This is the Dow 36k he's referring to in the end: http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/99sep/9909dow.htm ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dow_36,000 )

That interview mostly went awry. Nate Silver is a brilliant statistician, not a politician. He's no more able to guess the mindset of Appalachian racists 3 years from now than anyone else.

Yea, as I was reading it, more than once I caught myself saying, "Nate, stick with what you know."

OTOH, a brilliant statistician achieves enough success to be noticed by a mainstream "least common denominator" interviewer. How else could it turn out?

I wouldn't call any journalist associated with the Economist a "least common denominator".