From The Forontal Cortex:

Nobody should be surprised. In 1984, the Berkeley psychologist Philip Tetlock began an epic research project: He picked two hundred and eighty-four people who made their living “commenting or offering advice on political and economic trends” – they were professional pundits – and began asking them to make predictions about future events. He had a long list of pertinent questions. Would George Bush be re-elected? Would there be a peaceful end to apartheid in South Africa? Would Quebec secede from Canada? Would the dot-com bubble burst? In each case, the experts were asked to rate the probability of several different possible outcomes. Tetlock then interrogated the experts about their thought process, so that he could better understand how they made up their mind. By the end of the study, Tetlock had quantified 82,361 different predictions.

After Tetlock tallied up the data, the predictive failures of most experts became painfully obvious. When asked to forecast the probability of a specific event happening, pundits tended to perform worse than random chance. A dart throwing chimp would have beaten the majority of well-informed experts. Tetlock also found that academic specialists – say, an expert in Middle Eastern affairs or a specialist on the New Hampshire primary – weren’t any better than the-man-on-the-street at predicting the future. “We reach the point of diminishing marginal predictive returns for knowledge disconcertingly quickly,” Tetlock writes in Expert Political Judgment. “There is no reason for supposing that contributors to top journals–distinguished political scientists, area study specialists, economists, and so on–are any better than journalists or attentive readers of The New York Times in ‘reading’ emerging situations.” Furthermore, the most famous experts in Tetlock’s study tended to be the least accurate, consistently churning out overblown and overconfident forecasts. Eminence was a handicap.

This puts the Republican elites in a jam. They are one of their strongest basis of support, but the more they pander to them, the more they become unable to attract the support of others, ultimately shrinking the party.

You’re right about the religious right — they’re complete and utter nutcases more at home in the 5th century rather than the 21st, and (it may come as a surprise), the GOP elites HATE the evangelicals . . . but sadly and not surprisingly, that hasn’t yet stopped them from pandering to the evangelicals:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnXImj4_OJ0

One example can be seen in the controversy over health care plans. Obama personally prefers a single payer system, but also understands (as many liberals do not) the objections from individuals (and not just insurance companies). Compared to Clinton he he also understands how mandates would be perceived and has left them out of his plan.

I’m sure that if elected Obama would do a lot I disagreed with, Bill Clinton is correct that it is a gamble. I think it is a gamble worth taking compared to the alternatives who actually have a shot at getting elected. Obama, while not perfect, is on the right side of many of the issues which now count. He’s the only viable candidate running who opposed the war from the start. As a former professor of Constitutional law he has shown better understanding than many of the other candidates of the violations of civil liberties and break down of the separation of powers. While I’m sometimes bothered by the amount of religious references in his campaign, he has also spoken out on the importance of separation of church and state. This is especially important as, besides the war and related abuses of civil liberties, the greatest threat we now face to liberty comes from the religious right.

“Clinton calls herself a ‘government junkie.’ She says, ‘There is no such thing as other people’s children’ and promises to work on ‘redefining who we are as human beings in the post-modern age.’

She also is not at a lost for how to futher use the power of the federal government. Indeed, she says, ‘I have a million ideas. The country can’t afford them all.’

McCain, on the other hand . . . well, actually, on the other side of the same exact coin, has an overall militaristic viewpoint of citizenship. … In order to have a fully profound life as an American you have to sacrifice yourself for the greater good of American exceptionalism. What that means in practice is that we are going to have to greatly expand our military, greatly expand national service amongst civilians and have a greater sense of patriotic, even enforced patriotic duty.

I don’t know much about Obama (I should start learning more) — and Ron Paul? Well, Ron Paul has shown poor judgement of late, but he still doesn’t scare me they way Hillary and McCain do . . . not that it matters: Ron Paul has a greater chance of winning the Miss America Beauty Pageant than he has the Presidency.