Nate Silver Warms to the Folk Musician's Analysis

After the Miller fascisty incident, Silver's analysis, from the NYT blog:

"Mr. McAdams’ chances of winning are also improved the closer that Mr. Miller and Ms. Murkowski finish to each other. Democrats make up only about 20 percent of the electorate in Alaska. But it is not inconceivable that Mr. McAdams could finish with perhaps 34 or 35 percent of the vote, which is about where he’d end up if he won the support of almost all Democrats and about one-third of independents, some of whom are left-leaning.
That could be a winning figure for Mr. McAdams if, for instance, Ms. Murkowski and Mr. Miller each finished with 32 or 33 percent of the vote. It seems less likely now than it did a few weeks ago that Mr. Miller is a safe bet to secure 40 percent of the vote or more. The tricky thing for Mr. McAdams is that, if Mr. Miller is indeed yielding some of his support to Ms. Murkowski, that only benefits him up to a point. If Mr. Miller’s support were to collapse further, for instance, and he received only 25 percent of the vote on Election Day, most of the voters fleeing Mr. Miller would probably choose the other Republican, Ms. Murkowski, instead, which might boost her standing to 40 percent or above.  In that outcome, while Mr. McAdams would finish ahead of Mr. Miller, he would nevertheless finish in second place."

The thing with the incident is, Miller-types will love pushing around a reporter. It will undercut him hugely with moderates, but only so far.