One of the most famous election ancedotes of recent history (although possibly apocryphal) was the reaction of astonishment from NY Times film critic Pauline Kael on Richard Nixon's reelection in 1972, because "no one she knew voted for him." It's since been used as a prime example of how personal interaction combined with limited data has a tendency to lead to some very bad electoral predictions. (It's something the Bernie Sanders supporters around here who crow about his crowd sizes as proof of his inevitable victory should keep in mind.) Indeed, if you need a more recent example of the phenomenon, look at the seemingly endless number of GOPers from Mitt Romney on down who thought that victory in 2012 was assured often based on the flimsiest evidence. And few were as ridiculous as the old Reagan groupie herself,
Peggy Noonan:
Romney’s crowds are building—28,000 in Morrisville, Pa., last night; 30,000 in West Chester, Ohio, Friday It isn’t only a triumph of advance planning: People came, they got through security and waited for hours in the cold. His rallies look like rallies now, not enactments. In some new way he’s caught his stride. He looks happy and grateful. His closing speech has been positive, future-looking, sweetly patriotic. His closing ads are sharp—the one about what’s going on at the rallies is moving.
All the vibrations are right. A person who is helping him who is not a longtime Romneyite told me, yesterday: “I joined because I was anti Obama—I’m a patriot, I’ll join up But now I am pro-Romney.” Why? “I’ve spent time with him and I care about him and admire him. He’s a genuinely good man.” Looking at the crowds on TV, hearing them chant “Three more days” and “Two more days”—it feels like a lot of Republicans have gone from anti-Obama to pro-Romney.
And if "vibrations" weren't enough:
There is no denying the Republicans have the passion now, the enthusiasm. The Democrats do not. Independents are breaking for Romney. And there’s the thing about the yard signs. In Florida a few weeks ago I saw Romney signs, not Obama ones. From Ohio I hear the same. From tony Northwest Washington, D.C., I hear the same.
Is it possible this whole thing is playing out before our eyes and we’re not really noticing because we’re too busy looking at data on paper instead of what’s in front of us? Maybe that’s the real distortion of the polls this year: They left us discounting the world around us.
Needless to say, Peggy's "vibrations" proved a very poor predictor of how things turned out. All it got her was status as one of the worst electoral predictors of 2012, alongside such fellow conservative anti-Nostrodamuses as this toe-sucking bag of pus. Perhaps that episode might have convinced Peggy that perhaps those "vibrations" she feels are not exactly trustworthy and that she should try looking at things that are much better predictors of elections, like, you know, polling and hard data.
Silly! This is Peggy Noonan we're talking about here! Now she's back at it and she wants to tell you that regardless of what you might hear, Donald Trump is right. Hispanics really do like him! Why would she think that, you might ask? Because that nice Latino man who serves her at the deli told her so:
Something is going on, some tectonic plates are moving in interesting ways. My friend Cesar works the deli counter at my neighborhood grocery store. He is Dominican, an immigrant, early 50s, and listens most mornings to a local Hispanic radio station, La Mega, on 97.9 FM. Their morning show is the popular “El Vacilón de la Mañana,” and after the first GOP debate, Cesar told me, they opened the lines to call-ins, asking listeners (mostly Puerto Rican, Dominican, Mexican) for their impressions. More than half called in to say they were for Mr. Trump. Their praise, Cesar told me a few weeks ago, dumbfounded the hosts.
I later spoke to one of them, who identified himself as D.J. New Era. He backed Cesar’s story. “We were very surprised,” at the Trump support, he said. Why? “It’s a Latin-based market!”
No word of vibrations or yard signs yet in her reasoning, but it is early.
More from Steve Benen, who seems as incredulous by Peggy's reasoning as I am:
Cesar went on to tell the GOP pundit that immigrants not only “don’t like” undocumented immigrants, they also agree with Trump on “anchor babies.”
Noonan went on to say that in recent travels, “almost wherever” she went, the columnist “kept meeting immigrants who are or have grown conservative.”
And 43 years ago, everyone Pauline Kael knew just couldn’t wait to vote for McGovern.
Indeed. I don't suppose it never occurred to Peggy that her "friend" Cesar was just being polite to a frequent customer and indulging her to keep her business. Or that any of those people she's talking to was just fucking with her.
More from Benen:
Look, I’m willing to take Noonan at her word. Let’s say she really does have occasional chats with the guy behind her local deli counter. Let’s also say her – and Cesar’s – characterization of the callers to the local radio station are accurate. While we’re at it, let’s go ahead and assume that the conservative pundit just happens to keep meeting immigrants out in the world who share her ideology.
Even if we concede all of this, the mistake is assuming it matters. Noonan is extrapolating from her personal experiences, which may feel persuasive on an individual level, but which is a poor way of understanding Americans’ attitudes in general.
Yes it is, particuarly in light of
Trump's horrendous standing among Hispanic voters in recent polling. A serious political observer tends to put more stock in those kind of numbers instead of what they heard from the guy who got them their lunch last week.
But then, as we all know, Peggy is not serious.