Candy Crowley turns it around
by digby
... on James "divaaahhhn the intent of the voters" Baker*:
CROWLEY: When you look at everything that is pushing against the Democrats at this point -- history shows that the party that's in the White House takes a hit during the midterms, a president with really low approval numbers, they are defending much more territory than Republicans are in the Senate, and much more hostile territory than Republicans are -- can an argument not be made that Republicans should be doing a lot better, and why aren't they?
And look at him sputter:
BAKER: Well, we don't know how well they're doing yet.
I mean, the returns -- we won't know that until Tuesday night. They may be doing very well. The polls would indicate that they are. All I'm saying is, you can't count your chickens until they hatch. And until you know what the turnout's going to be, you really don't know.
We really did get beat on the ground in 2012. The Democrats had a far better turnout program than we did, mostly based on social media. So I don't think that you can take anything for granted.
And I have to tell you, it was my experience in the five presidential campaigns that I led or participated in, the worst thing in the world you can do is assume that you're going to win and -- and not have your ducks in a row.
So I think we have to wait until -- until Tuesday night, but I do think we have an excellent chance of picking up the net gain of six seats.
It's interesting when you spin the narrative in the opposite direction, isn't it? More reporters should do that.
*For those too young to remember, Baker is famous for saying this about a thousand times during the Florida recount, which makes his comment above all the more interesting:
“How do you divine the intent of the voter on that voting card … with those little punch holes? You’re divining the intent of the voter with respect to whether it has two chads hanging down or whether it’s punched or whether it has an indentation?"
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