Archive for December, 2007
December 21, 2007
McCain may be surging, but has Drudge torpedoed his chances?
Hot on the heels on the ARG poll, allegations have appeared on Matt Drudge’s website that his team having been trying to squash a story about him and a telcommunications lobbyist. Although Matt Drudge is notorious for his 36% accuracy rate, and it is no secret that the muckraker is a dedicated Romney partisan, this story is serious. The fact that the ’story’ wasn’t published by the NY Times means that no-one know whether it alleged that McCain genuinely behaved improperly or just that McCain failed to dot all his ‘i’s. Secondly, while the fact that it hasn’t been published strongly suggests that it seems to be pretty weak, Romney (and Rudy) supporters will try to spin it as McCain manipulating the press.
My financial stake in McCain’s success aside, I believe this allegation is rubbish. After all, McCain is a man of integrity, and even if he wasn’t he has enough discipline to walk the line. Even more importantly McCain has received a lot of scrutiny over the past eight years and the fact that the New York Times won’t even publish it says it all. At the same time, it is going to be difficult for McCain to deal with it given the closeness to the caucus and the fact that campaigning will shut down for the holiday season. Although I believe that he can survive this, the New York Times needs to do the right thing and make a statement about the article. It should also be remembered that this is nothing compared to the smears and the conspiracy theories that flew around the Republican primary eight years ago, something that McCain should remind people of.
Posted in Election 2008 | Tagged john mccain, matt drudge | Leave a Comment »
December 20, 2007
I’ve bought 40 contracts of REP.IOWA.MCCAIN at 5 apiece. Given that I think the real value in these contracts is about 15 I am going to hold them with the aim of selling them when they get closer to that price. This leaves me with $1.48 in cash.
Posted in Betting journal | Tagged Betting journal, john mccain | Leave a Comment »
December 20, 2007
Forget talk of a brokered convention, the Republican contest could be over by January 3rd.
I don’t like to base conclusions on one single poll, especially given that there appears to be a flurry of surveys in the days before Christmas, but the latest ARG Iowa poll is quite extraordinary. The headline results are: Huckabee 28 McCain 20 Romney 17 and all other candidates in single figures. It goes without saying that if McCain can win in Iowa, a state where he got 6% of the vote in 2000 and all but abandoned weeks ago he will have wrapped up the nomination with barely one shot being fired. In fact I’m going to go all out and suggest that if he beats Giuliani and polls more than 15% his momentum will be unstoppable. I am going to put some money on him winning in Iowa.
Posted in Election 2008 | Tagged iowa, john mccain, mike huckabee, mitt romney | 2 Comments »
December 20, 2007
Iowans seem less willing to give Hope a second chance
Adding the Insider Advantage and the Rasmussen polls to the collection of polls and filtering them through Samplemiser produces the following projections: Huckabee 28.29 Romney 25.54 McCain 10.72 Thompson 9.24 Giuliani 6.81 Paul 6.01. Huckabee’s lead has now fallen to just 2.75, while Thompson looks to be heading for electoral oblivion. Huckabee will be very lucky to hang on to his lead, especially since Ronmey has now put up a very effective ad which might erase some the ‘character issues’ that have built up over the past few months. My guess is that Huckabee’s chances of winning Iowa are no more than 45%.
Posted in Election 2008 | Tagged fred thompson, iowa, john mccain, mike huckabee, mitt romney, ron paul, rudolph giuliani | 2 Comments »
December 19, 2007
I reinvested the profits that I made with my Mitt Romney short by shorting a few more REP.NH.FIELD contracts.
Posted in Betting journal | Tagged Betting journal, ron paul | Leave a Comment »
December 19, 2007
I purchased 7 contracts on Romney winning in Iowa, covering my Romney short. It looks like the Mike Huckabee boom has definitely hit the buffers. This increases my free cash to $64.43.
Posted in Betting journal | Tagged Betting journal, mike huckabee, mitt romney | Leave a Comment »
December 19, 2007
Who will be at the bottom of the Democratic ticket?
I am now going to repeat yestoday’s exercise with the Democratic candidates:
Hillary Clinton – A bruiser like James Webb may be her best option if Mark Warner is going to run for the Senate. However, there are so many options that picking on a specific candidate might be a futile exercise. Although Bill Richardson does open up another electoral front in the Southwest/West, I still believe that she will either go with Webb, Warner or candidate from the ‘field’.
Barack Obama – The best candidate to demostrate Obama’s bipartisan credentials and to save the camapaign the bother of fundrasing would be New York mayor Michael Bloomberg. Given that Bloomberg may still be interested in a vanity run for President, James Webb would add some much needed national securtiy credentials to the ticket. Obama might also like to get back at Hillary’s smears by following Ronald Reagan and offering her better half the ‘co-presidency’ (though that would be more for show than with any hope of Bill Clinton actually accepting the offer).
John Edwards – Although Edwards has mooted the idea of putting Obama on the ticket I don’t think he could risk running with someone as inexperienced as the Senator from Illinois. James Webb would be too populist and Bloomberg is obviously out of the question. My guess is that he would choose a female candidate, such as Katherine Sibelius, Blanche Lincoln or Jane Napolitano (though obviously not the latter if McCain was the Republican nominee).
I believe that the value lies in either James Webb or ‘the field’.
Posted in Election 2008 | Tagged bloomberg, clinton, co-presidency, edwards, lincoln, napolitano, obama, sibelius, webb | Leave a Comment »
December 19, 2007
The markets move away from the Texas congressman
The Ron Paul bubble (or technically the ‘REP.NH.FIELD’ bubble) shows signs of starting to collapse. The traded price has now fallen to 17. My guess is that the increased awareness of this mispricing, as well as the general pickup in market liquidity means, that it can only go down further.
Posted in Election 2008 | Tagged new hampshire, ron paul | Leave a Comment »
December 18, 2007
I bought 5 more contracts on a third party/independant takeover of the White House. This is obviously a value bet if Romney or Huckabee wins the nomination. However, I predict that whichever of the five candidates wins the Republican nomination, disgruntled Ron Paulites will try to ramp this contract up – even if their candidate has no intention of running.
Posted in Betting journal | Tagged Betting journal, third party | 2 Comments »
December 18, 2007
Who will be in line for the ‘bucket of warm spit’?
I’m going to recap who I think would be the best in terms of winning the election and who is most likely for each of the Republican nominees:
John McCain: The most obvious choice in both respects would be the Independent Democrat Senator from Connecticut, Joseph Lieberman. Although I think McCain should not even consider anyone else, and I discount both Lieberman’s and McCain’s attempts to straight-bat the question about a possible ticket, if I had to suggest another candidate I would plump for Tom Ridge. Ridge, has executive and cabinet level experience, while he could put Pennsylvania in the Republican column.
Rudolph Giuliani: Giuliani will have two main objectives; picking someone who can prevent a full scale revolt from values voters and someone who can energise the South. This means that, as much as he would like a Giuliani/Lieberman ticket he will choose someone who is clearly pro-life. My guess it that either Sarah Palin, Mark Sanford or even Mike Huckabee would help in that respect. My guts tell me that the latter two would be most likely.
Mike Huckabee: Huckabee’s only hope of winning is to pick someone with foreign policy experience, someone who can enhance his prove ability to win African-American votes and someone who is pro-choice. The candidate who comes mind is the person who turned down both Bill Clinton and Robert Dole, former Secretary of State Colin Powell. Powell, with some justification, has been extremely leery about running and may have no wish to be at the wrong end of a landslide. Huckabee could also be pressured into selecting Olympia Snowe or even Condoleezza Rice.
Mitt Romney. Romney will inherit the animosity of a large section of the Republican party. My guess is that he will try to build bridges by reaching out to either McCain or Huckabee. However, even though Romney will have them on the shortlist that he will leak to the press, they would both probably turn him down flat. My suggestion is that he will choose someone like Mark Sanford.
Fred Thompson. Thompson is probably the only other candidate who could both offer Lieberman a place on the ticket and be able to do so without a revolt. More realistically, I could see him choosing someone who was both younger and female, like Sarah Palin (or even Rice), though the latter would link him too closely to Bush. I could even see him reaching out to John McCain.
Therefore I believe that there is a lot of value in: Field (22.8-39.7), Rice (5.1-5.3) and McCain (1.2-4.7)
Posted in Election 2008 | Tagged giuliani, huckabee, lieberman, mccain, powell, rice, romney, sanford, snowe, thompson | 2 Comments »
December 18, 2007
The PT recommends one of his competitors.
Given that he’s just recommended my website and that I have found it immensely useful, the first website that I will recommend, is Scott Elliott’s election projection website (also known as The Blogging Caesar). I stumbled upon his site Election night 2004 and I have to say that the projections that he made were better than either the exit polls or the BBC broadcast that had a ton of Midwestern and Southern states ‘too close to call’. His formula (which is essentially an weighted moving average augmented by approval ratings) called 48 out of 50 states correctly at the last election and got all the Senate races correct in 2006. The detailed figures and updated analysis are going to become subscription only when the contest starts in earnest but even the free parts of the website are very good.
Posted in Election 2008 | Tagged blogging caesar | Leave a Comment »
December 17, 2007
The Paul in New Hampshire bubble hasn’t burst yet.
The Intade.com price on one of the ‘field’ (presumably Ron Paul) winning the New Hampshire Primary is still around 22.3-24.8. Enjoy the shorting opportunity while it lasts!
Posted in Election 2008 | Tagged new hampshire, ron paul | 2 Comments »
December 17, 2007
The Implications of Lieberman’s endorsement of McCain
Earlier today Joseph Lieberman endorsed John McCain for President. Although it was obvious that Lieberman would hardly be endorsing Edwards or Obama and Lieberman campaigned with McCain in September, it was still a momentous occasion. After all, there was an outside chance that he endorse either Clinton or Giuliani, or (as he himself stated) that he would only decide until after the primaries had finished. Of course there are few clouds to this silver lining. Having Lieberman endorse McCain reduces, but by no means eliminates, the element of surprise that announcing the endorsement at the convention would produce. It also might lead to speculation about a place on the ticket, which might give opponents of such a move in both parties time to plan their attack. Finally, Lieberman’s endorsement might be McCain’s ‘Clark County’ moment, with conservative Republicans shying away from a pro-choice Democrat.
However, in reality it is impossible to see this as anything other than a sign that John McCain has re-established himself as the frontrunner again, albeit one with a 30-35% chance of winning the nomination. It is also a sign that if McCain moves toward the centre and takes the bold step of putting Lieberman on the ticket he can retain the White House for the GOP and re-make them as the ‘one nation’ party that can appeal to the North-East as well as the South and the Midwest. McCain needs to hit the campaign trail hard, keep the faith on Iraq and be prepared to pull the trigger when he Romney, Rudy and Huckabee fixed in his sights. Lieberman needs to also keep the faith with Iraq, avoid pandering on abortion and emphasise his record in fighting pornography and promoting faith in public life. As I emphasised in my last post, John McCain to win the Republican nomination should be a strong buy.
Posted in Election 2008 | Tagged Joe Lieberman, john mccain | 4 Comments »
December 16, 2007
McCain and Giuliani share the lead.
The race is still very murky. Huckabee has a national lead, but seems to have peaked, Giuliani is in second place, but the real value seems to be in McCain.
Rudolph Giuliani – Giuliani is second in national polls but Huckabee seems to be taking a lot of flak from all sides now. Although a lot of people have written him off, there are few credible alternatives. Estimated chances of winning the nomination are around 30%. Price on Intrade.com 36-37. OVERPRICED
John McCain – If Romney looses in Iowa and McCain wins in New Hampshire he will clearly be the frontrunner. However, Romney could still save Iowa and nothing is certain anymore. Estimated chances of winning the nomination are around 30%. Price on Intrade.com 8.8-9.3. UNDERPRICED
Mike Huckabee – Huckabee is the new national leader, with a double figure lead in Iowa. However, he is being attacked from all sides and his candidacy suffers from the fact that he seen as too liberal for the base, while he is too conservative to do well nationally. For all his great polling figures Huckabee has also had surprising problems raising funds. His chances of winning the nomination are 20%. Price on Intrade.com 17-17.8. SLIGHTLY UNDERVALUED.
Mitt Romney – It would be silly to write Romney off, because he may still win Iowa. However, there is a solid anti-Romney bloc that he will have to contend with in the latter states, if he gets that far. Price on Intrade.com 23.4-25.7 OVERPRICED
Fred Thompson – He might finally, according to the pundits, have put in a good performance in a debate, but his poll figures in Iowa are just not responding.. Estimated chances of winning the nomination are about 5% Price on Intrade.com 4.2-5.4 FAIRLY VALUED
Posted in Election 2008 | Tagged fred thompson, john mccain, mike huckabee, mitt romney, rudolph giuliani | Leave a Comment »
December 16, 2007
Inputting the latest You Gov Poll into my spreadsheet and filtering the data produces the following projection: Conservatives 44.72 Labour 32.02 Liberal Democrats 13.09. Putting this into Baxter produces the following seats projection: Conservatives 375 Labour 230 Liberal Democrats 15. An updated spreadsheet is here (the UNS formula predicts a slightly lower Conservative majority of 92).
Posted in British Politics | Tagged conservatives, labour, liberal democrats, YouGov | 1 Comment »
