Hi there. If you're reading this, you're probably a new follower of mine on Twitter. Or maybe you're a troll. Or maybe you're someone making assumptions you really shouldn't. Below will be at least one fact relevant to the point you're trying to make or the question you've asked. Happy reading!

1. You've worked for candidates who lost elections, so why should anyone listen to your views on politics?

Not a lot of people really do listen to my views on politics, relative to people like Ann Coulter, Dick Morris, Joan Walsh and Al Sharpton, but for what it's worth, I'm pretty sure I've had a better track record of predicting outcomes and reasons for them than any of these people. So maybe you should listen, or maybe not. That's your call.

But as for the losing thing, first of all, I've advised winning candidates and parties as well as losing ones, both in the US and abroad. I consulted for the GOP in 2010. I've advised foreign parties and individuals who have won elections. I worked for Scott Walker in his recall election in 2012. I've also worked for losing candidates and parties and organizations (Carly Fiorina is the one who is usually mentioned). And I've worked for people who aren't up for (re-) election who are generally regarded as pretty successful.

My general attitude where working on campaigns is concerned is that I've got to really like and believe in the person, and that their odds of winning aren't really things I consider relevant when deciding whether I like them and want to work for them. Most consultants want to work only for winners, even if they are wet farts of human beings who frankly no one should be inspired by or want to vote for. So, some of them have more winning records than me. But they also work for wet farts of human beings, so there's that.

The vast majority of my work isn't for candidates, committees, parties, etc., though. It's on issues. Again, for whatever that is worth....

In Braveheart, the dramatized (and fictionalized) Edward I opines that the problem with Scotland is that it’s full of Scots.

Ahead of tomorrow’s independence referendum, ironically this seems a good description of the nature of the challenge that faces both the “Yes” and “No” campaigns. What looks from the outside like an election where really pretty much everyone should have a formed, pre-set view with few caveats, few things that might make people waver in their positions – after all, we’ve been talking and indeed fighting about this issue every couple of decades for centuries now, it seems – the reality is that for a lot of Scots – those eligible to vote and those not (yours truly, along with thousands of other self-described Scots who are not registered to vote in Scotland) – the entire decision to be made, either for the purposes of voting or reaching a personal conclusion, is actually more emotionally, economically, and historically fraught than I think either the “Yes” or “No” camps want to admit. The trouble for both campaigns is that in order to win, they’re both going to have to try their best to appeal to some people who have some very conflicting views on independence, and who sense that everything that would be good about it could also be bad, and that everything that would be great about staying in the UK, could also be terrible. ...

Political junkies across America have spent the last 24-plus hours pinching, slapping and throwing cold water at themselves in an effort to confirm that, yes, what they think happened to Majority Leader Eric Cantor, representative of Virginia's 7th congressional district (at least for a few more months!), really did happen on Tuesday night....