The problem here is being obscured by not dividing it into two kinds of journalism. I think horse race coverage is a totally different animal than news coverage. I don't see why the scholars on journalism aren't stressing the difference. Horse race/political coverage, it's really just like sports, where like ESPN naturally welcomes having a former partisan player coming over to the non-partisan side to analyze what's going on, including using his/her insider knowledge of all the tricks used to win.

Horse race coverage, and the related political tricks, is where the money is because like it or not, that's where the big audiences are. The audiences for wonkery and straight news are much smaller. CNN made a determination long time ago that it was going to drop the Ted Turner model as unprofitable, and go horse race and political analysis and punditry like Fox and MSNBC.

I admit I am prey to liking some horse race as much as the next person. So I am partly guilty contributing to the emphasis on horse race and political operatives and what they do, I especially like to analyze those and demographics of voting. But I like to think I keep it in balance and prefer real news more. And I have no partisan activist leanings. It is quite clear when election season starts, all passionate partisans start paying more attention and there is a bigger audience and their passions are pandered to.

This is something I actually got mad at Josh Marshall about. He had a good site that focused on news, wonkery,and big picture. And it was clear that he made a decision that he was going to go for the money, too, when he opened the floodgates of TPMCafe to the Obamamania vs. Hillary horse race, totally drowning out things like foreign policy discussion panels,  Liz Warren's wonkery on the middle class and consumers, and wonkery on health care policy and health insurance, special coverage on Katrina,  etc. It takes both great discipline and an alternative source of funding to turn away from the horse race monster. I guess I was expecting him to be a better person than me.

Ok, all that said. As to quality in horse race coverage. I trust sources that have former political operatives from both sides more than the ones that don't. I suspect that CNN is making a wise hiring choice in that regard, especially in this day and age of Fox having so much input into not just the national discourse but into the president's head and what the RNC does or doesn't do. And that we may see better insight into horse race at CNN than at MSNBC as time goes on precisely because of this hire.

I still wish that they'd return to the Ted Turner model, though.