Over at the Corner, Jonah Goldberg reconsiders the phenomenon of the Obamacons (conservatives who support Obama) and admits that “The Obamacons have reached sufficient voice and number to be more than the ‘statistical noise’ you get every election year.”

I think that this phenomenon can’t be analyzed without controlling for the probability of an Obama victory. It might be more accurate to call the Obamacons something like “Obamatunists.” It makes life much easier in Washington to have been counted as a supporter of the incumbent administration, especially when a side benefit of having switched sides is to be lavished with media attention and hailed as a great visionary. I doubt more than one or two of these characters would have announced for Obama if his and McCain’s polling numbers were reversed. Would Colin Powell have done so? Unthinkable.