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Karl Rove’s memorable moment

Jaime Weinman on what most people will remember from the TV coverage of the U.S. election

The moment most people will remember from the TV coverage of the U.S. election was Karl Rove contesting his own network, Fox News, on its decision to call Ohio for Obama.

Megyn Kelly, who has good instincts for what makes good TV, chose to take us on an impromptu visit to Fox’s secret vault full of stat nerds, who explained why they were calling Ohio and why they knew the incoming counties better than Karl did. Seeing the rest of Fox turn on Rove was definitely something you don’t see every day. And in an election where we couldn’t stop arguing about Nate Silver, Kelly provided a glimpse at Fox’s own in-house analysts. Maybe the narrative of this election will be “triumph of the nerds” or something like that. Here are some excerpts, via YouTube:

Speaking of that, this liberal blog has some links to pundits who predicted the election based on their “gut feelings.” It includes George Will’s prediction that Romney would take Minnesota, Dick Morris’s Romney landslide prediction, and of course, Peggy Noonan. This, in other words, is why people are more inclined to look at the polls and figure out what they mean. Because the alternative is not hard-scrabble on-the-ground reporting; it’s people trusting their gut, which tells them things that will never happen.

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