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The
Top Three
Forecasts of 2012
Plus What You Don’t Know
About the Ultrapolis Project and UWFR
The Top Forecast:
Obama
If you are an avid
reader of our irregularly issued briefs and newsletters, then you know our
forecasting record, and our success in this perilous occupation. Our top forecast fulfilled this year was
our calling of the election two years in advance. Now, it’s true that – as with every
president election – everyone in the post-election days makes clear they
“knew” that the winner would be re-elected.
If before the question we heard everywhere before the election was
“who do you think will win?” often followed by an “are you serious?”
(granted, the latter question usually - but not always - coming from a
pro-Romney voter); now, almost to a person, all we hear is “Oh, I knew Obama
would win.” Even Sean Hannity has
publicly begun to speak as if he knew all along Mr. Obama would win, when he
clearly said otherwise for weeks before Election Day (and admitted shock for
days after). As we have long said, we
loathe predicting presidential elections: little credit if you get it right,
but plentiful bad credit if you get it wrong.
20/20
Hindsight Tautology
Folks often move on
to explain that they knew that Mr. Obama would win because Governor Mitt Romney
could not win certain states required to win the electoral college majority,
or that certain demographic groups favored Obama. This is nonsense not far removed from
someone saying, “I knew Obama would win because I knew he could get more
votes.” Yes, a majority of Ohio voters
didn’t favor Romney, but with Obama’s final winning margin so narrow in Ohio
(51%) and elsewhere, the question there and elsewhere is why. If you think that it is all about skin
color and gender, you are focusing on only one factor, which in our view is
actually secondary to more important ones.
For us, a conversation on why elections are won and lost should focus
on the most important factors.
A person whose main
argument for the reason the president was re-elected was because of blacks or
women is making clear they are unaware, or think less, of other factors. Republicans who focus on race and gender
the next time around will be disappointed.
Democrats who do so now give little credit to their voters.
Victory
Seen In Wake of Defeat
Sometime in 2009 we
were asked by a good friend and UWFR
reader, with a hint of dismissive incredulity we might add, if we could
predict if Obama would be re-elected.
Our response was, and some of you may have seen us say this in some of
our comments in later UWFRs in 2010, that we would be
able to once we saw what happened in the aftermath of the 2010
elections. That October, in the
looming shadow of a crushing defeat for Obama, and then again in its
devastating wake, we made our prediction:
Barack
Obama would be re-elected in two years.
The
Next Top Two Forecasts:
Perry,
Facebook
There are other,
more interesting and highly accurate predictions that you may not have known
about because they were made via other media (Facebook - which we will not do
again, and Twitter). Almost a year in
advance, before he even entered the presidential race, we forecast Texas
Governor Rick Perry’s candidacy would self-implode once the Governor was
subjected to the scrutiny of the national spotlight. That certainly turned out in spades. By January 2012, Big Tex was run outta’ town.
Another forecast
you may have missed, this one via the Twitter system, was the most
expeditious and financially helpful forecast we made in 2012: Prior to the initial public offering (IPO)
of Facebook stock, UWFR forecast on
its rarely used Twitter feed
that Facebook’s $100 billion stock valuation would not be fulfilled anytime
soon, and we advised investors to stay away from it. The stock collapsed shortly after the IPO,
shocking the stock market, provoking news headlines around the world
(clearly, somebody was surprised). The
stock remains over 20% down from its IPO price.
The
Twitter You Don’t Hear
Unfortunately, our
Twitter feed is read by almost no one (most of our readers are apparently in
a mature demographic that sees no value in a Twitter account), and millions
of people lost billions of dollars. Well, we tried. By the way, did you know Ultrapolis has a Twitter account? That’s another thing you might have not
known. Not to worry, you are not
missing all that much. We only post
forecasts there for which a deadline is approaching, and we will not be able
to issue a UWFR brief in time. You can check past messages posted there,
or sign up to get our messages at https://twitter.com/ultrapolis.
As for 2012 ‘tweets’ made by other Twitter
users that are not Ultrapolis, we direct you to the top three Twitter
‘tweets’ of 2012 in a nearby column on this page (we do not link to pages
that contain profanity, so we are not linking to Twitter’s page showcasing
its top blurts). You can see for
yourself the kind of informative messages you may have missed on Twitter,
billions and billions from all sorts of entities who may or may not be who
they say they are. (The Wall Street Journal recently had an
excellent column titled “News
Flash: Twitter Rants Aren't News”
on the
absurd coverage of Twitter posts - more on that in our own next issue.)
Another thing you
may not know: Ultrapolis does not
“tweet.” We post messages on the contemptibly,
yet aptly named, Twitter system. We
also do not “friend” anyone in a way that corrupts the word ‘friend’ to the
point of meaninglessness. We make
connections with people, and in some cases after some acquaintance-building,
we make friends. And we most certainly
do not ask people to please “like us.”
Has there ever, in the history of humankind, a more pitiable plea
become so widely employed by so many institutions, even among our most
respected ones? (No doubt the result of a social order that places
marketability and popularity – even for non-profits and other public
institutions – above every other institutional value.)
Continued
column 2 >
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From column 1
The
Visitors We Do See
Though our
Twitter feed is almost lifeless, it is a different story for our formal website
(presumably what you are reading right now). In our chart nearby on this page, we
publish for the first time the visitor traffic statistic for
UltrapolisProject.com, which includes UWFR. While nowhere near the scale of a major
publication or even a national blog, UltrapolisProject.com, with UWFR, sports a healthy steady stream
of visitors that rises in tandem with the increase of releases of UWFR briefs and newsletters as well
as the release of our annual
Ultrapolis Tallest Cities Report.
On average, about 30% of our UWFR email recipients access the UWFR
brief or newsletter the same day it is released, another 15% the next day,
with 10% more throughout the next week or so. We have a small email distribution list,
but an extremely high readership rate per email (55% is very good). Thank YOU.
Our highest first
day readership rate of the year was for our UWFR issued November 6, Titled “Final
Forecast for 2012 Presidential Election.” That was true even though it was
issued late in the day. The most
read UWFR of the year by far (and so far), was on the coverage of the
Democratic Convention in the UWFR of September 5-8. However, most of the visits to this page
came not when it was first published, but after a plug from Slate.com to a
different page on our website. We
can only guess as to why this particular posting may have generated so much
interest in these new visitors, or if the visitors came from another link
forwarded that we could not trace back.
Of our total
visitor traffic, roughly 50% comes from links from other websites, 40% from
our UWFR briefs and newsletters
issued, and the rest from search engine queries. A passing reference and link to our website
in a Slate.com story in November generated a burst of increased traffic for
several days. Our statistic counter broke down on the 4th day of
this period, but we estimate the links from Slate.com’s French and English
language sites generated an additional 300-plus visitors over the days of
late November and early December.
This is not the first publication to link to us, but the largest and
most well-known yet – aside from the numerous Wikipedia links made by others
(not by us) editing entries on cities and their urbanscapes. Our pages on the World’s Tallest
Cities remain our most visited, though UWFR pages are gaining on them. On average, between 700 and 800
different visitors take the time to read our pages each month (see chart
above).
Our
Daily Operating Ethic
The current media
spectacle of Lance Armstrong’s efforts at public redemption makes an
interesting backdrop to our view on how to conduct the Ultrapolis Project
enterprise. Mr. Armstrong, a man who
admits to answering to no particular defined moral philosophy other than
the one that sprouts from his own head, had a choice to make at a critical
point in his career. It is a choice
people with options make every day.
The choice was to lie, cheat and threaten his entire way to fame,
fortune, and public adulation, or to remain honest and decent to other
human beings, and risk probably never having those things in any great
measure. We know what choice he
made. Many people die fat and rich
while leaving their families a fortune after a lifetime of concealed
wrongdoing and even ruination and destruction other people’s lives. Some get caught, but still get to keep
most of their loot. Then again, some
do pay in this life.
Some Armstrong
fans will point to his philanthropic work.
But they forget that even murderous drug lords fund charities and
good causes with their ill-gotten gains, and even the most vile butchers
and tyrants have devoted friends and lovers. Even profit-driven corporate machines
that destroy landmarks, confiscate working
people’s homes through eminent domain law, or knowingly risk consumers’
lives with dangerous products; these find room in their marketing hearts
for public charity causes. Of
course, we don’t compare Mr. Armstrong to drug lords or tyrants in the
gravity of his sins (maybe to corporate machines). We merely note that it is easy to be
generous and giving when you are flooded with money and praise, and to have
many vocal defenders when you can use that money to be generous to them.
They say also that honesty is for the most part less
profitable than dishonesty; and they are quite ready to call wicked men
happy, and to honor them both in public and private when they are rich or
in any other way influential…
-Plato
The Republic
Continued column 3
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From column 2
To conduct
yourself in this life with insistent respect for your own personal dignity and
integrity as well as that of others requires risking never attaining the
wealth and celebrity status others parade every day –more and more of them
proudly with their pants down. It
requires valuing the respect, trust, and good conscience of those who know you over popularity among
those who do not. And, it requires a
high regard for the fair and civilized treatment of everyone. As imperfectly practiced as it might be,
that is the daily operating ethic of the Ultrapolis Project.
Governor Chris Christie
President in 2016?
The Dangerous Lure of
Praises
The New Maverick
The popular,
populist, somewhat swaggering and physically robust Governor of New Jersey,
with a reputation of a being a no-nonsense, non-politically correct,
down-to-earth straight-shooter, has seen his popularity ratings soar in the
wake of two incidents where he went against his own (Republican)
party. The first incident was the
effusive, public embrace of President Obama in the midst of Hurricane Sandy
relief efforts just days before Election Day. The second was the chastising (in
demagoguery in our view) of the Speaker of the House and the other
Republicans in the lower house of Congress regarding a spending
authorization related to long-term Sandy relief and reconstruction efforts. The media, particularly of the mainstream
left, have delighted in reporting on the rise of this erstwhile
conservative Republican bugaboo.
Will he be the next heavy-hitter of the Republican Party? Will he make the Tea Party heel? Will he become president, with his no-nonsense,
putting-fellow-Republicans-in-their-place rectitude?
We think
not.
The Governor will
remain popular and widely seen as a powerful contender for the Republican
nomination for president of the United States – until he steps into the
arena. Much like the less-informed
but much clumsier Texas Governor Rick Perry, many of the same
characteristics that make him popular today in New Jersey will not hold up
well in the intense fire and brimstone of a presidential campaign. This is not to say he would not make a
competent president. Only that he
would not make a competent candidate.
Dulling
Adulation
There is also a,
perhaps small, character flaw in Gov. Christie. He is more of a demagogic grandstander
than the valiant defender of the people against “the system” many seem to
think he is – though we think there is a mix of both in him. It is easy to be popular when you say
popular things, and this is not necessarily bad. But when you say popular things that you
know unfairly tarnish the reputation of others and possibly promote bad
government – that is either a sign of a willingness to make things worse
for others in the long run for personal gain today, or a sign of an
impulsive personality that can’t tell the difference between his honest
desires and his pandering for popular approval. The first is a callous trait of
self-awareness that will still allow you to get elected. The latter is a trait that will accept
cascading streamers of praise that will end up coiled around your ankles as
you make your way through the stage.
We think the good governor has the latter.
Top Three 2012‘Tweets’
Billions All Atwitter
Four More Years[sic]
From @Barack Obama
RIP Avalann.
i[sic]love you[sic]
From @justinbieber
F*** it NFL.. Fine me and use the money to pay the
regular refs.
From @TJLang70
Our forecast record cannot be beat. One can follow the herd chasing the
latest hyperbolic, melodramatic, and soon-forgotten micro-trend on Facebook
and Twitter, or one can be wisely and judiciously in front of it with
UWFR.
Comments
may be directed to contactproject@ultrapolisproject.com,
or if you receive the newsletter email, also via a reply to the email
address from which you receive it.
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