Talking Points hardly likes anyone better at Slate Magazine than Will Saletan. Not only because he’s a very nice guy and Frame Game is a great column, but also because he hooked Talking Points up with some really choice exit poll data on election day (I’m figuring that VNS has enough to worry about now and won’t try to bully us with any lawsuits.)
But I don’t quite buy the argument he makes in his most recent column. That argument (as nearly as I can figure it) is that the margin separating the two candidates is smaller than what one might call the margin of the error of the voting technology. So you’re in a quantum physics-like conundrum where you just can’t push the numbers much further than say a .1% margin.
That sounds right.
But his conclusion seems to be that since you can’t really know who won in cases where the margin is this small you just have to go with the call the networks made on election night.
New Bush Slogan: they trust the people, we trust the networks!
(Note: I’ve caricatured Will’s argument a bit here. If you want the uncaricatured version I’d suggest you read the piece. But, hey, I had to come up with a new post for this afternoon. So there it is.)
And another thing. George W. Bush is trying to make nice with Dems by saying he’s going to appoint some House Democrats to his cabinet. Does W. think we’re as stupid as Talking Points thinks he is? I’m sure the Republicans would like to knock a half dozen Dems out of the House.
(Note II: Talking Points had some help on this second item from this character. But actually Talking Points had also thought that Gore could demonstrate his bipartisanship by appointing senators Judd Gregg, Jim Jeffords, Dick Shelby and Gordon Smith to his cabinet. So he’ll take some of the credit. Nyuck, nyuck, nyuck. We can play that game too!)
