I read the Shor piece. I can't read the twitter stuff because it keeps re-directing me to login and I'm not going to, but I don't think I'm really missing much. Bruenig isn't claiming that it is his policy preference or even Shor's to not do the CTC, even though that is what the "polling says" and his point about Shor's case was that Shor acknowledges that he is talking strategy at the beginning and I agree with his strategic thinking for the most part at the top, but then he goes on to do that absurd bit about the polling data and that is where I part ways.
I think the more absurd part is Shor understands issue/policy polling to be almost universally b.s., subject to bias in the writing of polls etc. but then goes on to do it anyway while claiming he doesn't. The reason isn't simply the polling, is largely because the vast majority of the electorate simply does not think about policy questions in any logical/reasonable way that is recognizable or discernable to some egg head like shor.
The fact that he knows all that and still attempts to make a living on claiming that he has the key to overcome it is a pretty good living if you can keep it up, but my premise (and I'm pretty sure Bruenig's reading) is that the whole exercise of carefully sifting through the data on the minutiae on the CTC benefit level means testing is absurd on its face and the fact that he then makes some charts and acts like there is some clear policy preference by the electorate to be discerned is just fool's gold. That Shor then adds in the part about of the issues polled: "this version polls at 50% and another polls at 53% and we should re-design based on this" would be better if he just started out by acknowledging there just isn't much difference and so instead there is a strategic advantage or policy preference. I think there is a case to be made there, but the "data" just obscures this.