Mr. Silver reminds me of the one-hit wonders who parlay it into a career.
F. Lee Bailey made it big because of the Sam Sheppard case at the age of 32, and living off that one victory for an entire professional career.
Jeanne Dixon made thousands of predictions, and one about JFK getting assassinated moved her to the front of the pack of celebrity psychics, where she would spend her remaining days making bad predictions for the Star newspaper and spitting out astrology columns.
Zogby had a couple of good years in ‘96 and ‘00, but now is below average. Why is that? Did success go to his head? Not necessarily. Even statisticians are subject to variation in outcomes. The “good year” really could just be statistical variation, making him no better than anybody else. Or, their statistical model could be obsolete.
Barone might be over the hill, but probably isn’t; he has been around long enough to have learned how things work, including structural changes. Silver has not. He may be talented, but more likely he has put too much confidence in bad data. Or ... he may be happy to carry water because he has already had his one good year, and can play off of it no matter how many times he is wrong, like Dick Morris, Jeanne Dixon and F. Lee Bailey. He might want to be a hero of the left more than a truly respected statistician. If he’s wrong this time ... on to the next election. All will be forgiven by his pals.
If Silver gets this one right he would become the definitive political oracle for liberals. He could probably be wrong for the next forty years and they’d still listen to him.
If he gets it wrong, it’s going to be fascinating to see how liberals process it.