The Absurdity of Political Writing.

http://news.yahoo.com/i/742;_ylt=AjzI6ndYgeJ7lAa7IrQNAaCs0NUE

During the six weeks between the Mississippi and Pennsylvania primaries, a poorly phrased statement and an uncharacteristically weak debate performance by Barack Obama combined with relentless attacks by the Clinton campaign to raise some doubts about Obama as a candidate. Those doubts were most cogently put by George F. Will in a column a week ago. Will's suggestion that Obama could prove to be another Adlai Stevenson sent a shiver down many Democratic spines.

Yep. Many Democrats voting in the PA primary read George F. Will, saw his comment about Adlai Stevenson, and freaked.

Here's why this is absurd:

1. Adlai Stevenson probably has, oh, 8% name recognition in the modern US, tops.
2. I would venture to say that there aren't very many PA Democrats reading George Will.

And yet, you get this ALL THE TIME.

Bill Bennett on CNN said something like, "voters thought and said, 'nope, we need this to play out more.'" No! Voters don't work like that. They didn't say, "nah, we're not quite ready to give the nod to Obama, so some of us need to vote Hillary." No one votes that way. They vote based on who they perceive best represents them.

Jay Cost hits on this a lot, and I can only reiterate. The public pays infinitely less attention to politics than pundits. The analysis has to be tailored to those norms, not to the norms of a former Secretary of Education.