(vanity) Why the smart money is on Duncan Hunter

OK, so you’ve got a thousand dollars burning a hole in your pocket and you want to make a statement with it at the same time as getting 40X return on your “investment”, you want $40,000 for that $1000 bet, like Hillary did in her Pig Belly futures or whatever it was. You’re going to decide between putting it down on Hunter or Thompson over at Intrade because these are the 2 most conservative candidates in the race.
https://www.intrade.com/
Which one do you choose?

Let’s start with the guy who has 3 balls. He’s got courage in spades. He’s engaged enemy soldiers in Viet Nam when he was a LRRP ranger and he got a Bronze Star for his real bravery. His friend and supporter also has 3 balls, the guy who we all know as “the man who broke the sound barrier”, Chuck Yeager. While they’re campaigning in Iowa, all you have to do is ask Chuck to tell the story about how he and Bob Hoover were in Russia and got that chance to fly a YAK and Bob took it up gently and respectfully and flew it straight & level into the horizon… and then returned over the viewing stand flying upside down and basically causing the Russians to pee in their pants. After hearing this story or one of a million others, Hunter will take the podium and leverage that emotional courage language that Americans love, and they’ll all look at each other & nod, saying, “this is the guy who should be my president”.

Now let’s cover the guy who played a soldier in the movies. He was quite convincing when he was telling Jack Ryan of the CIA that he wouldn’t be able to get to the submarine because it involved flying in a helicopter, and the last time Jack was in a helicopter he spent 3 months recovering from the accident. It’s interesting and fun entertainment, but it is not real. While he and his friend are campaigning in Iowa, he will need to build his own emotional leverage with the audience, and this is not a Hollywood script.

Right now over at Intrade, Thompson futures contracts are trading at about 6%. There was a time when he had the lead and was trading at 35%, but over the last few weeks he has lost about 30 points. He had the spotlight shining on him as the most conservative guy with the best name recognition, while thousands of his supporters were crossing their fingers during the debates hoping he wouldn’t screw up.
https://www.intrade.com/jsp/intrade/contractSearch/

Hunter futures contracts are at 0.1%. Over the last few weeks they have remained at 0.1%, with the volume staying put at 27778. That is the number to watch. All it takes is for that number to start moving. It means someone is buying Hunter’s contract at a very low price. Within a few weeks, that number will be history. Hunter has been campaigning on a shoestring budget and slowly gaining recognition in the polls, recently just coming in at 4%.
http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/view/28889/republicans_2008_giuliani_28_thompson_19

All he needs is one more percent. Hunter needs to get to 5% in the coming weeks in order to be invited to the Iowa debate by our friends at the Iowa GOP.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1922644/posts
At that point, everyone will know he’s at 5% in the polls. His futures contracts at Intrade, if they’re still at 0.1, will have relentless upward pressure from bargain hunters, but by then it will be too late to buy in at that price.

Here’s where the decision gets made, why the smart money is on Duncan Hunter rather than Thompson. In order to get 40X return by investing in Thompson, you would have to buy his contract to win the whole kit & caboodle, the presidency, which is now trading at 2.5.

At $6, you could not get 40X return on the Fred.Nominee contract. If you bought it at $5, the best you could get is 20X return.

2008.GOP.NOM.THOMPSON(F)
Fred Thompson to be the Republican Presidential Nominee in 2008

The forum at Intrade seems to waver between those who think Fred’s campaign is imploding and those who think it will rebound. But they have freewheeling discussions about the why and how that we have been missing here on Free Republic.
https://bb.intrade.com/intradeForum/posts/list/1805.page

So your decision comes down to this: Is it more likely that Hunter will get 1% more exposure in national polls, and move up to 4 or 5% at Intrade or is it more likely that Thompson will win the presidency outright? Remember, this is the guy who had the spotlight shined on him as the conservative golden boy and lost 30 points at Intrade, and has been losing ground in the polls lately.

While his supporters are crossing their fingers hoping he doesn’t screw up, Hunter’s supporters are folding their hands in prayer hoping that he’ll just be himself.

Over the last few days, I’ve seen a couple of posts like this
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1925179/posts?page=284#284

According to Polls, Fred Thompson Foundering
Posted by Kevmo to SergeiRachmaninov On News/Activism 11/13/2007 1:51:29 PM PST · 284 of 536
It is a bitter time for those who have invested all their hopes with Fred and repressed all doubts. ...Still it is not much fun when you have chosen your candidate, put him on a pedestal, and gone to war for him, and then reality starts to batter you. I’ve already trod the path from hopeful about Fred, to disappointed, to angry in my disappointment. I really should do better at being gentle to those who are somewhere else along on that path.
***That is some amazing candor. I honestly do think that Hunter will not disappoint you in that way. He may not win the nomination due to lack of name recognition, but he is doing what he can about that. His character stands head & shoulders above the others in the race.

That is the emotional language of someone who has felt betrayed by his candidate. But the Hunter followers do not feel betrayed, they have circled the wagons and they are coming out fighting. That’s where you put your money down, where there is fight to the inner core, and the guy they’re fighting for is genuine.

All it takes is that one or two Freepers will copy this article and send it to their wealthy friend who did so well in the stock market during the dotcom boom, or won a thousand bucks at a beer drinking tournament or whatever. Then we’ll start to see that 27778 number trickle, then it will flood through relentlessly. And that will serve as a metaphor for the entire republican campaign, what has been a trickle of support will soon break through the floodgates in myriads of ways, whether it’s our grandmother sending in the $25 check to Hunter’s campaign
http://www.gohunter08.com
or Iowans asking if they could put up a sign on their front lawn or our grandchild folding her hands in prayer for this courageous man.

FR is the Conservative bastion of which I speak, and the current member poll shows Fred in the lead.
***At one time Hunter was winning the polls on FR before Fred came along.

I am disturbed however about your continued placing the blame for Hunters performance on Fred’s entry.
***As I stated in a previous post, it is not blame. We have already been through this: ***Well, if I was trying to blame Fred for Hunter’s woes, that would be the case. But there is no blame attached. Fred did what Fred wanted to do and he was certainly a viable candidate. But I am calling his viability into question. At this point in the race, that should not even be possible. 250 posts on this thread? If what I were saying were completely unfounded, there would be 10 posts, if any at all.

If Duncan indeed is a strong candidate for this office we are choosing Fred’s actions should have no impact.
***Fred had admittedly higher name recognition, which appears to carry a lot of weight. Unfortunately, name recognition is not the equivalent of a good campaigner, and if Intrade results say anything, they say that. Fred is a lousy campaigner.

Fred stands in the way of nothing, because there is no proof that Hunter had the support Fred “stole” to begin with other than the actions of a few speculators at best.
***The “proof” is the same level of evidence you cite above: polls here on FR. If Fred had not ever entered, the support would have coalesced around Hunter and the right would be in solid shape to take on tootyfruityrudy. Instead, we have Fred pathetically issuing this kind of stuff:

Thompson Argues Polls Will Change
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1926425/posts?page=128#128

I also find that it should be seen as somewhat insulting to say that Hunter cannot get/keep that support with out Fred’s departure, because that is his job and his responsibility as a politician in an election.
***That part is true enough. So I no longer want to see the Fred supporters asking for Hunter to step aside, which is what we’ve seen.

So there is nothing for Fred to get out of the way of. He is still performing better than Hunter so until that changes, by efforts put out by Hunter himself, then there is no reason for Fred to step aside (there are many others past just this argument as well)
***When Fred was at 35% on Intrade, if Pissant had suggested that his numbers would drop down to 6% over a few weeks, he would have been laughed off. And if Pissant stuck to the point and said, “If that happens, how many of you will switch your support to Hunter?” he would have gotten very few honest responses because Freepers have so much trouble with hypotheticals. Well, it’s no longer a hypothetical and it is time for Fred supporters to consider giving their support to the rock-ribbed conservative in the race.

BTW come find me in one of the other threads, I not going to keep bumping your vanity, it’s unseemly...
***You just don’t like how this makes your candidate look. Now you’re hiding? How does that look? Are you proud of what this means for your candidate?

This has nothing to do with “my candidate” or your candidate. You’re simply wrong, and you apparently have no idea what you’re talking about.
***Well, you’re doing a great job there, Sherlock. Fallacies and all. Keep up the good work. Here’s an easy one for you: If I was playing 5 card stud and needed to draw one card to an inside straight, it cost me a $1 to stay in and the pot is at $8, do I stay in?

The points I’m making actually work against Thompson — it shows that despite his relatively high polling, the market perceives him as having a small (but finite) probability of winning.
***The light is turning on here. What that means is that your candidate is a lousy campaigner. I’ve been staying away from most of the Fred threads, but I am growing in my conviction that this is the case. Using your own words, you have made the case for your candidate to step aside.

So do it. You’ll lose $2200 in the end because you’ll own shares that will eventually be worth $0.00.
***And you know this, using that crystal ball again, how? What will the shares for rudy be eventually worth? Mitt? Ron Paul? If you really did know this you’d be a wealthy man because you could pick the winner and short all the losers. But you don’t. AGAIN another flawed analysis from you.

But, you will not have affected the probability of Hunter being GOP nominee at all, you will merely be trying to manipulate the market.
***Interesting way of putting it. Since no one on this thread has bothered to address the point that there is a loose correlation between accurate poll results and Intrade futures, the only market manipulation being suggested here is to give that correlation a little nudge in support of Hunter. No harm in that. Yes, people can lose money, they do all the time. But they would be losing money supporting their candidate and have a chance of gaining money at the same time. This is unique in history as far as I can tell (bribery excluded).

Kevmo: Hunter is a bargain because all that has to happen is that the Intrade results would be somewhat near his polling results. That’s a possible 40-to-1 return.

Kevkrom: First of all, ARG is a joke polling firm, so take their numbers with a grain of salt.
***There’s another one this week, and over at the Intrade forum the statement has been made that Hunter has measurable support in the 3 to 4% range. No, I will not take their numbers with a grain of salt. After seeing so many logical fallacies from you, I’m inclined to take what you say with a grain of salt. It’s easy to see that what drives you post in such a logically fallacious manner is that you cannot stand to see your candidate portrayed in a negative light.

That aside, even at a 4% polling number, the likelihood of his getting the nomination is less than 1000:1, according to the current market. Polling numbers do not equal probabilities.
***No one says that they do. But there is a correlation. I mean, it wouldn’t make sense to see Romney polling at 30% and his intrade value at 5% UNLESS THERE WAS A BIG PROBLEM. And it wouldn’t make sense to see him trading at $30 when his polling numbers were at 5% unless there was some market manipulation going on.

At 5% polling, the Hunter contract would still be valued at a zero probability. There’s no “gain” to be had there.
***Finally, FINALLY, you actually come up with one good argument. Unfortunately in writing fast I neglected to use the proper weasel terms. My argument is that should Hunter get to 5% and debate in Iowa, everyone will know he has 5% polling support. And when they look at the Intrade results at 0.1, they’re going to see an incredible bargain. So, yes, what you write is correct and thanks for the correction. But it is simply nitpicking because you do not actually take on my real argument. I would, however, encourage you because you finally did find something that was worth pointing out and arguing over.

....

It doesn’t matter what your payout aim is — if there is no belief that the contract will ever by worth anything, then there’s no incentive to trade for it at any price. The only way you can get your 40:1 payoff is for the market to believe that Hunter has a 4% chance to win the nomination, which will require a polling level much, much higher than 5%.
***That didn’t happen with Huckabee nor Ron Paul. Again a fallacy. Thanks, I haven’t had this much fun in a while.

Your whole “analysis” is based on the flawed concept that poll numbers and probabilities are essentially the same thing.
***Nope. Asked & answered in another post and elsewhere.

No matter if you use the exact words or not, that’s the underlying assumption of the whole topic here.
***It is not my underlying assumption and I have explicitly addressed it. You are simply wrong here. But to your credit, I don’t see the logical fallacy. Maybe there’s a logical fallacy of presuming to read someone’s mind because you presume I have that underlying assumption even though it’s not true. I might have to look that one up. Thanks.

Basically, you say that IF Hunter’s Intrade numbers start tracking his poll numbers, then you can see a 40:1 payout. But you fail to provide any kind of rational evidence as to why that would be so — you seem to be relying on the implied “fact” that the poll number equates to a probability.
***Not “equates”, Sherlock. That’s a straw argument. The rational evidence is past history on Intrade. Huckabee, Ron Paul as recent GOP examples, there are probably others.

thanks for bumping the thread

It sure has. Note that this is just a statement, like what you say is just a statement. I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down because I’m so certain that I’m correct. All that huffing and puffing isn’t an argument to bolster your point.

Puhleeze. I'm not the one saying "the smart money" is on a darker-than-dark horse. My side is based on history, not Judy Tenuta-like insistence that "It could happen!"

***Circular argument. Your argument is that you CAN’T (your word — CANNOT) win the presidency without some kind of statewide post like guvner. The reason? It somehow generates that magical factor of Name recognition. Quayle had very little name recognition. Your response to that: he had wond statewide office.

1. My argument is NOT that "you CAN'T", it's that at this moment, HUNTER can't. He's a red guy in a blue state who has been in Congress for over a quarter-century, but almost anonymously. He was the first Republican to declare his candidacy, but has not distinguished himself as a contender.

2. Quayle didn't need name recognition because he was NOT running for President, George H.W. Bush was. Even so, Quayle had indeed proven his viability as a statewide candidate by winning a Senate seat. Don't misstate my position, which is this:

Of the Presidents that weren't elected on the strength of their leadership of U.S. forces to victory as Generals (Washington, Taylor, Grant, Garfield, Eisenhower) there have been only five that 1) weren't elected Governor of their state, and 2) also didn't rise as high as the U.S. Senate...

Kevmo: Name recognition is something that can be gained within one election cycle because the process itself generates the name recognition.

Smithee: Under ideal conditions, perhaps.

***Thanks for acknowledging my case.

You're misinterpreting my response. I did not "acknowledge [your] case," I replied "Under ideal conditions, perhaps" to your statement that "Character is more important than name recognition because you cannot buy character."

Smithee: Everyone who knows anything about politics knows who Rudy is. Don’t forget that when Time magazine chickened out of making Osama bin Laden its “Person of the Year” in 2001, they selected Giuliani instead. Hunter couldn’t buy that kind of publicity, and if he did, he would still have to perform well at campaign events. Unlike Mike Huckabee, Hunter hasn’t broken away from the pack.

Kevmo: ***Yes, Hunter could buy that kind of publicity.

Why hasn't he? And how come he hasn't done as well as Huckabee, a former governor?

Dan Quayle had it granted to him as a result of the process.

Dan Quayle, again, was selected to run with a sitting VP as his running mate. He wasn't running for President. If Hunter is selected as the GOP nominee's running mate, then we'll talk.

Kevmo: A 12 year old could run against Hitlery if he was conservative enough to get the liberal media into an anti-conservative frenzy.

I have backed up my assertions with historical record and facts. What do you base that assertion on besides hope?

I’ve been going back & forth with John Valentine over this market thingie and he called me a liar. I will be copying some of the posts over to this thread and post responses here because this is the right place to have the discussion.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1926425/posts?page=151

To: John Valentine
Kevmo: All you are saying is that his contracts are valued low
JV: Au Contraire, mon amie. I am saying that his (Hunter’s) contracts are valued (i.e. priced) too HIGH.
***You say oranges are bright orange, I say apples are not colored orange. It is 2 different things. You ARE saying that Hunter’s contract is valued (priced) low. Then you say it’s priced too high, which is simply another way of saying that it’s valued (priced) low.

You are really in need of some basic education in economics, markets and so on.
***If you honestly think that is true then you will not mind that I copy this response over on my original thread and continue the dialog there. Readers who are interested can go over there if they’re curious about how this turns out, and we will no longer be distracting freepers from the original intent of the thread, which was that “Thompson Argues Polls Will Change”.

Maybe you’re good at figuring poker odds, and that may be a skill you can use. But, you have got a view of market operation that is so ass backwards that it is amusing in one sense and tragic in another.
***Which is why this needs to be stated on the Intrade thread. If what you say is true, they’ll be all over me for it. Hint: They’re not. And since you have so much trouble with my theory we should be having this discussion on that thread.

My theory was that a person could put $100 down on Hunter today and if his Intrade #’s started tracking the polling data (Ron Paul and Huckabee the 2 most recent examples), the guy would get 40X return on investment..

Well, that isn’t really a theory, it’s more of an observation that if somebody owns an asset at a $1 buy in price and the asset goes to $40, the holder has made a 40X return on investment. Sort of trivial, in fact.
***It’s not a theory, it’s a trivial observation? Then how can you argue against it. Your obvious problem is with the hypothetical: “if his Intrade #’s started tracking the polling data (Ron Paul and Huckabee the 2 most recent examples)”

The issue in fact isn’t that at all, it is whether the price of a proposition on Intrade such as “Duncan Hunter to be the Republican Nominee for President” would or should be linked to the standing in the popularity polls. Clearly there is no direct link.
***Obviously, or I wouldn’t even be able to put forth this strategy in the first place. Duh. But there is a correlation, which is something that the Intraders acknowledge. It is difficult to quantify that correlation, but there does appear to be one, and my two recent cited examples are cases for it. I’m sure there are others.

It is very easy to imagine a time when the field has winnowed and there are only two candidates left, one with say 70% popularity and the other with 30%. I would expect the prices on Intrade to be more like $95 for the 70% guy and $5 for the 30% guy. Why? Because these contracts do not measure percent popularity.
***I agree with this. What’s your problem? This happens inexorably as the election day draws closer. You can see it in the Intrade graphs. And one shining example of how this is correct is that Intrade showed Thompson declining rapidly, trading at ~8% when his polls showed him in the 20% range or so. I’m not sure of the exact figures, but it was telling that the Intrade numbers were leading indicators and the poll numbers were the laggers.

Is there a chance that Duncan Hunter contracts could come off the 10 cent price? Sure. I wouldn’t hold my breath.
But again that’s not what you have been arguing.
***That is precisely what I’ve been arguing. The fact that you tell me that it is not what I’ve been arguing shows that YOU did not understand, and that you have been engaging in straw argumentation. In another post I put the chances of Hunter’s contracts going to 4% at about 2 to 1, and it is an opportunity to go for a 40 to 1 contract. Maybe the chances are 3 to 1, maybe they’re 100 to 1, I don’t see that quantified anywhere. But he made it to 4%, getting to 5% is an incremental effort, not a quantum one.

In fact Duncan Hunter contracts are too expensive, and that’s why there are no buyers. If they were cheaper, maybe buyers would come to the party, but we can’t find out because the next tick down is zero. There’s your liquidity issue explained for you again.
***The Duncan Hunter contracts are valued at 0.1. That’s their price. You cannot argue that it is not their price. Someone is asking to sell them at 0.1 so that is their value because you could buy them at 0.1. To argue that they are too expensive is such an overbloated argument that it is useless, and furthermore calling me a liar over this semantic issue is despicable. Who cares if the next tick down is zero? You focus on arguing back & forth over this issue and yet you overlook the fact that Hunter contracts are a bargain. You went out of your way to get onto this ridiculous issue so that you could show Hunter’s contracts in the most negative light possible, that somehow the market considers them worthless. But here I am pointing out that there’s an entirely untapped market of buyers for these contracts: Hunter supporters. So by trying to attract and inject a whole new group of Intraders there would be buyers for those contracts, and they could get the ball rolling. Yes, they could. Your argument is that the existing players haven’t rolled the ball. My argument is that a bunch of Hunter supporters could roll this ball and make some money. It is not a lie, and by calling me a liar you have shown yourself to be pathetic.

One final point: There is some dead certain money to be made on the Intrade exchange, and that is in shorting Ron Paul. The profit will be small, but is a dead certain lock.
***I agree. If there were any group I would suspect of trying to manipulate the market, it would be the Paulestinians, and that is what I suspected when the price for Paul was 9 freeping dollars when he was still sort of an asterisk in the polls. But then he made $4M in one day and the whole episode was greeted with a yawn at Intrade. So it probably was not a market manipulation.

I will be copying this post and others onto the Duncan Hunter Smart Money thread, and my future responses to this thread over these topics will be over at that other thread.

153 posted on 11/16/2007 10:05:09 PM PST by Kevmo (We should withdraw from Iraq — via Tehran. And Duncan Hunter is just the man to get that job done.)
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A sampling of the controversy.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1926425/posts?page=154#154

To: John Valentine
Here. I found where what I was saying was basically acknowledged by someone who says he was a former stock trader.

It disproves your contention explicitly. This is the 2nd time in a few days I’ve been called a liar on this forum by Thompson supporters, and the last one basically withdrew the accusation with a one-sentence change in my post that did not change the meaning at all, it was just semantics.

Intrade

Joined: 03/11/2007 19:01:54
Messages: 32
Offline

Tozikio wrote:

I think Huckabee and Paul are taking support
from Fred. These are the people who are looking
for “something or someone else” — they thought
they’d find it in Thompson, and didn’t.

On the ideology scale, Hunter is closer than Huckabee or Paul. That is only New Hampshire polling data, and that state has its own strange political mixture. There’s a thread right here at Intrade discussing Hunter and the possibility of gaining traction.

https://bb.intrade.com/intradeForum/posts/list/1797.page

He’s polling at 3-4%, which is a bump up from what Delphi called Asteriskville. I would expect to see some liquidity in the Hunter contracts coming up pretty soon.

15/11/2007 13:08:00 Subject: Re:Thompson is tanking. Why?
Tozikio

Intrade

Joined: 22/09/2007 23:58:21
Messages: 100
Online
You’re right in an objective sense. But I think in the
early stages of the primary, the voters themselves
don’t know what they want. Thompson had created
a chameleon-like reputation before entering the race.
He could be anything to anybody since it wasn’t
clear how he would campaign.

Independent leaning Republicans had already
decided against the early announced and best
funded candidates. The fall of McCain was known even
before Thompson entered. It was assumed that Thompson
could vacuum up all the dissatisfied voters.

In a nutshell, Thompson had the “support” of the soft,
window shopping voters back in early September. People
are making up their minds now and drifting elsewhere.

I also agree that New Hampshire is a quirky place. But
Thompson needs to show some reasonable mass appeal.
If he gets single digits there, it could affect his results in
South Carolina.

148 posted on 11/16/2007 8:00:21 PM PST by Kevmo (We should withdraw from Iraq — via Tehran. And Duncan Hunter is just the man to get that job done.)
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To: John Valentine
The only issue I have been trying to drill into is that Hunter’s contract on Intrade at 10 cents is not selling because there are no buyers for it at this price, and no sellers at the next tick down, which is ZERO - a free good. If a signficantly smaller tick value could be introduced, the contracts WOULD trade, although, contrary to your fevered expectations, they would trade DOWN.
***Then how can you accuse me of lying? My theory was that a person could put $100 down on Hunter today and if his Intrade #’s started tracking the polling data (Ron Paul and Huckabee the 2 most recent examples), the guy would get 40X return on investment, and in order to get 40X return on Fred you’d have to go for the whole kit & kaboodle. All you are saying is that his contracts are valued low, and my response to that was “COOL”. I still say it looks like a bargain. There is no lie there.

This has nothing whatever to do with the silly crap on the Intrade Froum or your silly crap here. I tried to explain to you why there aren’t any buyers for Hunter’s contract(essentially it’s overpriced), but you only response was that I don’t know what I’m talking about and I should look at the Intrade forum to see how the experts there would savage my position.
***And I found evidence that they agree with what I say. That means what I’m writing is not a lie.

So I looked and while the general level of comment there is a notch or so above yours, NO POSTER on Intrade is trying to sell the nonsense that the reason Hunter’s Contract is not selling is because it is undervalued. Such a comment on a trader’s forum would instantly become the butt of some serious humor.
***The point you’re driving her is some kind of semantics issue, isn’t it? I think that’s what happens when someone posts an analysis like mine and the data seems to correlate but it doesn’t look good for a certain candidate. That’s why the last freeper called me a liar over semantics and I think you’re doing the same. It is evidence that the Thompson campaign is falling apart.

So, again, you lied. And you continue to lie.
***And I have PROVED that I did not lie, quoting directly from that forum that you said not a single post supported my theory.

149 posted on 11/16/2007 8:07:39 PM PST by Kevmo (We should withdraw from Iraq — via Tehran. And Duncan Hunter is just the man to get that job done.)
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To: John Valentine
Now I am going to get personal.
***The rules on this forum are very explicit, no personal attacks.

You are contemptible because you revel in your own ignorance. Of all human frailties this is the worst. Admission of ignorance is the first step in education, and you aren’t willing to take even that first step.
***If the reader will go over to the original thread
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1926032/posts?q=1&;page=251
the reader will see that in post ~300-306 or so I basically identified logical fallacy after fallacy and, for the first time I’ve ever seen it, a true straw argument within a straw argument. Your contention that I’m ignorant was shot down over there when your buddy tried to do it on that thread, and I’ve proved to you that my theory is supported over at Intrade. You are the contemptible one here, calling someone a liar over semantics because it doesn’t look good for Thompson.

It would actually be a good thing for yo to be banned from Free Republic again. Your absence would definitely raise the average level of debate.
***likewise, prince.

150 posted on 11/16/2007 8:14:19 PM PST by Kevmo (We should withdraw from Iraq — via Tehran. And Duncan Hunter is just the man to get that job done.)
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To: Kevmo
To repeat, and now with the evidence to back me up posted so kindly by you:

There is NOT ONE POST there that supports your stand-it-on-its head theory that there are no buyers for Hunter’s contract at 10 cents because it is overvalued.

All there is is the same kind of navel gazing introspection and theorizing about how such a great candidate Duncan Hunter is and how he - for no good reason - has been going exactly nowhere.

But, again, there is NOTHING, not one post in support of your BS.

So, you are now self-exposed as not only a fool, but a liar as well.

140 posted on 11/16/2007 7:03:49 PM PST by John Valentine
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To: John Valentine
You are the liar. I recently went round & round with another Thompson supporter who was calling me a liar. He eventually said that what I was posting was not a lie, I agreed to change ONE SENTENCE. See if you can tell the difference.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1922961/posts?page=36#36

Yeah, this Thompson campaign is definitely showing signs of imploding. Look at how you guys operate.

Here’s another set of posts. Note what Delphi has to say.

Maybe you could wander on over to the Fred Forum and post what is said there. When I touched on that third rail, it was the ONLY time I’ve ever been suspended from Free Republic.

Intrade

Joined: 03/11/2007 19:01:54
Messages: 32
Offline
Hunter is at 4% in this Angus-Reid poll, and at least one other poll this week.

http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/view/28889/republicans_2008_giuliani_28_thompson_19

09/11/2007 08:21:42 Subject: Duncan Hunter gaining traction?
GAW838

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I think immigration is an issue that can kill a candidacy, but can’t necessarily launch one.

In part, this is because it is very important to a certain minority of voters who have hard line against what they call amnesty.

If it didn’t matter at all, McCain would be doing a lot better.

I don’t think that’s the whole explanation though. It seems to me, at least this cycle, like issues have not really been important in driving anyone’s candidacy, save Ron Paul. Certainly, some issue positions have been a way for candidates to engage with one another and score points, but not really competitive candidate has risen due to his stance on a particular issue.

Moreover, even in an environment where a candidate can ride a single issue to the top, he still needs more stature than Hunter had coming into this campaign. So, I remain unsurprised and don’t really see a phenomenon searching for a new explanation so much as a natural consequence of existing assumptions.

Once again, there’s a reason Hunter’s candidacy was greeted with a combination of yawns and ‘really He’s running?’ responses, most people never took him seriously and for good reason.

09/11/2007 13:29:16 Subject: Duncan Hunter gaining traction?
Tozikio

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GAW838 wrote:

It seems to me, at least this cycle, like issues have not really been important in driving anyone’s candidacy

To be honest, I have felt like the Republicans have been dog-paddling the presidency since 1988. Reagan really ran on a set of ideas that stirred people. He could appeal to their patriotism and confidence.

Since then, Willie Horton, Flag Burning, Gays in the Military, Gay Marriage, “Family Values” were the “defining” campaign themes on the Repub side. Reagan had put together a right-leaning coalition of southerners and westerners which was large enough to simply allow “governing from the base” and not bother to reach out or even “think” too much. What the heck was a compassionate conservative or a thousand points of light supposed to be anyway? These were mushy themes.

The candidates seem more pale every cycle, and I think the Republicans have “lost the middle”. And that doesn’t mean voters are happy with the Dems either. I think that’s why the Bloomberg 3rd party contract gets bids in the teens and twenties. Intraders can sense this problem. The ennui of this election is palpable, and people are not ready propel any of the condidates. They’re just going to hold their noses again!

Having said that, I know there is complaining every year about the nomination process. Usually the nominee gains some stature after his acceptance speech.

09/11/2007 18:41:12 Subject: Re:Duncan Hunter gaining traction?
Delphi

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Actually ko, Hunter’s been drawing 3-4% in most polls during the past 2-3 weeks, so there’s a measurable support out there for him. How he cuts through the busy but low-key media buzz of other second-tier candidates like Huckabee and Paul (although I note that a week ago Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post put Huckabee at #3 ahead of McCain and Thompson) is a bit questionable right now.

141 posted on 11/16/2007 7:06:45 PM PST by Kevmo (We should withdraw from Iraq — via Tehran. And Duncan Hunter is just the man to get that job done.)
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To: John Valentine
Here you go. Why would Intraders be talking about measurable support and how that translates into Intrade results? Because it is pertinent, and it does support what my stand-on-head theory as you call it.

Delphi:
Actually ko, Hunter’s been drawing 3-4% in most polls during the past 2-3 weeks, so there’s a measurable support out there for him.

142 posted on 11/16/2007 7:09:09 PM PST by Kevmo (We should withdraw from Iraq — via Tehran. And Duncan Hunter is just the man to get that job done.)
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To: John Valentine
And now that you have posted this example here for everyone to see, there won’t be any question abbout who is telling the truth and who is the liar.
***Where do you think I got the idea and the material for my post? From these forum posts at Intrade. You’re just mad that it makes your candidate look bad. I can see why. It’s devastating.

143 posted on 11/16/2007 7:19:48 PM PST by Kevmo (We should withdraw from Iraq — via Tehran. And Duncan Hunter is just the man to get that job done.)
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Over on another thread the discussion continues.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1926422/posts?page=29#29

I will be responding on this thread because it is more suitable and there are others who would like to know how the markets work.

To: John Valentine
Here you are arguing the future. You do not know what the future holds. Should Hunter pass Thompson at Intrade, would you switch your support at that time? We needed to ask similar questions when Thompson was in the lead at Intrade and suggest that if he were to drop by more than 25 points, would you switch your support? No one did, but if they had, we would get to hold those Freepers to their word. So now I’m asking what in your mind is something out of the realm of possibility. If Hunter passes Thompson at Intrade, will you give your support? I’m just trying to bump Hunter up to 4 or 5% at Intrade, since he is at 4% in the polls. Thompson is at ~6%. So in your mind this is not possible but in the Hunter followers’ minds it is quite possible. Will you lend your support at that time? It’s a yes or no question. No hemming and hawing, no nonsense about how it’s such an impossible event that it’s not worth bothering over. Answer the question. Losing 29 points at Intrade was considered an impossible event when he had the lead, so don’t try to pretend that one is possible and the other isn’t. Answer the question.

29 posted on 11/17/2007 11:12:23 AM PST by Kevmo (We should withdraw from Iraq — via Tehran. And Duncan Hunter is just the man to get that job done.)
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To: Kevmo
To answer your yes or no question: No. For me, Thompson is the far superior candidate in every way. He is a better communicator and he is better aligned with conservative values. But, Kevmo, for me that has never been about who you or I support, or who you or I think is a better candidate.

For me, this has been solely about trying to help you understand how markets work. You have to understand that even if Hunter did get up to 4 or 5% in the popularity polling, that is very unlikely to be reflected in his Intrade nembers. His Intrade numbers would only pop if there becomes a perception that Hunter could break out, and I don’t see that in the cards.

You say that I don’t know what the future holds. Isn’t that EXACTLY what I told you when I said I didn’t have a crystal ball? I specifically said to you that I am NOT discussing the future, yet, your very first remark to me in this post is a statement accusing me of the very thing I have expressly told you I will not do.

I do not consider you to be an honest correspondent, and as a result, any exchange with you is a total waste of effort. Hopefully readers may get something out of it.

30 posted on 11/17/2007 5:28:52 PM PST by John Valentine
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For me, this has been solely about trying to help you understand how markets work.
*** I doubt that, because you show a preference to stay on the Thompson thread and you have downshifted into personal attacks. And the attacks were over semantic issues rather than substantial ones. You have been arguing some ridiculous fine point about the meaning of the word value rather than discussing my theory that Hunter is a good bargain. Over at Intrade today, my little theory was greeted with moving futures contracts for Hunter, even though they’ve been stagnant for months. The market is speaking and it is saying he’s a good deal.

You have to understand that even if Hunter did get up to 4 or 5% in the popularity polling, that is very unlikely to be reflected in his Intrade nembers. His Intrade numbers would only pop if there becomes a perception that Hunter could break out, and I don’t see that in the cards.
***Who cares if you don’t see it in the cards? The market is beginning to listen and express its own opinion, which is in disagreement with your position. Huckabee’s Intrade results rose when he had measurable support, so did Ron Paul’s. Why would Hunter be exempt?

Now, he rest of your comments attribute to me views I have never held, let alone expressed, and sadly, I find that it true of a lot of your argumentation. You don’t want to address me on my points, so you make up stuff.
***Nonsense. Pure nonsense. I showed, I PROVED to you that what I was saying was not a lie, and you went hiding into some semantical argument. We saw this a lot with the tootyfruityrudy crowd, where they would defend him all over the place but they were still “undecided” or some baloney. Calling someone a liar over some semantical baloney issue is a big, giant clue that you are the disingenuous one here. If you want to educate Freepers on the market, then answer my contentions on this thread, explain why the market is going the opposite of what you say, and maybe even give some pointers on the efficacy thread.

To: Kevmo; ansel12
And I’ll be glad when Thompson’s dropout contract pays out. Hunter does not have such a contract.
And he never will. In order to have such a proposition on Intrade there will need to be bettors on both sides of the proposition. There is simply NO interest in either side of the bet at any price and never has been. It is exactly the same as the Duncan Hunter to be the nominee except that at one time there was enough interest at some price for trades to be consummated. In the case of the “Duncan Hunter to drop out” contract, no one has ever had enough doubt about such an outcome to be willing to place money on it. Its just that simple.

28 posted on 11/17/2007 5:11:02 AM PST by John Valentine
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***So when you say, with such certainty, “And he never will. “ You argue from the future that you do not know. And just today, as Hunter’s contracts start to move, you’re proven wrong in this statement that follows: “There is simply NO interest in either side of the bet at any price and never has been.” Someone is obviously interested in buying Hunter’s contracts. That’s why they’re moving, today.

I do not consider you to be an honest correspondent, and as a result, any exchange with you is a total waste of effort. Hopefully readers may get something out of it.
***And I do not consider you to be an honest correspondent either. Not only do we get to allow the readers to decide, but also the market. And today the market whispers you are wrong — I’m hoping that soon it will shout that you are wrong, but only because that would be a good show for my candidate.

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