Posted 12:12 PM by Robert

It's The Sea-change That Brings In The Tide

Since at least October 22 the Man Without Qualities has argued that predictions that this election would not result in major change were probably seriously wrong.

Those observations were extended on October 26 and October 29 and October 30 and November 2 and November 3 and early election eve.

In a related matter, on October 26 the Man Without Qualities also pointed out that Mondale was weak and that the Minnesota situation was not comparable to Carnahan while the conventional wisdom almost unanimously deemed Mondale a sure winner. This observation was extended on October 27. By October 29 some "clearer thinking" was said to have brought some pundits around to the view of the MWQ, and on that same date MWQ predicted the vulgar Wellstone Memorial would probably backfire.

On the other hand, Bill Simon was just too inept to take advantage of all the structural advantages he had in California, and which I thought he - or at least his later, more competent campaign team - would be able to exploit to far greater advantage than actually turned out to be the case.