Question 3: If Romney wins, where should Nate Silver go to hide from the irate liberals who have been duped into a false sense of security?

Anthony Resnick: In the few days since I first suggested this question, it’s become apparent that Nate Silver has as much or more to fear from gloating “old-school“ pundits as from jilted liberals if Romney wins. It’s interesting, while I shouldn’t try to speak for conservatives, my occasional jaunts to The Corner suggest that liberal confidence and conservative confidence heading into Tuesday are of a very different character (to the extent either side is confident at all). While there’s certainly a “Romney? Really? That guy?!?” component to liberals feeling good about our chances (despite Josh’s well-argued case for Romney’s appeal), our confidence is based mostly on reading Nate Silver, looking at swing state polls, looking at the map, and counting to 270. For many conservatives, confidence in a Romney win is more an article of faith. President Obama is so evidently a failure as a president that any poll that shows him winning must be wrong and, even if the polls are right for how things currently stand, by Election Day voters will realize that the emperor has no clothes.

Ian Cheney: I don’t know, but I hope he has room for one more. Silver, who truly seems to take an objective look at the numbers rather than see the numbers his ideology wants to see, has two possible fates after this election. If he nails the prediction for the second straight election, he’ll achieve a sort of “Gospel of Nate” celebrity status in 2016. Many will read his numbers and absolutely think what he says goes; many people will also think that the best way to break down an election is to ignore ideology and rely solely on the data. If, however, he’s wrong and falls to a pedestrian 1 for 2 in predictions, his 2016 numbers will be scoffed at by half the country. His 2012 predictions will have failed to perceive Romney’s true support. Moreover, his strategy as a whole will lose credibility. What remains after the hard numbers is our gut and anecdotal evidence. Anyone has that. Silver would take a huge hit as he’s relegated to the league of ordinary pundits.

Ben Hoffman: Burn him at the stake! Just kidding. The whole brouhaha makes complete sense: GOP water-carriers again trying to eradicate that barrier we call reality; traditional political journalists clinging to their racehorse notions of campaigns; all sorts of people fearing what they don’t understand. What Ian says is true—if Silver’s wrong, he’ll be scoffed at in 2016 by many—but consider how crazy that is. As Salon’s Alex Pareene pointed out, there are literally zero consequences for traditional pundits who are frequently wrong. It’s also worth pointing out that what Silver does is a really smart, informed averaging of polls. But others do that, and do it fairly well. So I’ll second what Slate’s Matt Yglesias says, and imagine a possible future for Silver if his predictions go astray on Tuesday: he’d be even more valuable if he turned his statistical skills to bear on another realm besides politics.

Stephen Kurczy: Sicily? That’s where Michael Corleone hid, at least. Watch out for the car bombs.

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