Duncan Hunter is at 5%. Vanity.

Hunter supporters are constantly being told that our candidate is at 1%. The only real basis for this is biased Media polls. An unbiased source would be Intrade, which has Hunter at a $5 (corresponding to 5%) ask price on the faux exchange, no activity on the real exchange. Futures markets have proven to be better indicators than polls.

Anyone can sign up at InTrade, especially in their play money futures contract market.

The rumor going around is that Intrade is only for foreigners outside of the U.S. due to internet gambling laws. Note that Intrade does not accept credit cards, which could be the source of this rumor. Even if it were true, it would suggest even more of an absence of bias.

For more information on futures contracts markets and their accuracy even with play money, see Popular Science Magazine.

PPX? What's that? "PPX" stands for "The PopSci Predictions Exchange," a virtual stock market where the stocks are the future of science and technology. Think the iPhone will be the greatest hit since sliced silicon? Buy! Think the International Space Station will never get built? Sell!

Register here to join the PPX. It's fast and free, and we promise we won't give away your personal info to anyone else. Everyone starts with $250,000 PopDollars, the currency of the PopSci Predictions Exchange. You can then invest some or all of your money into one of the many FutureStocks we offer. Some FutureStock predictions relate to long term events, and others are happening this month or this year. There are lots to choose from, and we're offering new propositions all the time.

In the tutorial we use this fake proposition as an example: Flux capacitors will go on sale in the U.S. before Jan. 1, 2010. If you think this is going to be true, then you would buy the security and watch its value rise. If you don't think its true, then you would short the security and make money as it falls.

What does "short" and "cover" mean? You know the maxim "Buy low, sell high"? Well, if you think the price of a proposition will go down, not up, you can "short" that prop and make money as it falls. Here's how it works: When you short a prop, you borrow shares and sell them to another buyer. Eventually you must repay, or "cover," the shares you've borrowed, by buying more shares at the new (and hopefully lower) price and returning those shares to the lender. Your net profit is the difference in price between the shares when you "short" them and when you "cover" them. So not only can you buy low and sell high, you can short high and cover low.

If you short 100 shares of a propostion that's trading at POP$40, you pay POP$4,000 from your cash at the time of the short. If the proposition goes to 0 (meaning it doesnt come true), your position automatically cashes out and you'll get POP$4,000 (your original investment) plus POP$4,000 (your profit which comes from 40 - 0 x 100shares) for a total of POP$8,000 added to your cash balance.

The answer to the proposition I'm interested in won't be decided until 2050. What gives? Long-term propositions are an important part of the market. Even though the exchange in its current form (or the Internet in its, for that matter) may not even be around in 50 years to see a long-term prop finally pay out, you can still profit greatly from trading it because its price will always serve as an indication of whether or not the market thinks the proposition will eventually come true. Take the "Will Androids Defeat a Team of Humans in Soccer by 2050?" proposition as an example. We won't know the answer to this one for quite some time, but if next week, Honda were to demo its humanoid robot ASIMO's amazing new ability to run and kick a soccer ball at the same time, the price of this stock is probably going to jump. And if you're holding shares, you've just made some money.

What's a limit order? A limit order is a way to automatically buy or sell a given number of shares of a proposition based on its price, allowing you to make smart trades at the right strategic moment without having to keep an eye glued to the market at all times.

Let's say a proposition you're interested in has been fluctuating between POP$50 and POP$75. If you know you want to buy, but only when the price reaches the low end of where it's been fluctuating, you can set a limit order for 100 shares at POP$55. This means that the moment the stock's price drops a penny below POP$55, the market will automatically buy 100 shares of the stock for you. Same goes for selling: If you wanted to sell your shares near the high end, you could set a limit order to sell 100 shares when the price reached POP$70. A limit order's expiration date governs how long it will remain in effect-anywhere from one day to one month.

Intrade has a forum where you can read up on their thinking. It’s actually quite useful to see how the perceptions are formed.

Personally, I think this is a huge opportunity but I can’t take advantage of it this week, I’m broke. I gotta get some cash together because I’m certain Hunter will break past 0.1%, probably at least to 5%. That’s 50X return on investment if it happens. I’d be glad to donate most of that to the Hunter campaign.

http://www.intrade.com/forum/

Hunter gaining traction?
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26/10/2007 01:24:17 Subject: Duncan Hunter gaining traction?
Delphi

Intrade

Joined: 11/09/2007 06:28:38
Messages: 47
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I’ve said all along that on paper at least, this guy has to be the conservative’s conservative. Now, if Mlipsky sees this he will remind everyone that as a liberal I have no “creds” on this issue so I’ll save him the trouble and agree that I could be missing something. But look at his wiki entry and it’s hard to argue with this notion. Plus he has a son in Iraq and was instrumental in getting a partial wall built along the Mexican border at a time when this is one of, if not the, most passionate issue among rank and file GOP voters. The obvious knocks against him as a potential nominee have been name recognition and fundraising - and both are still hurdles.

I wonder though if he isn’t picking up some steam as the immigration issue has advanced from a simmer to a low boil. As background, over the last few months he has done extremely well in several state straw polls. First he won in Arizona [1], beating a local fellow named John McCain. Then in SC [2] he finished a close third with Giuliani and McCain (164-162-158 ). Most recently he won in Texas [3] in a poll where the frontrunners didn’t attend but you could still vote for them (and some did). Now these are not the most scientific things, but as a measure what the movers and shakers in the party who bother to show up think, they could be a bellweather for how regular voters view him once they get familiar with him (assuming he reaches the critical mass to get to them). Note also that even though these look like small samples, at roughly 1,000 voters they rival in statistical power (if not in careful demographic representation) the Fox/CBS/WaPo/Gallup/USAT polls we all routinely react to in trading here.

Despite these straw polls however, he was still polling as an asterisk nationally until recently. I had honestly written him off for awhile. But now there may be some indication that the regular folks are starting to like what they see. They are famously underwhelmed with the current candidates, and Hunter does have a solid anti-abortion voting record — so he could even end up the “compromise” candidate that the hawks, evangelicals and business folks can all live with. I watch these polls and from time to time see him blip up to 1 or 2 in a single one, but never across the board. But now, in the 3 most recent polls listed at pollingreport.com [4], he’s trending upward (see below). He’s no Mike Huckabee yet, and this could be noise still, but he might be someone to watch — especially with the facetime he has gotten this week due to the southern CA fires. Stay tuned.

Fox: 3% (up from 1)
LA Times: 2 (up from 1)
CNN: 3 (up from 1)

[1] http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/01/16/news/top_stories/1_03_321_15_07.txt
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/0121mccain0120.html

[2]
http://www.cnn.com/POLITICS/blogs/politicalticker/2007/03/mccain-wins-spartanburg-straw-poll.html

[3] http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/090207dntexstrawpoll.90d12f3f.html

[4] http://pollingreport.com/wh08rep.htm

26/10/2007 02:43:14 Subject: Re:Duncan Hunter gaining traction?
Tozikio

Intrade

Joined: 22/09/2007 23:58:21
Messages: 42
Online
I think Hunter simply probed a few soft spots in the campaign trail for publicity, while the real contenders were elsewhere. Illegal immigration is a hot button that all the candidates are willing to press, I don’t see a lot of leverage there.

To me the only guesswork, is whether he will drop out before Tancredo.

26/10/2007 03:15:50 Subject: Re:Duncan Hunter gaining traction?
Delphi

Intrade

Joined: 11/09/2007 06:28:38
Messages: 47
Offline

Tozikio wrote:

Illegal immigration is a hot button that all the candidates are willing to press, I don’t see a lot of leverage there.

Actually from here it doesn’t sound like they are pressing those buttons much, perhaps because most of them have supported the “amnesty” approach to some degree or another in order to pander to the rich donors. And even if some of them do venture to give it lip service, to my knowledge he’s the only candidate who’s actually produced anything concrete (literally) to deal with the situation.

It seems surreal to me. I hear all this squawking about the “illegals invading” - yet the only candidates who are talking tough about it (Tancredo and Paul as well) are still in the low single digits. It must be because I’m a liberal and am used to being surrounded by rational behavior. Maybe this is normal on the Republican side. (There, that’ll give Mlipsky a formal invite to the conversation!)

26/10/2007 05:37:13 Subject: Duncan Hunter gaining traction?
Dessalines

Intrade

Joined: 14/10/2007 03:02:32
Messages: 2
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Illegal immigration works better as a “stick it to the Democrats” issue for Republicans. It only really appeals to a small, but vocal, segment of the working class (both left and right). A wall and deport candidate will be perceived as unelectable, and will be unappealing to those with money to donate.

Additionally, hispanics tend to be conservative on many key issues. Going too far to the right on immigration alienates hispanic voters. The Republican party is making an effort to appeal to hispanic voters. Being hard on abortion but moderate on immigration garners more votes. Turning out the core conservatives won’t work anymore. It took eight years, but they finally figured it out.

Maybe when someone starts to fall, they’ll make a stink over immigration? Until then, serious candidates have the general election to think about. . .

26/10/2007 06:48:27 Subject: Re:Duncan Hunter gaining traction?
andywend

Intrade

Joined: 04/09/2007 22:44:54
Messages: 54
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Delphi:

You’re absolutely right here. Duncan Hunter is a conservative’s conservative and would make a fantastic president.

I got an email a while back which asked 11 different questions to determine which candidate is most in line with one’s views.

Duncan Hunter came out on top easily with Fred Thompson a clear 2nd. The bottom 2 were Dennis Kuninch and Christopher Dodd. I would imagine if you answered the 11 questions, the results would be the exact opposite.

Delphi, just to make one thing clear. Just because we have completely opposite political views, doesn’t mean I think you are a bad person. It only means that I disagree with you politically.

I realize that the republicans have gotten quite SOFT on illegal immigration but that doesn’t mean the problem doesn’t exist. Whether we like it or not, hispanics are making up a larger and larger percentage of voters and it won’t be too long when they will be the group deciding our elections.

The republicans are wasting their time going after the black vote and as long as blacks hand over their votes to the democrats, they will never get adequate representation from the federal government. If they showed the slightest bit of willingness to vote republican as a group, I think the party would bend over backwards to fight for them.

The hispanics control the future of the republican party (and the democratic party for that matter) and the republicans have decided to vigorously fight for their votes.

The federal government (under both parties) has proven to be ineffective in properly managing social security, education, etc. If the democrats get their wish and the government completely takes over medicine, it will be an absolute disaster.

The quality of medical care under the current system is the best in the world and socializing the system will wind up destroying it. Instead, the democrats should concentrate on trying to get all these uninsured people access to this great medical care system currently in place in the U.S.

I appreciate the invite to the conversation and hope all is well.

26/10/2007 08:27:44 Subject: Re:Duncan Hunter gaining traction?
Delphi

Intrade

Joined: 11/09/2007 06:28:38
Messages: 47
Offline
Andywend, thanks for your thoughts. I don’t actually take biting disagreement here too personally (hence the invitation to Mlipsky, unofficial attack dog of the right here, to dive into this one). One nice thing about this forum is that no matter our often wildly divergent political views, we all share a riveted fascination with futures markets. Since accurate conract appraisal requires dispassionate objectivity and inclusion of all available information and perspectives, there’s that incentive to have civil, all-engaging discussion.

So in that spirit (!) I’ll decline to bite too much into your comments here on health care delivery - except to say that I expect we will always have a thriving private health care industry that exists on top of a basic safety-net level universal coverage (however that ends up implemented, as I’m certain it will be).

It’s my take too (Dessalines and Andywend) that immigration presents both parties with a difficultly-navigated minefield. Your posts though make me wonder if I’m not sufficiently appreciating the interest the GOP has in avoiding alienating Hispanic citizens on this issue. I’m well aware they trend Democrat at the ballot box (except for Cuban-Americans), but are on the whole socially conservative, but maybe had a blind spot to the tightrope act the GOP was playing with them on getting tough on their cultural cousins who are flouting the law to get here. More specifically, I guess I have assumed that dealing with the ire on this issue coming from the “anglo” working class GOP rank and file dwarfed that concern (of alienating potentially swing-voting hispanics). I take it you think this segment which is up in arms about this is small enough not to be a significant driving factor in policy, or even enduring rhetoric? I confess I’m not familiar enough with the hard numbers (of who cares fervently about this issue, by voting preference). It would be useful to see this kind of info. But at least from anecdotal observance, they seem like a hugely vocal contingent on the internet - and from my personal experience, in public.

I agree with the nexus Dessalines points to between the big donors and the tack the party is going to take on this issue. Still I don’t see why a Tancredo or a Hunter can’t make better hay out of this by talking it up non-stop. Remember that these long-shot candidates (like Dodd and Richardson from the other side) have everything to gain by going for broke and tacking further away from the middle in order to stay in the game longer. I guess they are trying but the money issue means that no one will hear it.

Still, if the constituency is large and motivated enough (which I thought it was), why aren’t they actively seeking out these second-tier candidates and at least finding them on the internet, if not on their TVs? Nearly everyone has some web access, even if it’s the local library. I guess that’s the thing I don’t get. The Tancredo/Hunter/Paul trio is pretty “pure” on this issue, but their polling total is in single digits. I could swear that even the portion of the GOP primary voters for whom this is a viable “single issue” would be twice that much, easily. Clearly I’m still missing something.

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