I have some small measure of sympathy for what Dick Morris is saying in this exchange with Sean Hannity about his bullish predictions for the election:
“Sean, I hope people aren’t mad at me about it… I spoke about what I believed and I think that there was a period of time when the Romney campaign was falling apart, people were not optimistic, nobody thought there was a chance of victory and I felt that it was my duty at that point to go out and say what I said. And at the time that I said it, I believe I was right.”
Please notice that while Mr. Morris begins and ends with assertions that he was sincere in his analysis, what he actually says is that he felt he needed to provide some hope at a critical time because he sensed that the Republicans were on the verge of collapse.
For much of the last year, I was bullish on Obama’s chances of winning a victory bigger than 2008. I based that in part on a good and stable polling advantage. I based it in part on the last 150 years of history, in which incumbents simply weren’t reelected by narrower margins than they were elected in the first place. I based it in part on how badly Mitt Romney performed as a candidate and how well I knew the Obama campaign was organizing. I was sincere in my belief that a landslide was a strong possibility.
But I also wanted to help make it happen. And I knew that demoralizing the enemy was actually the key to making it happen. There came a point after the conventions when the GOP was on the verge of collapse. Dick Morris noticed it, and I noticed it, too. I ramped up my mockery and my confidence level both because we really were crushing them and because I wanted to tip their whole campaign over on its side. I had no way of knowing that the president would badly lose the first debate. It certainly wasn’t something I thought highly likely. I expected a performance much more like what we saw in the last two debates.
I’m not going to blame my overconfidence on one debate performance, but it did significantly stall what appeared to be a march to a major blowout. Most importantly, in the aftermath of the debate I watched the data and I shut my mouth. I adjusted my predictions accordingly. I called the Electoral College exactly, missed the Senate by one (assuming they ever confirm Carmona lost the Arizona race), and overestimated gains in the House by nine to fourteen seats.
Compare that to how Dick Morris’s predictions panned out.