Money Talks: Clinton versus McCain

Parent Cafe
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<p>I find it interesting to follow the markets in trading shares of election predictions. </p>

<p>[Intrade</a> Prediction Markets](<a href=“http://www.intrade.com/]Intrade”>http://www.intrade.com/) </p>

<p>[Iowa</a> Electronic Markets ~ Current Markets](<a href=“Markets | Iowa Electronic Markets”>Markets | Iowa Electronic Markets) </p>

<p>Thus far, they predict a match-up between Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Party and John McCain for the Republican Party, which would make for interesting debates, I think.</p>

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<p>Funny, that’s where we were 14 months ago. Maybe we could have done without all this primary nonsense.</p>

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<p>As we’ve found with football lately; you have to actually play the game. :)</p>

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<p>I was hoping for an Obama-McCain contest (or maybe ticket; that would be interesting . . .)</p>

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<p>If Hillary and McCain were to run against each other, that would guarantee McCain a win for 2008. McCain would be able to get more of the moderates to vote for him than Hillary due to a mixture of aspects including political philosophy and personality. </p>

<p>However, if Obama were to run against McCain, who actually wins is tougher to say.</p>

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<p>Obama and Huckabee being paired up would have drawn in Bloomberg, which I would have found interesting.</p>

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<p>It’s been fun to watch the recent price swings on Intrade.</p>

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<p>I seem to recall that they predicted Hillary would win in Iowa, but I’m not sure I’m remembering correctly. Anyone know?</p>

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<p>That’s an interesting question. Hillary’s price for winning the Democratic nomination plummeted after the Iowa primary, as I was able to find by looking at a custom view of her price graph in that market on Intrade, but I don’t see records of just the predictions for that one primary. It appears she was expected to win Iowa and it moved the markets when she didn’t.</p>

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<p>Actually, the pertinent political science work done on elections would probably disagree with you. It would by no means be guaranteed because McCain, as the GOP candidate, would have a tough uphill battle to fight due to RDI growth slowing the year before and during the election as well as the recent polarization of the GOP.</p>

<p>There exists a misconception that the election is a battle for the center, but the truth is that Bush did not have to go after the center to win-- all the election is is a battle for 50% +1. The question, therefore, is whether or not McCain can rally the same sort of support amongst the new bread and butter of the Republican party as Bush did. </p>

<p>If not, Clinton can win.</p>

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<p>Wow! As I post this, with Super Tuesday ballots being counted, Intrade shows Obama with better odds of being nominated by the Democrats than Clinton. Interesting. </p>

<p><a href=“http://www.intrade.com/[/url]”>http://www.intrade.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>I just learned about a fascinating article about prediction markets </p>

<p><a href=“http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=markets-predict-outcome-better-than-polls&print=true[/url]”>http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=markets-predict-outcome-better-than-polls&print=true&lt;/a&gt; </p>

<p>from an AP statistics teacher. The latest prices on Intrade </p>

<p><a href=“http://www.intrade.com/[/url]”>http://www.intrade.com/&lt;/a&gt; </p>

<p>show Obama leading Clinton for the Democratic nomination.</p>

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<p>After all was said and done, it now appears that Obamadama DID win more delegates yesterday. And will likely win Washington, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Hawaii, Maryland, Virginia, DC, and Virgin Islands in the next round.</p>

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<p>Heard some interesting chat this a.m. on the possibility of a McCain-Lieberman ticket. Someone forgot to think about the imbalance of 2 Northerners who are both quite hawkish when the country is more inclined to support doves, overall.</p>

<p>I have no doubt that just about any Republican could beat Hillary, nationally. I have watched for decades the Dems shoot themselves in the feet by being amazingly myopic. Even when most of the party (not true in this case) is behind a candidate, this does not necessarily translate to the national electorate. Even conservatives disheartened by a McCain nomination would come out in droves to vote against HC; plenty of independents would as well. (In contrast to independents currently coming out for Obama)</p>

<p>Another interesting factoid I heard yesterday. In CA at least (I don’t know nationally), HC’s supporters were lower-income, less-educated than Obama’s voters. White men voted more heavily for Obama than for HC.</p>