This you already know

Pre-election coverage foregrounds and makes estimations. The pundit sits in the middle of a mass of cross-talk, intercepting, expounding and proliferating meanings within the discourse that flows between and among candidates and the audience. In this analysis, the audience is parsed, filtered, separated out into segments that each have their own traits and values that call for individualized treatment from the candidates.

Then, after the big night, post-election coverage sets about interpreting new, limited sets of meanings, and projects them into the near and distant future. This analysis diagnoses the population using the tools of cohesion and normalization. The segments of people are recognized as key segments, but their numbers add up to a whole.

All this coverage depicts a scene in which, prior to election day, the candidates' message descends and swirls down within the electorate. Post-election, the message is sent from below, up to the risers on which sit the podiums and punditry chairs.

Who is the pundit? Who is qualified to be a pundit? Generally, a pundit must be someone who either (1) practices journalism for a publication of certain status, (2) someone who previously held a high-ish public office, or (3) someone who attained some celebrity while incorporated in a political campaign or party. As currently used, the word "pundit" appears to be a term of soft derision that depersonalizes the speaker, and casts them as coincidentally filling a seat that could be filled by so many. To call someone a pundit is to say, "Take their words with a grain of salt". In effect, this can serve to disqualify them while situating them within a dysfunctional machine.

But we have different kinds of pundits who serve different functions. Some speak for voters and are allegiant to one side. Others attempt to refocus, summarize, and speak of political events, trends, and developments when prompted. And now there is an elite.

First in 2008 but more so in 2012, Nate Silver of 538 emerged from the pundit crowd. The left has endowed him with a version of the Author function. His predictions (which cannot account for the unpredictable) draw credibility both from his name and from the nameless science purportedly behind him. The author name means nothing on a scientific paper; but Silver's work has his name, and seems to live on the weight of his name and on the namelessness of his numbers.

Notes:

In the middle of his victory speech, Obama, in his general, high rhetorical way, espoused a a key principal and belief that undergirds whatever his political philosophy is:

America’s never been about what can be done for us. It’s about what can be done by us together through the hard and frustrating, but necessary work of self-government. That’s the principle we were founded on.

This country has more wealth than any nation, but that’s not what makes us rich. We have the most powerful military in history, but that’s not what makes us strong. Our universities, our culture are all the envy of the world, but that’s not what keeps the world coming to our shores.

What makes America exceptional are the bonds that hold together the most diverse nation on earth. The belief that our destiny is shared; that this country only works when we accept certain obligations to one another and to future generations. The freedom which so many Americans have fought for and died for come with responsibilities as well as rights. And among those are love and charity and duty and patriotism. That’s what makes America great.

Teaching the controversy

We have two theories being proposed to addressed unemployment.

The first is Job Creationism. This theory holds that a motivated elite creates jobs: low taxes motivate the elite to start businesses that will need employees. Jobs come from above.

The second is Job Evolution. This theory says that when conditions are right and the raw materials are there, jobs come: invest in education, infrastructure, and environment-friendly technologies, and jobs will emerge and evolve from within.

Angry Chair

Having watched both the (American) Democratic and Republican conventions a little each night, I found Clint Eastwood's improvised moment with the empty chair during the Republican convention to be the most compelling and meaningful part of the whole charade. But the pundits and critics, who claim to be ready for something authentic and substantive, finally got something that was just that, and they immediately rejected it.

Eastwood said he had cried when Obama was elected (presumably because it was such a powerful moment for a nation with a long history of racism). I take him at his word, and believe he was moved like so many others that night. So what was this moment with the chair all about?

Here's what: The chair was empty, signifying an absence, and speaking silence. This prompts the audience to wonder, Where is the Barack Obama I voted for? Because I don't see him anywhere.

Eastwood begins a sort of pitiful dialog with the missing Obama. He is attempting to recreate a ghost, the faded remains of the projection of his own hopes and dreams from four years ago: "So, Mr. President, how do you handle promises that you have made when you were running for election, and how do you handle them? I mean, what do you say to people? Do you just, you know--I know people were wondering. You don't handle that. OK."

Soon the projection lashes out, judging by Eastwood's reactions: "But, I thought maybe as an excuse--what do you mean shut up?" Here, the projection has taken on a life of its own, and is no longer merely a canvas. The candidate Obama from 2008 is no longer a willing, cooperative partner in this game of imagination. The exercise dissolves, leading Eastwood to his moment of resignation: "And I think it's that time. And I think if you just step aside and Mr. Romney can kind of take over."

Eastwood is hardly a champion for Romney, though: "A stellar businessman. Quote, unquote, a stellar businessman." His talking points covered, sarcastically. Finally, in a turn away from the chair to the listening audience, Eastwood delivers his real message, one of disappointment and disillusion with the whole process: "And, so, they (the candidates) are just going to come around and beg for votes every few years. It is the same old deal." And then, "We don't have to be--what I'm saying, we do not have to be metal masochists and vote for somebody that we don't really even want in office just because they seem to be nice guys or maybe not so nice guys ... "

It's a shame the whole exchange was written off as crazy talk by a misguided old man. Eastwood attempted to inject a moment of truth and sincerity into an obscene display of delusion and dishonesty, but instead he was rejected and held up as proof that the rest of the display is coherent and the system works.

Notes:

• Eastwood badly misread or misunderstood his audience, who they were, and where they were coming from. He may have been misguided in several other ways, too, arguably, but his main point stands.
• His means of communicating was a little unorthodox, so for this reason, too, he was rejected.