Rubio, Paul, and Christie

In this brief video clip and accompanying article, Marco Rubio reflects on the meaning of the historic Christie victory in the New Jersey governor race. In a reaction very similar to that of Senator Rand Paul, Rubio makes it a point to say that you can't extrapolate national electoral meanings from such a local election.

Understandably, this sort of dismissal of Christie's win is being interpreted as a shallow display of a violated ego. However, I interpret the statement of both Rubio and Paul as a sort of indictment of the media's obsession with over-analyzing and over-interpreting electoral results. This sort of over-interpretation can be easily seen in the 2012, 2010, and 2008 election cycles. At the end of all 3 (and presumably far before these three, as well), the media predicted the utter collapse and imminent electoral failure of the overarching losers of the races. For instance, in 2010 after the Republicans took control of the House and Obama's "shellacking" comment, prominent media outlets were quick to herald an upcoming trend of Republican dominance. Similarly, after 2008, every story for a year afterward was about how the Republican party was essentially destroyed by the defeat and would likely be shuffled to the sidelines for what appeared to be a generation.

So, in typical fashion, the media outlets who report exclusively on the horse race of politics were quick to not only interpret the Christie victory as something more meaningful than it actually is, but were also just as likely to dismiss criticisms of media reaction to the Christie victory.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/11/06/rubio-dont-jump-to-conclusions-about-meaning-of-christie-win/