I don’t much care about Intrade or other similar set-ups for two reasons: 1. They only give us the wisdom of the market for today. The market is efficient, but that’s only in the long-term; 2. The folks who participate in Intrade are self-selecting, and thus, represent only a certain sort of folks.
***I like Intrade for 2 reasons. 1) it’s more reliable than poll result. Since futures markets are more reliable than polls, I like to proceed from them. and 2) it’s a chance to make money by putting your money where your mouth is for your candidate. Most folks around here rely upon polls to make their point. The TV networks relied upon polls rather than actual votes. Something’s wrong with this picture.
Conversely, there are plenty of folks who will say of Mr. Hunter, “too conservative.” My gut feeling is that Mr. Thompson is sufficiently conservative to appeal to 95% of Republicans. He’ll appeal to most of those who are more conservative than he is, and also to those who are less conservative. I don’t think he’ll have much cross-party appeal, he’s probably a little too conservative for that. But he’ll have some.
***Here’s where we differ. Look at the results of proposition 187 in California, and Bill Sali’s run in Idaho. Both were loudly proclaimed to be “too conservative” and doomed, right up to the election day. But in liberal california there were lots of crossover votes, just like for Reagan, because they could see that the media had jumped the shark. That won’t happen with a centrist candidate. There are 3 big issues that will cause democrats to cross over for Hunter: Immigration, jobs, and security. We live in a dangerous place, and that’s why tootyfruityrudy is so popular. Hunter beats tooty’s credentials on security and WOT by a mile, and yet that’s supposedly the big draw for Rudy. On immigration, Hunter is the gold standard stalwart and everyone knows it, and it is the biggest issue that democrats will jump the aisle for. Hunter’s criticism of Thompson over this issue is well aimed. We need someone in the white house who isn’t a johnny-come-lately on this issue.
Road to Des Moines Conversions on Immigration (Hunter Press release)
News Which Cannot Lose ^ | 10/25/07 | Duncan Hunter/staff
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1916889/posts
Finally, on jobs, Hunter stands apart from his party and from the pack, pointing out such things as MFN status for China and other nations who intend us harm is not a good policy, and with plans to keep high paying jobs here in the US. That message appeals strongly to democrats.
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On the other hand, Mr. Hunter will likely appeal to more Republicans on the conservative side than Mr. Thompson. But political beliefs, like IQ, exist in a distribution described by a bell curve. Once you get past a certain point on one side or the other, you don’t gain much.
***In some ways I agree. How did those Iowa results strike you? Was Huckster a surprise to you? He wasn’t to me, because of Intrade and also because I thought there was some pro-life evangelical support looking to land. We need a pro-life evangelical who has crossover support, and the most conservative choice is Duncan Hunter. When it comes to evangelical, even Hillary Clinton tried to pretend she was one of them. It failed. Thompson isn’t an evangelical either. Look at how his followers treat evangelicals. The evie crowd will not be happy in Thompson’s camp. They will be happy in Hunter’s camp.
I suspect that Mr. Hunter will actually lose more votes on the left side of the Republican Party than he’ll gain on the right side. And I think that it will be rarer than hen’s teeth to find Democrats who will vote for him.
***We need real data on this. Dems jumped over by the boatload for Reagan, a pro-life evangelical conservative. During this election, it appears that the evangelical side of things is more liberal, but their biggest concern is Pro-Life (Like HLA support) and jobs and maybe after that, security.
Thus, my own belief is that the universe of voters who might potentially be willing to vote for Mr. Thompson in the general election is substantially larger than that of Mr. Hunter.
***In marketing terms, you’re saying the TAM (Total Available Market) for Thompson is bigger than the TAM for Hunter. But it’s your own belief, my belief is based upon the 1980 and 1980 electoral results, which showed a huge TAM for conservative evangelical pro-life, and the 1996 election which showed a tiny TAM for a centrist republican.
Whatever Intrade says, I’m completely comfortable that Mr. Thompson will receive in New Hampshire a multiple of the percentage that Mr. Hunter received in Iowa, and Mr. Hunter will not get more than roughly half in New Hampshire that Mr. Thompson got in Iowa.
***Before Hunter was shut out of the debates, I would have been willing to go out on a limb. But things have changed, so like you say, we’ll see. Hunter did pretty well in a state where he chose to campaign. Thompson showed disrespect for New Hampshire when he chose to announce on Jay Leno rather than go to the first debate there. It could cost him.
It will show that Mr. Thompson is far and away a much, much more viable candidate, and Mr. Hunter is pretty much toast.
***Well, he just told the press that he’s still in the race and I’m still supporting him, so we’ll just see if how the chips fall.
Kevmo: People voted. Delegates were selected. That’s supposed to mean more in our society than some biased poll results, but it doesn’t.”
Sitetest: Yes, it means that Mr. Hunter will have at least one delegate at the convention. Out of a couple of thousand. Drop. Ocean. That’s why folks are ignoring it. It wasn’t hotly contested, and therefore, has no meaning beyond the simple result that Mr. Hunter will have at least one friend at the convention.
***I guess electoral votes, which are set up by our constitution, don’t mean as much as poll results, which are set up by corporations with agendas. But apparently it’s okay because it doesn’t affect your candidate. There was a time on Free Republic when, what you wrote right here would have showed you to be unconservative. Times have changed. People wonder how fascism gains a foothold. It’s things exactly like this.
Mr. Tancredo was running hard in Iowa. He got no traction. He read the writing on the wall. He got out in time to likely get someone (who will remain unnamed) to pick up some of his campaign debts. Although there are larger issues that doomed his campaign, his failing struggle in Iowa was the proximate cause of his campaign’s demise.
***Good enough. Note that Tancredo was pushing hard in Iowa and Hunter wasn’t. Hunter’s still in the race and Tancredo endorsed the guy who seems to have lost the most in that race. This strategy has “given Mr. (Hunter) the opportunity to fight another day” to put it the way you do in point #5.
From my perspective, he was setting a goal he hoped to achieve, to motivate the troops.
***Then why did he say he needed to come in second? He didn’t come in second.
Mighta done it, too, if Mr. Romney hadn’t had his campaign leak a lie to Politico that he was dropping out. But you know what they say about love and war. In any event, he got enough to fight another day.
***I agree, he did. Was that what you thought his campaign was going to be like, a crawl through the trenches? At this point in time he was supposed to be kicking tootyfruityrudy to the curb, but instead he is fighting for 3rd place. We Hunter supporters knew he was a bit of a long shot, and things went quiet when Thompson entered the race with his enviable name recognition. But looking at what Thompson has done with his name recognition and poll position, I see a lousy candidate. He reminds me of the Fred Thompson who had a chance to damage the Clintons on Chinagate and didn’t press forward.
Thompson: ‘Not particularly interested in running’
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1946015/posts
There are no expectations for him in New Hampshire, but he will absolutely have to place in the top three in South Carolina, in my own view, to have a realistic chance of doing well on Super Tuesday.
***So if he doesn’t, if he gets 4th, then will you acknowledge that he isn’t a good campaigner? What is the threshold for meeting that acknowledgement?
Who cares? If he doesn’t drop out in January, what does that mean about Intrade? Guess we’ll have to say it’s trash, then.
***The point about prediction markets is that their overall data is more reliable than polls. Does that mean you won’t listen to any more polls because one or 2 of them were wrong about Huckabee? The data is useful because it gives a snapshot before & after an event. If you take a picture of a piece of property one day, then take the same picture 2 days later, what is significant? The CHANGES are what are significant.
Rasmussen’s futures market had Mrs. Clinton as the odds on favorite for winning the nomination less than two weeks ago, with nearly 70%. Guess that prediction didn’t turn out too good so far. Either that, or the one that’s there today, showing Mrs. Clinton with less than 30% chance of winning the nomination, will prove not to be all that accurate. If you predict every possible outcome, you’ll have to be right some of the time. LOL.
***Again, you’re not seeing that the significance is the change in the data.
Fair enough. For myself, I wouldn’t support him even if Mr. Thompson dropped out at this point. The sort of crowd he’s attracted at FR makes me think there’s something wrong with Mr. Hunter to attract such folks as supporters. Present company excepted.
***I would say the same thing for Mr. Thompson and his supporters, present company excepted of course.
It doesn’t matter whether I’m ignoring Wyoming or not. The COUNTRY is ignoring Wyoming.
***OK, then why are you taking your cue from what others think? The country is going to hell in a handbasket, are you going to follow it?
Thus, it isn’t having any appreciable impact on the point of view of the vast majority of voters. Because probably not more than one in five voters could even tell you the results.
***Basically, the end of the republic. Dazzled by bread & circuses.
You know the old philosophical question about trees falling in forests. Of course the tree falling makes a sound, even if no one is there to hear it. But if no one hears it, no matter how loud it was, no one will pay attention to it.
***You heard it. You’re responsible for what you hear.
Oh, I don’t know. I think Mr. Hunter’s problem is that he just doesn’t have sufficient appeal to lots of rank-and-file folks. He certainly didn’t motivate ME to send him any money, and I initially backed him before Mr. Thompson started talking about getting in the race.
***If that really were the case, he wouldn’t have lasted this long.
I’ll tell you what the problem is for me. I worked up on Capitol Hill for 13 years (and in the White House in the first years of Mr. Clinton’s administration, as well as for Mr. Gore’s offices while he was Vice President);
***Sorry to hear about that... —snipping some storytelling—
I can’t tell you exactly why that is, but that’s how he strikes me. He seems like a good, competent, intelligent, likeable, high-level bureaucrat. — more snipping —
And I feel warmly toward Mr. Hunter.
***I hear that a lot.
But I wouldn’t vote for any of these people that I know for president. And I’d like to avoid thusly having to vote for Mr. Hunter, too. He’s a manager, not a leader.
***You sound like a Navy guy. And I disagree vehemently with your assessment. I heard Bob Dole was a leader, not a manager, and that he was nicknamed “Babe” after the pig who wanted to be a sheepdog. That got us nothing. And I also heard Reagan ran his whole presidency by pulling out 3x5 reference cards. These are all interesting stories, but they don’t sway me.
I think that most Republicans instinctively have the same feeling, even if not enunciated.
***That’s because the republican party has changed. This is a conservative website with no affiliation with the GOP. Did you know that? We’re inundated with tons of people who call themselves conservatives (even tootyfruityrudy supporters) but they aren’t. I really don’t care what “most Republicans” instinctively feel, because most republicans are not all that conservative.
I’m not sure that’s much of a strategy. Pick off 1/12 of the delegates in the smallest states, and let the larger states go essentially unchallenged. Ouch.
***If those aren’t real delegates, then it’s a good strategy.
Kevmo: Then go with the candidate who fits the Reaganite mold the best.”
SiteTest: I am. He may not fill it out all that well, but Mr. Thompson, in my view, is closer to Ronald Reagan, when all is said and done, than any other candidate.
***Then why do you acknowledge that he is a moderate conservative, basically “conservative enough”? Thompson does not fill out the Reagan mold, Hunter does. But one thing that Reagan harnessed was that the american people were angry with how they’d been treated internationally with the Iran crisis, and how Carter had messed up the economy. Most republicans at the time considered Reagan’s economics to be “voodoo economics” — sound familiar? But Reagan tapped into the discontent, making him electable. Hunter can tap into the discontent over immigration, WOT, and FleeceTrade. But if that discontent doesn’t really exist, we’ll end up with a Rockefeller Republican.
I think that comparing Mr. Thompson to Mr. Schwarzenegger is ridiculous. Mr. Thompson is a moderate conservative. Mr. Schwarzenegger is no kind of conservative,
***Except that he was being called a moderate conservative at the time, but he has veered left. If Thompson drops out and endorses McCain, would that give you pause about his conservatism? At the time we couldn’t get it across to starry-eyed freepers that aRINOld was no conservative, but now it seems perfectly clear. If you go on over to the Intrade Forum and see why they think Thompson is tanking, you’ll see stuff that is not allowed on Free Republic and you might find yourself withdrawing that characterization of ridiculous.
and I don’t think many folks ever thought he was.
***Yet, go on back to those threads and you’ll see.
He is, and always has been, a liberal like Mr. Giuliani.
***Bookmark for later reference. It may be the only way we learn.
“***I like Intrade for 2 reasons. 1) it’s more reliable than poll result...”
When Intrade is trying to project a future event such as a candidate dropping out, it has no more reliability than drawing straws.
Polls aren’t predictors of events, they’re snapshots in time of popular opinion.
On the other hand, Intrade, and Rasmussen’s trading thingy are trying to be inherently predictors of future events. That’s what it means when Rasmussen posts “Rasmussen Markets Show 29.0% Chance of Clinton as Democratic Nominee.”
And in that just a short while ago, that percentage was in the upper-60+% range, that means one of those PREDICTIONS is wrong.
“***Here’s where we differ. Look at the results of proposition 187 in California, and Bill Sali’s run in Idaho...”
“***In marketing terms, you’re saying the TAM (Total Available Market) for Thompson is bigger than the TAM for Hunter. But it’s your own belief, my belief is based upon the 1980 and 1980 electoral results, which showed a huge TAM for conservative evangelical pro-life, and the 1996 election which showed a tiny TAM for a centrist republican.”
I understand what you’re saying, and actually, I agree with you. It’s just that I don’t view Mr. Thompson as a centrist. I view him as a moderate CONSERVATIVE, not a moderate. Mr. Bush is a right-leaning moderate, a centrist just to the right of center. Mr. Thompson is a conservative, albeit not a far-right conservative.
“***We need real data on this. Dems jumped over by the boatload for Reagan, a pro-life evangelical conservative.”
The difference between 1980 and today is that there were many conservatives who were still Democrats. Many pro-lifers, too. Like me. Thus, there were plenty of us to get to cross over.
But, most of us have crossed over by this point. 1978 was my first election and 1980 was my first presidential election. Although I registered as a Democrat when I turned 18 in 1978, and remained a registered Democrat until 1990, I musta been a pretty conservative one, as I’ve never voted for a Democrat in my life, except once when the Republican nominee was a member of the Nation of Islam (I’m not making this up).
But there aren’t too many conservative Democrats left anymore.
In any event, I kinda doubt that Mr. Hunter will pull too many cross-overs in part because HE’S NOT PULLING IN MANY ACTUAL REGISTERED REPUBLICANS.
“***In some ways I agree. How did those Iowa results strike you? Was Huckster a surprise to you?”
Surprise? No. In the closing weeks and days of the Iowa campaign it was pretty clear that Mr. Huckabee would win comfortably. Disappointment? Certainly.
The question that will be answered later this month about Mr. Huckabee isn’t how well he’ll do in New Hampshire or South Carolina, but how well he’s been able to turn his Iowa campaign and result into campaign cash. Huckabee + $10 million on Dec. 31 looks like nearly even odds to take the nomination. Huckabee + $1 million on Dec. 31 looks a lot iffier.
Same for Mr. Thompson. Given a mid-seven figure, or low-eight figure cash-on-hand, he’s not even odds, but he has a fighting chance for the nomination. Given low seven figures, and he’s pretty much out of the running.
And, of course, the same applies to Mr. Hunter. Except even worse. Especially now that he’s out of the debates, and in light of the fact that he’s going to do poorly in New Hampshire, a lack of funds at this point will likely prove to be the coup de grace.
“Hunter did pretty well in a state where he chose to campaign.”
Only relatively speaking, Kevmo! If he got one out of 12 delegates in Wyoming, then that suggests he got EIGHT PERCENT of the vote! Is that what Hunter folks are crowing about?? EIGHT PERCENT when he was trying hard?
Then why isn’t Mr. Thompson’s THIRTEEN PERCENT where he tried hard an absolutely stellar result?
Face it, Mr. Hunter stinks as a candidate. Mr. Thompson may not be the gold standard, but he got THIRTEEN PERCENT in a contest that was heavily competed, in a state that is not a natural spot for him, and Mr. Hunter got EIGHT PERCENT in a contest that most folks ignored, in a state that is well-suited for him.
“***I guess electoral votes, which are set up by our constitution, don’t mean as much as poll results, which are set up by corporations with agendas.”
Convention delegates aren’t the same as Electoral votes. Convention delegates choose party nominees. They aren’t mentioned in the Constitution. What’s mentioned in the Constitution are the Electors of the Electoral College.
Electoral votes decide with finality who will be president. The Electors to the College are all chosen on one day, and that result is final.
On the other hand, we’re still a long way off from the day that the Electors are chosen. At this point in the contest, significant gains in public perception are more important than winning a single convention delegate. I’m sure that Mr. Thompson wouldn’t trade his 13% in Iowa for Mr. Hunter’s single convention delegate from Wyoming, but I’d bet that Mr. Hunter would have glad foregone his lonely Wyoming delegate in exchange for Mr. Thompson’s Iowa result.
For one thing, then it would likely have been MR. THOMPSON being excluded from the debates, not Mr. Hunter.
Without money, and without the free air-time one receives from debates, it’s tough to see Mr. Hunter’s path to the nomination.
“There was a time on Free Republic when, what you wrote right here would have showed you to be unconservative.”
Recognizing reality, that more Americans are swayed by the results of the Iowa beauty contest than by the Wyoming caucus, isn’t unconservative. It’s just clear-eyed and unsentimental.
“***Then why did he say he needed to come in second? He didn’t come in second.”
To encourage his troops to work harder. I know that sometimes I set goals for my own employees that I think are probably not going to get met, but if they get near to them, I’m happy.
I’m not sure it was a good idea to say what he said, but I don’t interpret it at all as meaning that he needed to come in second to remain hopeful for the nomination.
“***Again, you’re not seeing that the significance is the change in the data.”
I’m seeing that these “markets” aren’t actually very good PREDICTORS of events, but rather are the amalgamated conventional wisdom of their markets.
“***I agree, he did. Was that what you thought his campaign was going to be like, a crawl through the trenches? At this point in time he was supposed to be kicking tootyfruityrudy to the curb, but instead he is fighting for 3rd place.”
I hoped he’d have done better, but not terribly surprised he isn’t. Presidential politics ain’t beanbag.
I’m certainly less surprised at the current state of the race than, say, many Giuliani supporters, who’d told me in the spring that Mr. Giuliani was the candidate of inevitability, and that if I didn’t hop on the bus, along with all the other social conservatives, then they’d leave me and all the other social conservatives out in the outer darkness to wail and gnash our teeth. And I told ‘em, well, if that’s the case, then so be it.
I’m certainly less surprised than all the Romney backers, who also told me that Mr. Romney is the candidate of inevitability, a prediction that looks markedly foolish to me after he spent untold millions in Iowa and got his butt thoroughly kicked by a guy who was almost dead-broke at the end of the third quarter.
And I’m also less surprised than many Hunter backers, who had been telling me that once the actual voters got to the polls, Mr. Hunter would do well.
He hasn’t.
“We Hunter supporters knew he was a bit of a long shot, and things went quiet when Thompson entered the race with his enviable name recognition. But looking at what Thompson has done with his name recognition and poll position, I see a lousy candidate. He reminds me of the Fred Thompson who had a chance to damage the Clintons on Chinagate and didn’t press forward.”
Mr. Thompson may not be as good a candidate as we would like. He is, however, easily surpassed in the category of lousy candidates by Mr. Hunter.
“***OK, then why are you taking your cue from what others think? The country is going to hell in a handbasket, are you going to follow it?”
In what way am I following? I’m observing and judging. I observe that the country ignored the Wyoming caucus. I judge that that is very bad for Mr. Hunter’s actual candidacy. Whether I think that’s good, bad, fair, unfair, or whatever, isn’t relevant. The only point is that it’s true. Mr. Hunter may have won something on the order of 8% of the vote (hardly a result about which to brag, anyway), but hardly anyone in the United States knows about it. Even if he’d one THIRTEEN percent of the vote, it wouldn’t have mattered. It didn’t keep him in the debates, it won’t get him third place in New Hampshire, it won’t raise $5 million for him.
Practically, its only meaning is that he’ll have at least one friend at the convention.
“***You sound like a Navy guy.”
Not sure what you mean by that. I’ll take it as a compliment, although I was never in military service.
“And I disagree vehemently with your assessment. I heard Bob Dole was a leader, not a manager, and that he was nicknamed ‘Babe’ after the pig who wanted to be a sheepdog.”
Actually, Mr. Hunter sorta reminds me of Mr. Dole. He’s another gentleman to whom I feel very warmly. Having met him, I always liked him. But I never thought he was exactly a leader. In fact, he always struck me, when he was Majority Leader, as precisely a manager, rather than a leader. He was the guy who developed the consensus of the caucus, and then figured out the methodology by which to use the structures and rules of the Senate to get it done.
That’s management, not leadership.
“That got us nothing. And I also heard Reagan ran his whole presidency by pulling out 3x5 reference cards.”
Mr. Reagan set the agenda and the grand strategy. Others, folks similar to Mr. Dole and Mr. Hunter, figured out the tactics to get it done.
Mr. Thompson, in this way, has been the most Reagan-like. He’s the only one who’s been willing to lay out real specifics, especially in areas, like entitlements, that most politicians run from.
“These are all interesting stories, but they don’t sway me.”
I wasn’t trying to sway you so much as trying to identify the source of folks’ unwillingness to follow Mr. Hunter.
“***That’s because the republican party has changed. This is a conservative website with no affiliation with the GOP. Did you know that?”
Sure. But the point is, we’re mostly working within a party, and for candidates running for the nomination of a party. The REPUBLICAN Party.
“We’re inundated with tons of people who call themselves conservatives (even tootyfruityrudy supporters) but they aren’t. I really don’t care what ‘most Republicans’ instinctively feel, because most republicans are not all that conservative.”
Well, I care, because the nominee will be chosen by Republicans, not just conservatives, however defined. And I’d like the nominee be someone for whom I can vote.
“I’m not sure that’s much of a strategy. Pick off 1/12 of the delegates in the smallest states, and let the larger states go essentially unchallenged. Ouch.
***If those aren’t real delegates, then it’s a good strategy.”
Winning 13% in the nationally-hyped beauty contest in Iowa would have eventurally yielded a lot more delegates in a lot of other states than winning 8% of the delegates in Wyoming.
What’s the next Hunter target, Delaware? Rhode Island? ;-)
How’s Mr. Hunter currently polling in his home state? Has he broken 5%?
“***Then why do you acknowledge that he is a moderate conservative, basically ‘conservative enough’? Thompson does not fill out the Reagan mold, Hunter does.”
I don’t see that Mr. Hunter fits the Reagan mold at all. He isn’t a leader. He doesn’t have the charisma, the communications skill, the easy affability of Mr. Reagan. Mr. Reagan was successful in part because he was a brilliant politician. I won’t say that Mr. Thompson is a brilliant politician, nor a great communicator of the first order, nor the most charismatic man in politics today. But he is a far better politician, far better communicator, and far more charismatic than Mr. Hunter. As well, he has much of the easy affability, comfort with oneself, in one’s own skin, of Mr. Reagan.
Mr. Hunter doesn’t.
“But Reagan tapped into the discontent, making him electable. Hunter can tap into the discontent over immigration, WOT, and FleeceTrade.”
I don’t think that Mr. Hunter could tap into a beer keg. With help.
He’s a nice enough guy, a good and decent man, a good conservative, but an entire bust as a presidential contender.
“***Except that he was being called a moderate conservative at the time, but he has veered left.”
I remember he was touted as a moderate, and as better than the Gray Davis or Bustamante alternative.
What I remember was being told that the fact that he was a pro-abort and such didn’t matter, because, after all, he wouldn’t have anything to do with that stuff anyway, and he’d tap conservatives for his administration, etc., etc. Reminds me of Mr. Giuliani, not Mr. Thompson.
“If Thompson drops out and endorses McCain, would that give you pause about his conservatism?”
No, it wouldn’t.
I don’t care for Mr. McCain, but he has compiled a record of a moderate conservative, albeit more centrist in recent years. I wouldn’t vote for him in the Maryland primary, even if Mr. Thompson had endorsed him, but I would vote for him in the general election, should he be the nominee.
“At the time we couldn’t get it across to starry-eyed freepers that aRINOld was no conservative, but now it seems perfectly clear. If you go on over to the Intrade Forum and see why they think Thompson is tanking, you’ll see stuff that is not allowed on Free Republic and you might find yourself withdrawing that characterization of ridiculous.”
I don’t think so. Mr. Thompson isn’t Mr. Schwarzenegger. The comparison is not only ridiculous, but offensive.
sitetest