The Post and its "deciders."

Kind of a stretch to be predicting anything this early.

Not the Post’s Deciders, but could be.

I read this awful story from the Washington Post about Vice President Kamala Harris so you don’t have to!

For reasons that escape me, even before she has a chance to sprint from the gate, the  Post went into the field to ask a collection of its “deciders” whether they would vote for Kamala Harris. It’s one of those stories that somehow seems scientific, but isn’t, not meeting any of the familiar standards for collecting polling data.

Somehow, the paper has concluded the people in this relatively small group decide elections. I doubt that, but these days everyone needs some kind of metric to back up whatever pre-conceived notion has settled in their heads.

You are likely to be seeing lots of this kind of thing as the campaign plays out, confident predictions of who will do what on an election day that is, what, three and a half months away in a batshit world where anything could and might happen to affect the outcome.

So, what does the Post story tell us?

Democrats are genuinely excited about President Biden’s decision to drop out and strongly endorse his vice president. Now there’s a surprise! “Leaning Democrats” are mostly likely to support her over Donald Trump. Another surprise?

And what of Republicans?

Most of them can’t say enough bad things about her. Terrible manager, bad campaigner, and so on.

But remember, these are people who are already bonded to Trump and who viewed the Milwaukee convention as heaven sent. Lots even decided God stepped in to prevent Trump from being murdered by an assassin, deciding instead Trump should just have what they called “a flesh wound” in old cowboy movies.

                  Why God decided there should be other deaths, well, that’s for God to say, and of course, God’s not talking.

                  The thing to keep in mind as these predictive stories play out is the foolishness of generalizing from the particular. Where I went to school (of course it was a seminary) a priest would whack you on the head when you did that. There is always a much broader story to consider.

People entitled to talk, of course.

We are not obliged to listen to them.

As the campaign plays out, remember that one of the candidates (guess who) is a convicted felon with a history of molesting women and lying about almost everything of any import.

The other was a District Attorney in San Francisco, a California Attorney General, a U.S. Senator and vice president to a man whose record has been stunning, no matter what you hear from the Republicans.

Could be the Post’s “deciders” in some cases aren’t as decisive as the paper thinks they are.

Charlie Madigan was a reporter and editor for 40 years at United Press International and The Chicago Tribune. He was a professor at Roosevelt University in Chicago for a decade.