The Establishment Wails as Chris Christie is Banished to the Kid's Table

It was a like a morgue on Morning Joe yesterday morning, as Milo wailed over Christie's banishment.

I love this for two reasons.

1. The Beltway press was wrong again-they had told us that Christie was one of the big winners from the last debate, but the GOP viewers seemed not to agree. Not even close.

http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/11/beltway-media-is-wrong-again-as.html

Indeed, Joe claimed that Fox Business channel cheated by including an IBD poll rather than the NY Times. Notice how even GOPers know the liberal media is more accurate. But that NYT poll wouldn't have saved Christie anyway.

2. Secondly, I really don't like Chris Christie. I mean the only one close in the field in terms of my absolute animus towards is Carly Fiorina. Speaking of Carly, she had her own Birther moment just like Trump did a few months back and she didn't offer a correction either.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/carly-fiorina-correct-voter-calls-president-obama-black/story?id=35031158

Ok, so there;s all this hand-wringing over demoting him and whether or not this is fair.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/11/fox-business-network-debate-polls-215589

 We keep hearing that polls don't decide things the voters do. Right and that's why the polls talk to voters.

I agree that the polls are not 100% predictive, but right now the establishment-both the GOP and the Beltway press-are trying to sell us the illusion that the polls are meaningless.

Yes there are other factors-ground game, etc. But it's not that early. We are closer to the Iowa Caucus than the beginning of the race.

Look there's no purely scientific way to do these debates. There are just too many candidates. You're going to lose on style points one way or the other. To have them all on one stage doesn't matter because then it becomes an unruly mess that goes on for over three hours.

Some say you just rotate the candidates and have two or three debates with those in each selected randomly. I am less than confident that this is the optimum for the viewers. I mean the viewers deserve to have the candidates with a real chance at winning on the same stage.

Paring off Trump and Bobby Jindal is a joke. The field needs to be winnowed in some way to make it even watchable.

At this point, I don't think Lindsay Graham or Patakai are going to get it done. As for Christie, the pundits now want to tell us he's a threat. He did have his talk on addiction which is fine-though we remember where the last compassionate conservative got us.

But the GOP voters don't  nearly as taken with him as the establishment suddenly is.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/chris-christie-undercard-debater-could-thrive-in-gop-primary-chaos/

Sure, Christie is going to do better because he's at the Kid's Table. This is the FiveThirtyEight who said before that Christie has no chance.

Now he has a chance? Why? Because it finds the rise of Carson and Trump an existential threat to political scientists everywhere who insist that the party always decides.

Yes parties do-usually. This is an unusual year. Yet the very serious pundits continue to do what Steve Schmidt has mocked-believe that there's this secret group of people somewhere who can control this process and guarantee things go swimmingly for the establishment.

P.S. I see FiveThrityEight has a post that asks if, 12 months out either party is winning.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/the-election-is-a-year-away-is-either-party-winning/

Ok, I haven't read it yet-I've just discovered it. My prediction is that this piece will say no. It's a pure tossup is what they will tell us.

I will play the contrarian and predict that the Dems now have a 60% chance. This presumes that the parties came in exactly even but that the chaos in the GOP race is a net positive for the Dems.

They are also helped by Hillary's 'coronation.'

I know this won't be the FiveThirtyEight view. I guess they will say that the chaos won't hurt the GOP-maybe they'll even try to deny that it's all that chaotic, after all remember Rick Perry and Herman Cain in 2012?-and that it's all about the economy-and of, course-Marco Rubio or someone like him will win-maybe even Chris Christie or Carly Forina-as what do polls matter?-and will not be hurt at all by the process or all the attacks on Latinos.

It will come down to little but a coin flip based on how the economy's doing.

Now time will tell whether or not this view will hold but my guess is this is the view they express here. Soon as I post this I'm going to go read it.

If I'm wrong it will be very pleasantly so.