Suds: Prognosticatin’
- History buffs should check out my friend Frank Chi’s latest, The Antebellum Project. Trailer is above.
- A study conducted by Hamilton College finds that Sen. Lindsey Graham is the second worst political prognosticator in the country.
The most accurate prognosticator was Paul Krugman of The New York Times and Princeton University, followed by Maureen Dowd, another columnist for the Times, and former Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell. The worst prognosticator was Cal Thomas, a syndicated columnist. South Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham was next worst, and Michigan Senator Carl Levin was third worst.
We discovered that a few factors impacted a prediction’s accuracy. The first is whether or not the prediction is a conditional; conditional predictions were more likely to not come true. The second was partisanship; liberals were more likely than conservatives to predict correctly. The final significant factor in a prediction’s outcome was having a law degree; lawyers predicted incorrectly more often. Partisanship had an impact on predictions even when removing political predictions about the Presidential, Vice Presidential, House, and Senate elections.
- Senators Vincent Sheheen and Jakie Knotts seek to strengthen “whistleblower” laws for government employees.
- Two other companies decided not to come to South Carolina in the wake of the Amazon kerfuffle.