two posts of the year argued that 1) Mitt Romney was “unbeatable” as a primary candidate—being not-well-liked was actually a strength, as he couldn’t be knocked off of a pedestal he wasn’t standing on. And 2) the Iowa Caucus returns spelled trouble for the GOP. Romney didn’t outperform his tally in the 2008 caucuses, and overall turnout was underwhelming.
Romney, for his part, does well among wealthy, older voters. Tonight’s results are mildly troubling for Romney—but more than mildly troubling for the GOP long-term. The party appeals mostly to a segment of the country that’s literally dying.
Score!
Later I argued that Republicans were crazy to feel relieved that Bain Capital had become an issue in the primary—the better to clear the decks for the general-election battle:
I don’t believe the Bain Stuff is nearly as explosive as the [Jeremiah ]Wright Stuff, but it has the potential nonetheless of doing real damage to Romney at the all-important margins: among independents and working-class Republicans in economically depressed states. …
For a solid week, Romney pitched himself as the very embodiment of free enterprise. The doyens of market fundamentalism, from Rush Limbaugh to the Club for Growth, cursed Gingrich for his apostasy. And yet, if Rasmussen’s data is right, Republicans are still signaling that they’re unmoved.
And if they’re unmoved, imagine how the rest of the electorate will react to Obama’s tweaking of Romney’s master-of-the-universe status.
“Capitalism. Shut up” did indeed prove to be a terrible strategy for mitigating the Bain pain. Another score, if I say so myself.
At the risk of sounding like a one-note billy, I believe Republican strategists have wildly overestimated Romney’s “electability.” Not only is it true that his background in high finance is easily caricatured; it’s that he seems, with alarming regularity, to confirm the worst aspects of this caricature with his own ill-chosen words.
His efforts to vicariously “feel pain,” Clinton-style, have been chronically inept. (See “I’m also unemployed,” for example.) He is not naturally gifted at politicking, and so he overcompensates in ways that are downright painful to watch. (See his rendition of “America the Beautiful,” for example.)
The Romney campaign thus far has managed to produce a hapless icon—a cross between Henry F. Potter and Lee Greenwood.
I tried to sound an alarm over 1) Romney’s across-the-board tax-cut proposal, predicting it would be an “electoral dead-ender and a fiscal train wreck waiting to happen”; and 2) the Romney campaign’s astonishing boast that it was doing well in urban Ohio.
On the negative side of the ledger:
I foolishly bought into the hype that Romney was “shoring up the base.” I should have stuck with my earlier hunch that Romney’s “floor” of support wouldn’t look that much different from his “ceiling”—which more or less turned out to be the case.
My biggest boo-boo was accepting the conventional wisdom that Obamacare would be struck down by the Supreme Court—one more dead weight to bury the “incredible shrinking Obama legacy.” D’oh!
I tried gamely to keep Romney’s post-debate surge in perspective, but I’ll admit I did briefly go wobbly on my longstanding prediction that Obama would defeat Romney.
Finally, to close out 2012, I was waaaay too optimistic about the prospects for a quick resolution of the “fiscal cliff.”
In toto, I think my soothsaying was more accurate than not in this, my first year at TAC. I hope, readers, that you’ve enjoyed the ride as much as I have.
Happy New Year!
TomB 
Thanks for this. Frankly, I think that while the self-audit is laudable – at the very least, for keeping oneself honest, or perhaps even humble – it is not entirely necessary if the basics of analytics are there.
I’m in the midst of marking papers right now. I have told my students, from day one, that the answer they arrive at is not nearly as important as how they get there; this is how I approach the jurisprudence I teach as well. Of course, this is not entirely accurate – if the analysis is sound, the range of possible answers is limited, and there really are incorrect answers to specific problems. But, really, the point of the exercise for them is to demonstrate that they have absorbed sound analytical techniques and that they can apply these to whatever issue that is put before them.
And so it is with the analysis and writing here at TAC. For the most part – Rod on “religious freedom” excepted – you guys (and you are mostly guys – need to do something about that) approach issues from a perspective (and not an ideology) using sound analytical techniques (that is, by and large not result driven).
As with Nate Silver’s modelling, and indeed with any sort of analysis, you could be wrong from time to time. That is to be expected and is certainly not a reason for self-mortification. That you have been proven right in gross is, in this sense, merely the cherry on top.
Keep up the good work.