One difference, John, between the sharp take from Carr and the equally dense one by Gibbs is that the former actually seemed to talk to this odd, exotic breed of voter known as the Social Conservative. Perhaps he was at the convention, where you couldn’t take a step without bumping into one of them.

There were mass meetings, in fact, where one could find a pack of 1000 grazing amongst their finger foods of choice. These folks were not shy and afforded every opportunity to allow you to ask them some questions. They even offered to take an interested observer to their leaders. And if that wasn’t sufficient, one could have have roamed “radio row” where booth after booth of talk show hosts heard from collectively thousands of callers from this tribe of voter, the Social Conservative, whose views one could readily assess.

In short, Carr reported and Gibbs pontificated. The latter is fine, I suppose, provided you have some familiarity with your subject matter. When you don’t, you come away appearing clueless. Which come to think of it, is what Carr concludes is true of many of his colleagues.