The conservative bubble and the immigration debate

I know this has made the rounds quite a bit, but I still laugh every time I read it:

Scarborough recalled just how wrong Republicans, and many mainstream pundits, had been about the outcome of the election. He, too, he said, fell for the conventional wisdom in the final weeks, that Mitt Romney was riding a wave of momentum, with his big campaign crowds as ultimate proof. His source for this judgment? '[Uber-pundit] Mark Halperin called me and said, 'I've never seen anything like it!''

If we ever needed more evidence that Halperin is a moron, this removes all doubt. I mean, at the time reporters covering the campaign were reporting things like this: Enthusiastic crowd, but hard not to notice the rows of empty seats at the back of this Romney rally in Virginia Beach. #2012
' @sppeoples via web Steady stream of people leaving Romney rally in the middle of his speech. Maybe it's the cold, but energy level low in Ohio. #2012
' @sppeoples via web

Throw in Romney's consistent deficits in battleground polling, and it's hard to see how Halperin could've been so gushing. Halperin had really never seen anything like this? Didn't he pay attention to the McCain campaign in 2008?

But this is the right-wing movement we're talking about, so Halperin's fact-bereft deceits didn't stay with him. He shared them with Joe Scarborough, supposed smart conservative. And did Scarborough ask for empirical data to support Halperin's enthusiastic delusions? Of course not! They're conservatives! Facts are too liberal.

So instead, Scarborough parroted Halperin's predictions that Romney would win based on Halperin's shitty and selective memory of what he'd seen. And it wasn't just him, but the entire conservative movement. And remember, they weren't echoing a guy with a track record of being right, but one who has consistently proven to be full of shit. I mean, remember when he argued that McCain's "I don't know how many houses I own" gaffe was a bad thing for Obama campaign?

You'd think conservatives would learn their lesson and be less willing to disregard data that contradicts their worldview, but that won't happen anytime soon. Look at the debates over global climate change, or guns, or'as we'll see below the fold'even their future prospects if they continue standing in the way of immigration reform.