Peggy Noonan's Advanced Reporting Techniques Explain Her Success

Peggy Noonan, a keen scientist of the political sphere, once predicted Mitt Romney would defeat Barack Obama based on the fact that she saw a bunch of his yard signs. She brings the same eye for meaningless detail to the shores of Olde Englande.

You may have read “polls” and “analysis” and all manner of “expert” commentary about Britain’s potential “Brexit” vote to leave the EU. But see—this is why we have journalism. So that the Wall Street Journal can send Peggy Noonan all the way to Olde London Towne to investigate what is really happening. Though other great minds, like Thomas Friedman, have pioneered the “just ask the cab driver” technique of investigative reporting, few are able to extract such a penetrating level of insight as Peggy:

My conclusion from four days in London talking to both sides, Leave and Remain, is that in spite of recent polls showing gains for Leave, no one knows what’s going to happen. Everyone has the eye-twitching expectation the voters will deliver a surprise, they just don’t know which one. My anecdote is that a London cabbie told me that for eight days he’s been asking his passengers where they stand: “37 Leave, 18 Remain.” That didn’t make sense—London is assumed to be heavily pro-Remain—but he showed me the yellow notepad on which he kept score.

He showed you the actual notepad? Damn.