The new year is nearly upon us. This past year, I've contributed a fair share of columns that I think were quite good, but I've also written some columns that could have been better. I believe that any good analysts must learn from his or her errors. So here, without further ado, is where I rip myself a new one in the hope that I won't make similar mistakes in 2013.
I started off 2012 by predicting that Mitt Romney would "probably win [the] Iowa [caucus]". He had a lead in the polls, and he led after the election night count. Unfortunately for me, a re-tally revealed that Rick Santorum was victorious. I'm happy I qualified my prediction with the word "probably", as primary polls are by no means perfect.
The next week, I wrote my first column for the Guardian. I said that growth in real disposable personal income made Obama an "economic" underdog. What I failed to mention was that other economic variables such as gross domestic product were less clear. I had spoken about these differences previously and did so in later columns.
My bloopers continued in February, thanks to the Minnesota same-sex marriage amendment. I was right that North Carolina would ban same-sex marriage, though I was dead wrong about the Minnesota constitutional ban. Polling had, in past years, seen the banning side gain as the election came closer. In Minnesota, the opposite happened. No to the ban picked up steam, and the demographic regression model that worked so well in North Carolina overestimated the ban vote in Minnesota. I did correct my Minnesota folly in a September article.
March was fairly kind to me, yet even then, I had a busted call when I listed the possible vice-presidential candidates for the Romney ticket. I thought Romney would go with a swing stater, Rob Portman, or with Marco Rubio to appeal to Latinos. I did have Romney's eventual selection, Paul Ryan, on my long list. Clearly, I should have moved him up higher than that. It just goes to prove that it's easier to predict the masses than it is one man, especially when we have limited information.
Nothing in April or May stands out as that bad, despite an occasional grammatical or spelling error. Speaking of grammatical and spelling errors, I check and re-check. Sometimes, all that probing just doesn't do the trick. I'll re-read my pieces more closely this upcoming year. But you can blame my editor, also.
Alas, spelling was the least of my problems in June. On the first of the month, I appeared in a short video about how unemployment helped or hurt Obama's re-election chances. I like others were giving too much credence to individual jobs reports and their effect on the polls. The good news is that I learned on the fly and didn't make the mistake again.
Later in the month, I wrote a piece on how news-watching patterns in the early summer forecasted eventual election results. There was only one problem – attention paid to the news was non-predictive in 2012. Yes, Romney folks were far more enthusiastic and paying closer to attention to the news. That's why Romney supporters were making the likely voter screen cut in October, while Obama supporters were not. It didn't matter, as Obama got his "unenthused" voters out to the polls.
Jumping ahead to August, I argued that the percentage of non-white Hispanic voters in 2012 wouldn't decrease from 2008. That was based partially on a miscalculation of previous exit poll data and partially on the pre-election polls at the time. Either way, it was wrong. The question that does linger is whether whites were a lower percentage because of increased black or Hispanic turnout.
September, October, and November were pretty good months. Nothing stands out as a post where I should really say, "I missed it." Indeed, it seems I made fewer "D'oh!" statements as the year progressed.
Still, I managed to close out 2012 by predicting on Twitter that New York City would receive at least 3in of snow on 29 December. Some portions of the Bronx did so, but honestly, I was talking about Central Park. Central Park received less than an inch as the warm air from the ocean made it further inland than I'd thought, and a precipitation hole that was slated to factor in western New England ended up over New York.
So, my 2012 ended just as it began – with an error. I'll never be perfect, even as I hope to get better when the calendar flips to 2013. In which case, I want to thank all of you for telling me when I am off the mark. I have the great pleasure of doing what I do, and I want to do it to the best of my ability.
Your constructive criticism is appreciated. But in any case, any harsh words you have for me are nothing compared to what my eighth-grade English teacher said about my writing.