[ari-freedom]

The buyers aren’t rational? They are putting money at risk for nothing?

Dole didn’t have to do anything except be the early favorite and just watch everyone else fight each other. That’s what Rudy is doing.

[fluffdaddy]

Rudy’s not the early favorite. He’s just the best-known candidate not named McCain. He’s going to lose Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. After that streak he’ll lose Florida as well and somebody else (probably Fred) will be the de facto nominee. The game’s going to be over before Giuliani has a chance to get in it. He can’t win just by being the only acceptable guy, the way Dole did, because he isn’t acceptable to most of the Party.

The buyers aren’t at all rational, in the economic sense. They aren’t putting their money at risk for nothing, they are doing so foolishly because, as usual, they don’t understand what’s going on. They didn’t understand what was going on with the Dems in 2003 and they don’t understand what’s going on with the Republicans in 2007. They are like the buyers of tulips in Holland during the 1630’s, bidding certain prices far higher than any rational calculation can justify.