As Soon as Nate Silver Starts Projecting GOP Victories, Progressives Unsheath the Knives on Former Leftist Wonder Boy

Nate Silver and his 538 blog became the gold standard of leftist election talking points during the last two presidential election cycles. It was too easy, of course, with Barack Obama rolling up a big win against a pathetically outmatched John McCain in 2008, and also in 2012, when the left's character assassination machine helped destroy Mitt Romney, whose prescient criticism of the Democrat nominee is now playing out in real time on issues from ObamaCare to Russia in Ukraine.

I can remember during those years that leftists, especially bloggers, would respond to any suggestion of Republican electoral success by pointing to the latest projections at 538, which were considered unassailable.

And what's happened now? Well, Silver's abandoned the media's Democrat Party headquarters at the New York Times to start his own media venture, and he's coming under fire. For example, Wednesday at the Week, "Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight and the dangers of being ideologically neutral."

Interesting how no one was slamming Silver for being "ideologically neutral" when he was projecting Democrat electoral victories. Now though, the knives are out. Here's Paul Krugman, the New York Times blogging economist and leftist thought-enforcer, "Tarnished Silver":

Timothy Egan joins the chorus of those dismayed by Nate Silver’s new FiveThirtyEight. I [sic] sorry, but I have to agree: so far it looks like something between a disappointment and a disaster.

But I’d argue that many of the critics are getting the problem wrong. It’s not the reliance on data; numbers can be good, and can even be revelatory. But data never tell a story on their own. They need to be viewed through the lens of some kind of model, and it’s very important to do your best to get a good model. And that usually means turning to experts in whatever field you’re addressing.

Unfortunately, Silver seems to have taken the wrong lesson from his election-forecasting success. In that case, he pitted his statistical approach against campaign-narrative pundits, who turned out to know approximately nothing. What he seems to have concluded is that there are no experts anywhere, that a smart data analyst can and should ignore all that...

More.

Here's Silver's forecast, "FiveThirtyEight Senate Forecast: GOP Is Slight Favorite in Race for Senate Control." (At Memeorandum.)

Frankly, Silver's probably less bullish than most analysts projecting big GOP gains this year, like Alan Abramowitz, Charlie Cook, and Larry Sabato.

Yet, here's Silver right in the sweet spot getting attacked by depraved leftist political assassins who won't tolerate deviance from the accepted Democrat Party line. Joining Krugman at the New York Times is Timothy Egan, "Creativity vs. Quants," and Balloon Juice piles on, slamming Silver for his "unwarranted contrarianism." Really? Unwarranted? Literally everyone's predicting a big Senate romp in November. But poor Nate's projections are "unwarranted," being so at odds with the left's pathetic party line.

F-king leftist partisans and morons. Lucky for the rest of us they're not only stupid but screwed.

Added: From the Right Scoop, "Obama’s Favorite Oracle Nate Silver Predicts Republicans Win BIG; Keith Ellison Disagrees Because Nuh-uh!"