Primary whiffs

Jim Newell's rundown of bad presidential nomination forecasts is a bit dickish, but quite funny. Unsurprisingly, I take some issue with his attack on political scientists, mainly Jonathan Bernstein, for thinking Tim Pawlenty had a better shot than was generally acknowledged.

Newell treats pretty much every wrong prediction as equally wrong. And fine, if you make a prediction, you take a chance at being ridiculed, even if your candidate "should" have won. But Pawlenty was a serious player -- a governor with conservative credentials from a moderate state. That's just the sort of person that often gets nominated! Saying a Pawlenty prediction is no better than a Bachmann or a Trump prediction is like saying that predicting the Broncos to win the last Superbowl was no better than predicting the Calabasas High JV Coyotes to win it. One had a legitimate shot. The other never did.