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Subject:  Misinformation Date:  11/7/2012  8:31 AM
Author:  ModernViking Number:  1833557 of 1977400

There was no shortage of polls and predictions in the run-up to this election. I took my shot at picking winners here:

Here's my prediction:

Obama 50%
Romney 47%
Other 3%

EVs: Obama 303, Romney 235. (Going with the current RCP no-toss-up map)

Taking a moment to toot my own horn - with the exception of Florida (currently undetermined) and having overestimated the degree of breakage to the libertarian / 3rd-party side by 1%, I was right on.

So I made a good prediction. Did I build that? Not exactly.

Obviously, I relied on the massive amount of aggregatred polling data available through outlets like RealClearPolitics, Nate Silver, the reporting of MSNBC (which has become my primary television news source), and other sources. "Mainstream" sources.

We had been told, by legions of FOS News ignoratti, that these "mainstream" sources were not to be trusted. They were skewed, overrepresenting Democratic votes, underestimating Republican enthusiasm, or dozens of other excuses why we should really believe that Romney was cruising into an easy electoral vote victory with a historical popular vote majority (8 points? Really, SG?) But these mainstream sources were spot on. They were accurate almost to a fault. Polling science, and all the Nate Silvers who were so readily villified by the right, were COMPLETELY REDEEMED.

What is the larger takeaway from this? Message to the right: YOU NEED NEW NEWS SOURCES. You sucked up the lies from Daily Caller about skewed polls, fake-o reports about Republicans being overrepresented in early voter turnout, and every other falsehood those sources saw fit to fill your heads with. They were wrong, and now those of you who saw fit to confidently repeat those falsehoods are equally complicit in just being wrong.

You have no one but yourselves to blame - we've been telling you your news sources are FOS for years now. Yet you can't stop believing.

This isn't the first time your news sources have excelled at being painfully and obviously wrong, and stringing you along for the ride. Gullibility knows no bounds, apparently. But if you're at all susceptible to obvious, recent, documented FACT, then revisiting your allegiance to news sources that willfully and consistently misinform should be near the top of your list.

Continue to dwell in ignorance, clinging bitterly to partisan platitudes and misinformtion.

Or, join the ranks of those who try as hard as they can to arm themselves with FACTS ... and I'll say "Welcome to the fold."