Fantasy-Exploding Time Saver

At WaPo today, Jonathan Bernstein has a brisk and useful summary of slow-news-day thumbsucker fantasies you can expect to hear from pundits before voters start voting in 2012--but that have little or no real merit. They include: a third-party presidential victory; a late GOP nomination contest entry; a deadlocked convention; a refusal by conservatives to support Romney if he is the nominee; substitution of another veep candidate for Biden; a game-changing general-election debate; a domination of the general election by shadowy money; and a "total flip" outcome where Republicans win the White House and the Senate while Democrats regain the House. To this list I'd add the fantasy of a presidential landslide for either party, and a last-minute trend that makes fools of all the pollsters. It's kind of annoying that what Jonathan calls "pre-debunking" is even necessary, but silly "counter-intuitive" scenarios can fill a lot of space in magazines, newspapers and web sites.