Bad Prediction Columns 101

Jim Geraghty reminds us of what he calls the "holy grail of bad prediction columns" from 1994:

David Nyhan, writing in the Boston Globe, October 30, 1994:

They're coming home. The Democratic voters who were disappointed in Clinton, worried about the economy and furious at Congress, those Democrats, are coming back. For different reasons. And only slowly. Faster in some places than others. And not everywhere. But they are coming home...

"Whee, I'm gonna be Speak-er, I'm gonna be Speak-er," chanted Newt-man. Puffed with the self-importance that can be gained only by a career in Washington or the ardent desire for one, 300 House Republican candidates (in- ers as well as out-ers) nailed their "Contract with America" to the congressional door.

Hatched in the throes of cynicism, marinated in the stewed juices of Talk Show Alley, market-tested by attack-pollster Frank Luntz, blessed by the eye of Newt and dedicated to the proposition that God is not only a conservative but a Republican to boot, the Holy 300 marched forth to smite the godless foe in the slaying fields of cable television and backcountry AM radio. We're a-gonna capture the House. We'll take over the Senate. We'll slay big-name Democrats from East Coast to West...

[Mario] Cuomo? Coming back, not as swiftly, not as surely, but even or a little better than even now with Pataki, the upstater drafted to be D'Amato's cat's-paw... With a break or two, Cuomo can win term four.

Ann Richards? Nearly dead-even in Texas. She'll have to find a way to energize blacks and Hispanics, and the president is still a big drag in cow country. But no one discounts her fighting heart...

[Tom] Foley? Clawing back, an inch at a time, in a door-to-door effort to repel the gun-lobby and term-limits dough amassed against him.

In the Michigan fight for an open Senate seat, Democrat Bob Carr creeps into a narrow lead over the GOP's Spencer Abraham, employing, miracle of miracles, a TV spot defending Carr's vote for the Clinton economic program.

Results? Dems lost the House and Senate. Cuomo lost to Pataki. Richards lost to future president George W. Bush. Foley, the reigning Speaker, got beat. Spence Abraham beat Carr. In fact, not a single Republican incumbent for any federal office or state governorship was beaten that year.

Read the rest of it here.