You read this prediction first, right here in Roanoke
Dwayne Yancey | By Kyle Green | The Roanoke Times
One of the brightest political minds I’ve ever known among journalists belongs to Dwayne Yancey, the behind-the-scenes Senior Editor for The Roanoke Times.
Dwayne contributes to the Blue Ridge Caucus, and plays many other important roles at the paper, little of which have anything to do with politics, which he covered for many years both in Roanoke and elsewhere in Virginia.
He’s my all-time favorite journalist with whom to kick around story ideas (of any genre) because he’s so talented at perceiving different angles. On politics, he’s so smart it’s scary. (Outside the newspaper, he’s a diehard thespian — which is scandalous but it’s true.)
Anyway he wrote a post Tuesday on Blue Ridge Caucus which deserves more attention that it got, and that is finally happening. Here’s the guts of it:
I have an election prediction.
No, not that one. This one: No matter what happens Tuesday, somebody will blame the outcome on the storm.
Maybe they’ll be right. Maybe they’ll be wrong. Hardly matters, does it? Consider these two scenarios:
* Let’s say Obama wins. Surely someone on the losing side will grouse that the storm helped Obama, something along these lines:
Romney had momentum going into the past week. He was pulling even in some polls in Ohio, and close enough in some Democratic strongholds such as Pennsylvania and Minnesota that he was making a play that could have broken through Obama’s Electoral College firewall. . . .
* Now let’s say Romney wins. One can easily imagine an Obama partisan complaining:
Forget those national polls; we were leading in the key states we needed to win. OK, we weren’t at 50 percent, but we were leading. We were going to win, at least in the Electoral College, and that’s the only thing that counts. Then the storm hit. No way Obama could stay out on the campaign trail then. He had to go back to Washington and deal with the storm. . .
There’s a lot more, and it’s all worth reading. Because this meme has drifted onto the national stage as well, over at Politico, with Mike Allen’s Nov. 1 Political Playbook:
Top Republicans are already hinting that if Romney loses, his people will blame the storm for stalling his momentum. But D.C. GOPers acknowledge that having some of the nation’s top auto executives call you out, when you’re the business guy born in Michigan, ain’t helpful.
See what I mean? Two days after Yancey writes it, the national guys start slipping his ideas into their copy. Later today it’ll be in the Washingon Post, and Saturday it’ll be in the New York Times, and by Sunday it will have hit Chicago and Los Angeles.
But it all started right here in Roanoke, before the storm even ended. Dwayne’s not even a politics reporter anymore, but the other guys are still following his lead.
You read it first — or you could have — at Blue Ridge Caucus!
November 2, 2012 - 6:00 AM
With all due respect to the greatest mind Dan has ever known:
It’s not about the Hurricane – It’s all about Fire House #1:
Was Roanoke’s Fire House #1 Obama’s Waterloo?
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http://roanokeslant.blogspot.com/2012/07/was-roanokes-fire-house-1-obamas.html
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http://roanokeslant.blogspot.com/2012/07/obama-to-businessmen-you-didnt-do-nothin.html
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Captain Obvious alert.
I wonder why LB hasn’t noticed that you don’t really even see the Romney campaign using that one any more.
No doubt Hagen is right and small minds will think that a gaffe taken out of context and deliberately made into what it was not will be the reason Obama loses. Except, Obama is not going to lose. Romney is. And IMO, the hurricane that caused that will have been in Tampa when he disrespected 47% of this nation the Wall Street Leveraged Buy Out boss wants to take over and run into the ground.
UTR, it wasn’t obvious Tuesday, when it was published. The fact that it seems so now, to you, is partly due to the meme filtering through the political media since then.
Having had the pleasure to work with Dwayne in his thespian capacity, I just want to go on record as saying that I find politics about 100% more scandalous than the theatre.
Dan, it was obvious when the storm was coming. Even other blogs (Detroit News, Washington Post, The Hill, etc.) and articles started talking about how it was going to have an impact on the campaigns and elections. When campaigns lose, they blame anything and everyone.
Of course the losing campaign or someone there in will blame the storm. This isn’t some crazy new revelation.
But Miriam, politics IS theatre!
@8 Indeed Laura – All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players – and all that jazz. However, I wish our politicians were more based in reality and less in the theatrical these days.
Dwayne thought of it FIRST, UP! Dan said so!
He was talking it up in the newsroom 4 days before he wrote the thing on BRC, no kidding. I heard him.
LC, aren’t you happy? Dick Morris has called a landslide for Romney, and a rout in the Senate for the GOP . . . What else do you want?
Dan …
I saw Morris spouting this nonsense a day or two ago..
and when I read your above, two words
winnowed out of my brainstem..Morris/Delusional.
Seriously.
Google just those 2 items.
His delivery was more like psychotic frothing liar that
needed some sort of sedative.
Morris is and has always been an empty vessel..very complimentary
to Romneys approach.
And maybe just as disconnected to reality.
His circus tent thinks the world is like a game show…but most of us know by now whats behind both doors.
Where will the elephants stampede to after the carnival lights go out?
I propose another prediction…some sort of shenanigans will occur again this election year relating to the Montgomery County Board of Elections, like what happened in previous years:
State board of elections reprimands Montgomery County registrar
http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/285032
State board to examine Montgomery Co. election complaint
http://www.roanoke.com/news/nrv/wb/250944
“This is not the first time Wertz’s office has come under scrutiny…In 2008, the national spotlight shone on Montgomery County after Wertz warned college students that scholarships and financial aid could be lost by voting where they attended school. The state board of elections convened a special panel to address the matter before encouraging students to vote — once — in the historic election.”
gdad #3, maybe Lars hasn’t had time to notice. Too busy moderating the comments on his blog.