REPUBLICAN MONKEY BUSINESS: THE NEXT GENERATION

One thing I can predict with confidence is that Republicans are going to respond to this year's election coverage by creating lots and lots of polling firms in time for 2014 and 2016.

Republicans know that Nate Silver and other poll nerds repeatedly threw cold water on their pro-Romney narratives by citing poll averages; if this is the future of campaign coverage, Republicans will feel the need to mess with those poll averages by generating far more raw polling data than they do now. These GOP firms aren't going to generate unrealistically pro-GOP polls -- their numbers, like Rasmussen's, will look legit, if a tad skewed. Unlike Scott Rasmussen, these new pollsters won't write Republican-friendly op-eds, or have other blatant ties to the GOP; some of the pollsters may even be (nominal) Democrats. But their job will be to create a pro-GOP reality in Nerdville.

Right-wing news sources and pundits will point to poll aggregators who (unlike Nate Silver) average all poll numbers without assessing "house effects" (i.e., pro-Democratic or pro-Republican skews). Those aggregators will be said to be the honest, legitimate, unbiased ones, unlike Silver and his biased liberal soul mates. (Mainstream journalists may well fall for this.)

I think Silver and his fellow quants will be vindicated tomorrow, but this may be their last hurrah. The numbers they work with are going to be hopelessly politicized in the future.