I rather wonder about how familiar the 80's really was, I just didnt pay much attention.

[psych0squirrel]

Some women embraced their outsider status. Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, campaigned in 1992 as “just a mom in tennis shoes,” capitalizing on a dismissive comment once directed her way by a male politician. But the reservations of many voters were real 15 or 20 years ago

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[psych0squirrel]

People like to think they're smart, particularly if they have a lot of education and experts need to prove to their bosses that they deserve their jobs and salaries; they are worried about going out of favor in what is essentially very lucrative high stakes gambling. What it comes down to really is that no one really knows what's going on but before they make any predictions, media people want to know the pulse of newer voters and newer ideas. So the prediction system itself leans more conservative then the voters. The economist has more cutting edge predictions as they take into account culture as there are so many younger non-voters, even up through their 40's, there are pretty significant generational schisms. The economist has less of a gap then other sources but it can still take awhile for things to gather data, the AIDS villiages in China came out around 2000; they just covered them (again?) this month. It's just they will break stories sometimes before other mainstream sources; they are straight up about being a magazine for college educated non-economists.

That's probably why Karl Rove struck media and political experts with fear. He might not be a genius, but he might have proven definitively that knowledge and intelligence are different things as he was just a lot faster at putting ideas together then his opponents and he seems better read too. I peg him as an international poli sci geek. Of course about this time all the knowlegistas are going to get really shrill as their deciples are still convinced that they can become geniuses if they study hard enough, or if they force their kids to. I thought the whole lawsuits involving admissions to ivy league schools was grasping at straws. You are at the minimum supposed to have perfect test scores and perfect statistics but they can reject you for any reason, its why they are considered to be exclusive. (That was in reference mostly to the University of Michigan lawsuits involving affirmitive action, I looked them up for a paper: and Ivy school admissions is a system that was never meant to be fair.)