Such an objective approach like Silver's removes the market for the subjective narrative (convention bumps, opinion swings after gaffes, perception of the candidates, etc.) journalists rely on during the many months of campaigning. That's a threat to their jobs. It would be so amazing if the market for punditry would dry up.
Except it doesn't have to. It's easy to apply a subjective narrative to changes in numbers.
For instance, Obama's electoral vote EV and chance of winning, according to 538, sharply plummets after the first debate before turning around. Between the 3rd and 12th of October, Romney actually tripled his chances of winning from about 13% to about 39%. Then it turned around and Romney dropped to about 16%. It's not difficult to build a dramatic story around that.
In fact, this kind of thing is exactly what sportswriters and business journalists do all the time. Which means ESPN is on a (slightly) higher plane of journalism than most political commentary.
Here's the quote on pundits saying the election is a toss-up: "then you should abandon the pretense that your goal is to inform rather than entertain the public".
