Pundits don't know everything.

[TayTay]

It seems that the pundit class is getting some people down. How about, from time to time, I publish some 'blast from the past' articles that show you that pundits don't know sh*t.

First up, this trip to the way back machine. Yes, this was actually printed and someone actually took home a paycheck for writing it. Please note, nothing in it ever came true. At all.

THE SENATE WILL KENNEDY STEP DOWN? TWO HOPEFULS WAIT IN WINGS
BOSTON GLOBE, N, Sec. FOCUS 01-16-1983
By DAVID FARRELL

Some of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's longtime aides and friends believe that he may leave the Senate during his current term. They feel that Kennedy is restless and fed up with the Ancient Mariner-type of curse with which he seems destined to live out the rest of his political life.

They say that his split with Joan and his gradual drift from close friends such as cousin Joe Gargan, with whom he has clashed on the sensitive abortion issue, are nudging the 50-year-old senator closer to his three children and his late brother Robert's family. His unexpected pullout from the 1984 Democratic presidential race is cited by these Kennedy associates as the forerunner of the final step.

Frank discussions by such Kennedy veterans as Don Dowd, who ran the field organization for the senator's recent re-election campaign, and Ted's sudden change of plans on the presidential race have triggered the growing speculation and some political maneuvering for his seat by two of Massachusetts' young Democratic congressmen.

The 59-year-old Dowd, who has been active in Kennedy's five senatorial campaigns, has told friends that he believes Ted may step down in another year or two.

The belief is based on recent observations and not on anything Kennedy has told him. The senator keeps his own counsel on such matters until he is ready to go public.

But Rep. James M. Shannon of Lawrence puts so much credence in the Kennedy retirement possibility that he has asked Gov. Michael S. Dukakis to name him to the vacancy should Ted resign during Dukakis' term.

The able congressman, who was elected to his third term last November and is one of the most respected members of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, was one of two members of the Bay State Democratic congressional delegation to campaign actively for Dukakis against former Gov. Edward J. King in the party primary.

Shannon was brought into the bitter fray by Rep. Joseph D. Early of Worcester, who has been his mentor and close friend in Washington. Rep. Early, former chairman of the Mass. House Ways and Means Committee, helped Dukakis tremendously in populous Worcester County, where Early has been a political power for two decades.

At Early's urging, Shannon has been attempting to position himself strategically in case of a Kennedy pullout. The young congressman (he just meets the minimum age of 30 for the Senate), who is a favorite of Dukakis, met with the governor 10 days ago and asked the governor to name him to the Kennedy seat if Ted leaves.

Sources close to the administration say that the governor does not believe that Kennedy plans to resign. He and Kennedy intimates such as administrative assistant Eddie Martin of Quincy are convinced that the senator still has his heart set on the presidency and will never leave the Senate to write his memoirs or enter private law practice.

Dukakis made no assurances to Shannon. It is not Dukakis' practice to make advance commitments, especially in such iffy circumstances.

But Dukakis is very fond of Shannon and probably would be inclined to give him the nod unless someone of the stature of Atty. Paul P. Brountas of Hale and Dorr, his longtime friend and mentor, asked for the honor. Brountas and Dukakis became close friends at Harvard Law School and have remained so since.

Dukakis confidants say that the governor himself has no interest in going to Washington as a senator.

Nor, they say, would Dukakis be likely to hand the seat to Lt. Gov. John F. Kerry who, like many of the state's young Democratic politicians, would jump at the chance to go to the Senate.

Shannon views Rep. Edward J. Markey of Malden as his main contender for the Kennedy seat. The 36-year-old congressman, who is starting his fourth full term (he won a special election to fill the unexpired term of the late Rep. Torbert Macdonald of Malden), has become the darling of the nuclear freeze movement in this area.

Ironically, less than two years ago Markey was worrying about whether the Mass. House and Senate would target him as the sacrificial lamb in the redistricting of the state's 12 congressional districts. Mass. House Speaker Thomas W. McGee wanted to needle Markey, who had embarrassed him in the House when he served as a state representative.

Markey got aboard the nuclear freeze campaign last year, even before Sen. Kennedy made his big pitch for it, and has ridden it to great heights. He was honored at the Parker House 10 days ago for his strong advocacy of a freeze. Many of the nation's leading liberals, including Kennedy and former Ambassador John Kenneth Galbriath, were on hand for the tribute.

The rising national popularity of Markey has generated the advance work being done by Shannon for the Kennedy seat.

Markey has one major disadvantage: He stayed out of the Dukakis-King fight. That and Shannon's close ties with Rep. Early and the entire Dukakis camp give Shannon the edge at this time.

Shannon, who will return from a fact-finding tour of Japan later this month, has told friends that "within 30 minutes of (an* announcement by the senator, I'll announce my candidacy for the Senate."

If Kennedy does leave, his replacement would fill his seat until the next state election, at which time he or she would have to run for the remainder of Kennedy's six-year term, which expires in 1988.

Shannon's principal weakness - he is not well known across the state - would be alleviated considerably if Dukakis provides the big head start an interim appointment to the Senate guarantees.

Certainly he is not as well known as Rep. Barney Frank, whose decisive win over Rep. Margaret M. Heckler in November attracted so much attention that he would be a formidable opponent in any contest for the Senate. So also would Rep. Brian Donnelly of Dorchester who is one of the bright young Democratic politicians who aspire to higher office.

[whometense]

1. I absolutely love this idea.

Yes, we do need these reminders.

My personal touchstone doesn't need to go back any further than the fall of 2003, when in all-knowing-punditworld Howard Dean was the democratic nominee and John Kerry was (metaphorically) begging on streetcorners for spare change.

[karynnj]

2. This is fascinating

They are only over 4 or 5 terms off for Kennedy. I never realized that Kerry was older than Shannon - having only read of his and Kerry's battle for the Senate nomination, I had just assumed he was older.

Is it snarky to notice that very positive adjectives are used for Shannon (able, one of the most respected etc), Markey (national popularity, main contender), Frank (formidable), and Donelly(bright young)? Kerry only gets young and is dismissed out of hand as a possibility. I guess he had only been Lt Gov for a month and a half, so maybe it was just lack of experience. Did Dukakis take sides in the primary in 1984?

[TayTay]

3. No, he did not

publicly. There was under-the-radr stuff going on.

[CBHagman]

4. I have a book called "The Experts Speak."

It has page after page of pronouncements by learned people who told us in the early '90s that it looked like "Republican presidents as far as the eye could see," that "Titanic" would flop, etc. I keep it around to provide perspective.

[Island Blue]

5. This reminds me of how before a big game

like the Super Bowl or the World Series the "experts" spend the entire week leading up to the event talking about how one team is going to dominate the other, etc. etc. and invariably the "experts" are wrong! I think the pundits, political or otherwise have a lot of space to fill (weather it's on the airwaves or in print) so they just think up potential outcomes and send their thoughts out into the world. Then, when the outcome is different than what they predicted, who cares - that's yesterday's news.

[wisteria]

6. Thank you!

I need to be reminded that the media is often wrong and basically just guessing.

[CBHagman]

7. Sometimes they're not just guessing.

I believe that some of them are indulging in wishful thinking or just saying things for effect. Take Pat Buchanan, for example. I remember that during the 1990s, he would make pronouncements, sounding almost gleeful, that Bosnia would "explode." He was off by a decade and had the wrong country.

Of course, even with all the inaccurate predictions and foolish pronouncements pundits make, they simply don't lose their jobs for being wrong or ignorant or biased. And now that Brill's Content is no longer in print, we can't read the scorecards for the various pundits and find out just how off they were. :-(

[TayTay]

8. I miss that mag

It was great fopr taking on the talking heads. Sigh!