Politics & Government
Nate Silver to Politico: "You Can't Comprehend!"
The New York Times’ FiveThirtyEight blogger, Nate Silver, had some choice words about Politico, which had taken pot shots at his election-polling skills during the recently concluded presidential campaign. Politico wasn’t alone: The entire spectrum of right-wing punditry, led by Fox News, attacked Silver for predicting that an Obama victory was at least 80 percent certain. The Electoral College specifics of Silver’s long-prophesied Obama win turned out to be uncannily accurate.
The forum for Silver’s comments was Grantland.com sports blogger Bill Simmons’ “B.S. Report” podcast, during which, as Talking Points Memo reports, Silver noted:
What was remarkable to me is that you had some, like, journalist for, um, Politico, or something … who, like, tweeted … ‘All Nate’s doing is averaging polls and counting electoral votes?’ … ‘That’s the secret sauce?’ It’s like, well, yeah, and the fact that you can’t comprehend that very basic thing … that says more about you than, than about me, right?”
Click on this audio-only link for the highlight quote, via TPM:
-
Latest NewsDecember 8, 2025This L.A. Museum Is Standing Up to Trump’s Whitewashing, Vowing to ‘Scrub Nothing’
-
Striking BackDecember 4, 2025Home Care Workers Are Losing Minimum Wage Protections — and Fighting Back
-
The SlickDecember 2, 2025Utility Asks New Mexico for ‘Zero Emission’ Status for Gas-Fired Power Plant
-
Latest NewsDecember 1, 2025Accountable to No One: What 1990s L.A. Teaches Us About the Trump Resistance
-
Dirty MoneyDecember 3, 2025Trump’s Anti-Climate Policies Are Driving Up Insurance Costs for Homeowners, Say Experts
-
Child FarmworkersDecember 5, 2025To Protect Underage Farmworkers, California Expands Oversight of Field Conditions
-
Column - State of InequalityDecember 4, 2025Can California Claw Back Some Medi-Cal Care?
-
Latest NewsDecember 10, 2025Capital & Main, L.A. Times Win Sidney Award for Reporting on Child Farmworkers