Just to say that I just deleted several posts in order to fix a problem with my web-log. Unfortunatly, there does not seem to be any means of retreiving them. Apologies if your comments were deleted as well.
Archive for May, 2008
Clinton, but not Obama, leads McCain in Ohio
May 19, 2008McCain stumbling in Ohio
My latest projections are:
Hillary Clinton 49.09
John McCain 43.44
John McCain 45.19
Barack Obama 43.61
McCain trails Clinton by 5.53% and leads Obama by 1.58%. This is bad news for McCain, and at least partially due to his speech on Iraq.
Is it time to bet on Hillary in Oregon?
May 19, 2008
Why Betfair’s 24/1 is good value.
Betfair is currently offering the chance to be on Hillary in Oregon at odds of 29/1 (though betting against Obama at 24/1 is a more liquid market). Given my last projections have her only 6.16% behind Obama in Oregon, I believe that this is good value. Although I would put Hillary’s chances at no more than 15%, I believe that she has been gaining momentum as Democrats increasingly, understand that although she might be divisive she is far more electable than Obama. In (American) football terms she might be ‘three yards and a cloud of dust game’, as Alex Castellanos puts it, this is not a bad strategy when your are deep in your opponents territory and nursing a healthy lead.
(Not) Like Ike
May 19, 2008Why McCain’s attempt to run as an ‘Eisenhower’ Republican is a mistake
Given that I consider myself a Blairite, the British equivalent of the American liberal hawks, as opposed to a libertarian, I don’t usually agree with anything written in Reason magazine. However, I think the recent article by Matt Welch pretty much hits the nail on the head. In it Welch argues that, ‘McCain is lobbying hard, and with some success, to be seen as an “Eisenhower Republican”—a doctrine-straddling “moderate” between idealists (a.k.a. “neo-cons”) and Henry Kissinger-style realists’. This is not by any means a new trend as Ryan Lizza talked about, ‘McCain’s transformation between 2000 and 2008—from a Teddy Roosevelt Republican to an Eisenhower Republican’. Tellingly, McCain’s adverts also reference Winston Churchill, whose second stint as Prime Minister (1951-55) most closely paralleled that of Eisenhower. In effect he seems to be reinventing himself as a more hawkish version of Collin Powell.
Now it could argued that there is nothing wrong with this strategy. After all, Churchill did win the 1951 election and Eisenhower won in 1952 and 1956. Indeed, I have to admit that ‘Wrightgate’ and Obama’s neo-pacifism means that a Collin Powell (or John Warner) style Republican could probably beat Barack Obama. However, one has to remember that McCain, unlike Churchill and Eisenhower, does not have the benefit of running against an unpopular government (or in Eisenhower’s case an unpopular lame duck President), but it is he who is struggling get out from under the shadow of George W Bush. Of course one could argue that since McCain is going to win a national security debate anyway, it make sense for him to be as inclusive as possible. However, again this ignores the fact that that articulating a clear and simple strategic and moral justification is a better way to convince people than watering down his message. Since McCain is more interventionist than his statements would suggest, they undermine his ‘straight-talking ideal, making it harder to attack Obama when he tries to reinvent himself as moderate on foreign policy.
It could also be argued that reducing the volume on national security will allow other issues, which are generally much less favorable to McCain to emerge. Indeed, the crux of my argument about this election is that the Republican’s real problems onwards have been whenever they have moved away from national security they have been confronted with the reality that America has real problems with inequality, access to healthcare, a failing education system and the growing power of special interests. The Iraq war, far from being a drain on Bush’s popularity, has been the sole reason why the Republican have remained viable for so long. It is no coincidence that Bush’s popularity started to collapse once he starting wobbling on national security with the disastrous decision to convene the Iraq Study Group. This is why, instead of throwing hawks and neoconservatives under the bus, McCain needs to emphasize his foreign policy credentials, while throwing ‘no-government anarchism’ out the window.
That said, it is important not to lose a sense of perspective here. McCain did not commit to unilateral withdrawals, only hoping that the situation would permit such withdrawals. His optimism that Iraq can be stabilized is positive. At the same time, as several people on various forums have pointed out, he only hopes that “By January 2013, America has welcomed home most of the servicemen and women who have sacrificed terribly so that America might be secure in her freedom. The Iraq war has been won’. If you were especially pedantic you could argue that McCain is echoing FDR by allowing himself the option of rotating fresh troops into Iraq. However, if that is the case McCain needs to balance such optimism with a signal that a McCain administration will focus on achieving goals, not clockwatching, and that if necessary America will, ‘any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty’. Explicitly allying himself to both the Kennedy and Truman doctrines (as opposed to the Powell Doctine) and selecting Joe Lieberman as his running mate will go some way towards making this clear.
McCain leads Obama but not Clinton
May 18, 2008Hillary Clinton still does better
My new national projections (last poll ending May 16th) are:
Hillary Clinton 44.27
John McCain 43.93
John McCain 45.06
Barack Obama 44.02
Clinton still does relatively better against McCain than Obama. However, it must be said that the difference isn’t that great. McCain’s foreign policy speech seems to have created a larger number of undecideds, which I don’t think is a good thing for the Arizona Senator.
Hillary leads by 35.29% in Kentucky
May 18, 2008Hillary’s lead increases
My projections for Kentucky are:
Hillary Clinton 64.45
Barack Obama 29.16
Hillary’s lead is starting to increase, mirroring the trends in Oregon. Could we be seeing a sudden revival in Hillary’s vote as the possibility of Barack Obama becoming the nominee approaches?
Where did the DLC go wrong?
May 17, 2008TPT writes the obituary of the DLC
Although the most recent Oregon polls suggests that Hillary Clinton cannot be discounted, Barack Obama is still clear favourite to be the Democratic nominee. Although the respected political consultant Dan Gerstein says that Obama’s victory represents the triumph of the moderates within the Democratic party, I have to respectfully disagree. Indeed, this seems to be represent a repudiation of the once influential DLC and the triumph of the antiwar left, as represented by the internet site, and pressure groups, Daily Kos. Indeed, last year no candidate attended the annual DLC forum, choosing instead to go to Yearly Kos. In contrast, only eight years ago the DLC would be riding high, with a ticket made up a (then) moderate Al Gore and Joe Lieberman. Who would have thought that Hillary Clinton, the doyenne of the Democratic left, would be considered too right wing for the new model Democratic Party? Of course, the DLC has been extremely unlucky since Mark Warner’s decision not to enter the nomination contest and the razor-thin defeat of Harold Ford Jr in 2006 robbed the DLC of two of its most promising politicians. However, this explanation is unsatisfactory since the success of John McCain in the Republican primaries proves that a candidate can win by swimming against his party’s tide.
The reason why I think the DLC failed was that it spent too much time philosophising. Instead of simply adopting an updated JFK style agenda for the 21st century, or an Americanised version of Blairism, it spent too much time in search of some ‘third way’. It is not particularly difficult to say that one is a moderate progressive on economics, hawkish on foreign policy and that one realises that some family values need to be returned to the public square. There was also the problem that it emphasised the electoral rewards for being centrist on many issues, especially family values, rather than promoting the rationale behind these issues. Although Joe Lieberman and Wittmann were clearly people who managed to combine a liberal stance on abortion with a genuine concern about the mainstreaming of poronography and the decline of the two parent family, the stances of other members of the DLC could be perceived as more opportunistic. Indeed, some members of the DLC sounded like the fictional Mayor “Tommy” J. Carcetti, whose concern for law and order was opportunistic. The most obvious example of this was Cory Booker, who ran on a ticket of law and order in Newark, only to turn into a pro-drug legalisation tax hiker once he was elected.
With the exception of Joe Lieberman, the DLC members spent too much time making their message on Iraq unnecessarily complicated. Instead of simply saying that they favoured a combination of a more aggressive counterinsurgency strategy and staying the course they waffled. Even the normally excellent Marshall Wittmann once wrote, ‘The Third Camp stands between the Administration “stay the course” and the “withdrawal now” forces. It includes both supporters of the decision to go to war and critics. Its leaders include John McCain, Joe Biden and Wes Clark’. Although I prefer Biden’s stance on Iraq to that of Barack Obama, ultimately he and Clark have never been supporters of the war in the war that McCain or Lieberman have, and for Wittman to suggest otherwise is disingenuous. Iraq is one of those issues where there is no ‘third camp’ (except possibly in calling for an more aggressive counterinsurgency strategy). Although a big tent is important, so is fighting one’s corner, especially when it is under attack.
Clearly, thing could swing again back in the DLC’s favour, but history is not encouraging. Indeed, the twenty-four year gap between LBJ and Bill Clinton was too long shows how long a philosophy (and a party) can remain cut off from the electorate, and even then Clinton was disappointing in many respects. Even if Hillary manages to surprise the critics, and become the Democratic nominee, the Democratic party will still be committed to an isolationist trade and foreign policy, although not perhaps such an extreme one. The correct strategy would be for DLC, and members of the more socially conservative Blue Dog coalition, to cut themselves off from the General Election, or even to endorse McCain, and hope that Obama will be defeated by McCain. With the Daily Kos wing of the Democratic party discredited, the up and coming leaders of the DLC, such as Ken Salazar, Mark Warner and Harold Ford Jr, can then fight their corner for the Democratic nomination in 2012.
Obama leads Hillary by only 6.16% in Oregon
May 17, 2008Hillary trails in Oregon
My projections for Oregon are:
Barack Obama 50.48
Hillary Clinton 44.32
Although Obama will probably win in Oregon there is definitely an outside chance that Hillary might pull off a massive upset. In this case Hillary will be right back in the contest.
Huckabee shoots himself in the foot…
May 17, 2008… and his chances of being VP in the head
Huckabee’s shocking joke about Obama avoiding an assassin has pretty much put paid to his (already slim) chances of becoming McCain’s running mate. I always though the Huckabee as VP rumours were more about reminding fiscal conservatives that there were far worse things than a ticket with Condi/Lieberman/Crist on the bottom than a serious idea in itself (I consider the ‘Romney as VP’ rumours to have been the same for social conservatives). I have to say that although I believe he would have made a poor Republican candidate, I respected Huckabee right up until he tried to reinvent himself as a less crazy version of Pat Buchanan, with his pandering to the minutemen and his stance on the Confedarate flag.
Returning to National Greatness: How the GOP can reinvent itself
May 16, 2008TPT offers some advice to the elephant
The Republican party seems to be in turmoil with a combination of poor congressional ratings and a shocking results in Mississippi producing a crisis of confidence that has seen the ravings of Ron Paul climb to the top of the bookseller charts. Given that every person with access to a computer has written about the direction the Republican party should be taking, I am going to outline my suggestions on what the Republican party should do. It might seem strange that a left-of-centre Brit, who is definitely not any sort of conservative, is giving advice to the GOP, but I would contend that the amount of money that I have staked on Obama not being president, and the small amount that I have on the Republicans retaking Congress makes my motivations more straightforward that those of other commentators. In any case distance from the subject has never stopped me before so it is not going to stop me now.
The first thing that the Republican party needs to do is to move to the centre on economic issues. The Democrats, even though they have been dominated by the left, have managed to gain a huge advantage on the economy, healthcare and taxation. Indeed, had September 11th not increased the importance of national security, and unleashed the forces that would move the Democrats sharply to the left, the Republican party would have lost badly in 2002 and a Democrat would now be occupying the White House. Even the Republican magazines were disgusted with the ‘no-government anarchism’ of Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson and Ron Paul when it dominated the Republican debates in the fall of 2004. Economic conservatism might have got some traction in the 70s and 80s when taxes were sky high, but they now seem like an anachronism in an age of increasing inequality. By all means the Republican party should remain an opponent of wasteful spending and a supporter of free trade, since these are good for society whatever philosophy you support, but it should recognise that the government needs to play a more active role in healthcare and education.
The Republican party also needs to stop treating people like Newt Gingrich with reverence. Although he occasionally has a few good ideas, such as his support for a McCain/Lieberman ticket, he is extremely unpopular in the country at large. Indeed, the latest poll gave Newt Gingrich a net approval rating of -27%. Similarly, although it may break the heart of Andrew Sullivan, Barry Goldwater should not be a model for the modern Republican party, unless they want to experience a repeat of 1964. Although many people believe that Bush was unpopular because he departed from ‘conservative’ (or more accurately paleo-libertarian) principles, the inconvenient truth is that it was precisely those departures (Iraq, No Child Left Behind) that have made him a middle-ranking president, as opposed to one of the worst. Even if one ignores the fact that the policies of the libertarian and conservative philosopher kings of the Republican Party are both unpopular and unworkable, their ‘leave us alone’ philosophy on guns directly runs against their distaste for immigrants and their love for limited government and the market runs against their support for attempts to find loopholes to the antitrust laws.
In essence the Republicans need to re-read David Brook’s 1997 essay, ‘A Return to National Greatness: A Manifesto for a Lost Creed’. In this David Brooks argues for a several key principles, ‘limited but energetic government, full-bore Americanism, active foreign policy, big national projects (such as the Panama Canal and the national parks), and efforts to smash cozy arrangements (like the trusts) that retarded dynamic meritocracy’. In essence this means a more socially conservative version of the Blairite/DLC agenda. Of course, you could argue that it has been Bush’s pursuit of this agenda that has got the GOP in these straits. However, it is not Bush’s foreign policy that is the reason that he is at twenty eight percent in the pollster.com polling averages, it has been his departure from it. This was illustrated in the 2004 exit polls where Bush beat Kerry by nearly twenty points (59.5 vs 40.2) among voters who were concerned about foreign policy (National Security and Iraq) but lost by a whopping 33% with those who focused more on domestic issues (Healthcare, Education and Taxes).
Indeed, the triumph of the anti-war and anti-everything wing of the Democratic party has opened an opportunity for the Republicans to capture the centre ground, as has the emergence, in Barack Obama, of a Democratic candidate who not only seems determined to drive a wedge between the generations but is more likely to nod his head to Jeremiah Wright’s rantings than view his country as a force for good. When even someone like Hillary Clinton is held to be too right-wing and too wedded to middle America for the Democratic party, you know that something is wrong. Of course, it is important to remember that there are potential flaws. This strategy should not be an imitation of David Cameron or Boris Johnson’s peculiar amalgam or elitism, isolationist (and in Boris Johnson’s case) racism. It also should be noted that ‘full-bore Americanism’ in this context means a celebration of a ‘shinning city on a hill’ and positive action to welcome immigrants out of the shadows of the underground economy into the American family, rather than a xenophobic immigration policy or the unwholesome dog whistling that Hillary Clinton and the North Carolina GOP have been engaged in. In essence this means combining the populism and honour of John McCain, combined with Giuliani’s optimism and Lieberman’s principled stance on foriegn policy and family values.
A B- performance from McCain
May 16, 2008
TPT looks at McCain’s latest speech
John McCain gave a speech on what he hopes to achieve in his first term. Although it contains some good points, such as a pledges to set up a temporary worker programme and to work with Democrats he also makes several mistakes. Firstly, the speech is very short on specifics, adding little flesh to his idea. He also panders too much to the right in calling for a flat tax, which would be disastrous if people felt he actually meant it. Finally, although his optimistic vision for Iraq is good, his belief that most combat troops will be able to leave by 2013 is a huge mistake. This is because it blurs the difference between him and Obama on an issue that needs to be emphasised, it gives a hostage to fortune and reframes the debate about withdrawals rather than victory. I don’t want to sound like a broken record, but McCain is repeating Tony Blair’s mistake of being overly concerned about the base, when he needs to be reaching out to independant voters and moderate Democrats.
Frankly, the Republican ‘base’ is going to vote for him simply because he is not Obama. Therefore he needs to ignore them and start trying to aim for the political centre, even if it means putting forward policies that annoy Michelle Malkin, Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich. Keeping quiet about his support for better regulation, a fairer society and a more humane immigration policy might have been necessary during the Republican primariesbut its a reciepe that increases the risk of an Obama Presidency in November.
Betting Journal Update
May 15, 2008TPT Reviews his betting journal
There hasn’t been much activity on my account because I’ve got three types of bet, neither of which are rational to trade. The first type is the bets that I think will win. The second type is what I would consider value bets, bets I expect to lose, but which are priced too low relative to their chances. The final group are bets I will definitely lose, but ones which are too expensive to trade away.
Bets I expect to win
GOP.NOM.MCCAIN = +39 contracts
GOP.PRES.OBAMA = -17 contracts
PRES.REP = +32
DEM.VP.WEBB = +10
DEM.VP.WARNER = +10
DEM.VP.NUNN = +10
DEM.VP.DASCHLE =+10
DEM.VP.KERREY=+10
DEM.VP.FIELD=+10
Value bets
DEM.NOM.CLINTONN = +24 contracts
CONNECTICUT.REP=+10
Cost less to let them expire
PRESIDENT.FIELD2008=+85
GOP.NOM.HUCKABEE=+13
GOP.NOM.GINGRICH=+30
GOP.NOM.THOMPSON(F)=+20
GOP.NOM.BARBOUR=+100
GOP.NOM.SANFORD=+100
HOUSE.GOP.2008=+9
BLOOMBERG.08.INDEPENDANT=+5
I also have some bets with Betfair, Ladbrokes & PaddyPower, which are kept strictly separate from my regular betting journal.
Reason #1: Wright has rallied the GOP Base behind McCain
May 15, 2008TPT begins his series on why Obama will not be President.
Barack Obama seems to have dodged a bullet in terms of ‘Wrightgate’ and the Democratic nomination. I am even prepared to admit that, due to a combination of media pressure and Obama’s belated denunciation of Wright, the issue may be dead as far as independents and Democrats go (though I believe that it will cause a steady trickle of voters towards McCain and it might make African-American voters more receptive to a ticket involving Condi Rice). However, I believe that one long-term consequence of the whole business is that the Republican ‘base’ is now solidly behind John McCain. This is important because McCain needs to move back to the centre on economic policy, get back to a more humane immigration policy and be bold in his vice-presidential pick. It is also important because they are useful in getting out of the vote, even if they have been one of the reasons why the Republican party is in such dire straits. Of course, just because McCain has the opportunity it doesn’t (unfortunately) mean that he is going to use it, but when he does start to make some bold gestures, the Republican equivalent of Daily Kos will be willing to sit on their hands.
McCain leads Obama and Clinton in Ohio
May 15, 2008Good news for McCain in the Buckeye State
My latest projections are:
John McCain 46.92
Hillary Clinton 41.91
John McCain 46.72
Barack Obama 40.47
McCain beats both Obama and Clinton by 5.01% and 6.15% respectively. Despite the fact that Ohio has a 2.2% intrinsic bias towards the Republicans this is bad news because over the last 10 election cycles it has marched in lockstep with the national Democrat-Republican margin (with an R2=0.98). This demonstrates that McCain is doing very well in the big ‘heartland’ states.
Obama leads Clinton by 13.42 in Oregon
May 14, 2008Hillary trails in Oregon
My projections for Oregon are:
Barack Obama 53.34
Hillary Clinton 39.92
It looks like Obama is going to win this state, but a win here would put Clinton right back in the game. Unfortunately, the only way for her to win is to score such a huge upset.
