Since the correlation between liberalism and correctness was weak, most pundits probably wouldn’t gain or lose much score in a more politically-average year. In Krugman’s case, for example, most of the scored predictions were economic not political forecasts. In Cal Thomas’s case however, your explanation might basically work.
True, of course in Krugman’s case I suspect most of his predictions amounted to predicting that the financial crisis was going to be really but, and thus were also correlated.
Another LW discussion of Krugman’s alleged accuracy pointed both here and to a spreadsheet with the actual predictions. About half of his predictions did indeed amount to saying that the financial crisis was going to be really bad. There were some political ones too but they weren’t of the “my team will win” form, and he did well on those as well.
Since the correlation between liberalism and correctness was weak, most pundits probably wouldn’t gain or lose much score in a more politically-average year. In Krugman’s case, for example, most of the scored predictions were economic not political forecasts. In Cal Thomas’s case however, your explanation might basically work.
True, of course in Krugman’s case I suspect most of his predictions amounted to predicting that the financial crisis was going to be really but, and thus were also correlated.
Another LW discussion of Krugman’s alleged accuracy pointed both here and to a spreadsheet with the actual predictions. About half of his predictions did indeed amount to saying that the financial crisis was going to be really bad. There were some political ones too but they weren’t of the “my team will win” form, and he did well on those as well.