Keeping the pair or going for the inside straight

We are already starting to see waves of revisionism with people who were giving what now looks like horrible advice going back and suddenly (and sometimes not so subtly) tweaking and selectively editing their former positions. In addition to being deeply dishonest and annoying as hell, these self-serving lies distort our understanding of events and make it far more difficult to learn from them. Add to that the large role that luck and black swans played this summer and the challenge of getting a handle on exactly what happened this summer is even more daunting.

With that in mind, here's the analogy that I've been using.

Imagine you are playing five card draw and you are dealt a hand with two aces and three other suited cards. For a moment, you go back and forth trying to decide whether or not to keep the aces or go for the flush, then make the decision to hang onto the pair. The three new cards you get include the other two aces.

This was, of course, a highly unlikely and incredibly lucky outcome, but it was also the smarter strategy. This smart then lucky scenario is where the analogy comes in.

After it was decided that Biden would withdraw from the race, the Democratic (and nominally Democratic) response fell into two camps. One was for going all in with Harris as quickly and decisively as possible. The other camp wanted to do just the opposite, draw the process out with the so-called ThunderDome convention, bring in lots of candidates, and (though this was often implied rather than said) generally make it as difficult as possible for Harris to get the nomination.

In case you've forgotten:

Ross Douthat: It’s a mistake to go all in on Harris, obviously, because she’s still the exceptionally weak candidate whose weaknesses made President Biden so loath to quit the field for her. [Anyone who thinks Ross Douthat has special insights into these decision making processes please raise your hand and slap yourself with it. -- MP] Potential rivals like Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan are throwing away an unusual opportunity because they imagine some future opening for themselves — in 2028 and beyond — that may never materialize. And the party clearly has an interest in having a better-situated nominee: A swing-state governor who isn’t tied directly to an unpopular administration would be a much, much better choice for a high-stakes but still winnable race than a liberal Californian machine politician with zero track record of winning over moderate to conservative voters.

And there was lots more where that came from.

At the risk of putting too fine a point on it, in this analogy the all in for Harris crowd wanted to hold onto the pair of aces while the ThunderDome crowd were dreaming of a flush. Going with Harris turned out to be an incredibly lucky move. There was no way of knowing in advance that she would connect with voters to this degree or would prove so effective on the trail and with her choice of running mate. When evaluating strategy, we can't take any of those things into account, but it was still clearly the smart move.

By comparison, the ThunderDome strategy always had a sliver of a chance of producing a winning candidate and a high probability of failing in such a way that it would produce a bitterly divided party and a campaign that couldn't even start organizing until the end of July. Remember, this second group represented the consensus view of establishment media. Voices like Josh Marshall were definitely in the minority compared to those of Nate Silver or most of the New York Times editorial board. Those people are now trying to get the impression that they were with the winning side all along, but if we want to have an accurate picture of this chaotic campaign, we need to hold people to their record.