Actually the rise of Trump, Carson, and to a lesser extend Fiorina shows that people are tired of the professional politician. Even if Bush or Clinton were the best candidates (I don't think they are), they look to be facing a huge headwind of people tired of the Bushs and Clintons.
I don't know why this comment is being downvotes? I sometimes feel the average voter actually thinks the president has all the power? He/she is just the spoke, maybe a few bearings of the hub, on a big wheel?
It kills me when I hear, "Obama hasn't done anything?". Yea, the legislature put on the brakes on everything? (Sorry about the mechanical metaphors--spent the weekend under a truck.)
A few years ago someone/group did a study, and concluded most voters literally don't know who's the best candidate? (Basically saying, the average voter is to--simple--to vote for the best person.) I think about that study often?
I'll admit, I don't know who's the best candidate for this country. It's basically a craps shoot? What I really take seriously is, "What kind of judges will this presidential candidate put in office, if elected?" And I know, history has shown that liberal/conservative candidates can go in opposite directions once they get into office. I just hope for the best?
How can a study say voters do not know who the best candidate is when best is subjective?
The problem is politics is a lot like religion where logic leaves the room in favor of polarizing opinions. You mention that Obama does not have all the power so it is not his fault that some things were not done, yet there are people still blaming Bush for everything under the sun 7-8 years later.
The difference I have from who you replied to is that I think yes people are smarter and tired of career politicians. They know DC is screwed up and that no side is any better than the other (anyone who thinks Bush/Cheney had all sorts of back door dealings for their friends can in no way support Hillary). They all just want to consolidate power and help our their friends. That is where someone like Trump comes in. He's out there, but he's not them.
Ah, but the pool isn't really 300+ million. It takes a person with the qualities of a lawyer, used car salesperson, con artist and book maker to even consider running.
I guess this is why many (even intelligent) people think that their favorite candidate is honest.
Pretty close when you compare the odds and consider the total pool of who could be president. As in 'so close without a microscope I would call them identical'.
That's why I think we should elect officials on a local level, then send the winner to state to compete against the other local winners in the state, then on to the national level. After the local level everything is funded by taxes and highly regulated to attempt to give everyone a fair chance.
I think it would highly diversify the elections and give the people more of a sense of power. A local election is a lot easier to run than a national one.
Its not exactly a new thing. The 2nd and 6th US Presidents were a father-son combo. The 23rd President was the grandson of the 9th. Multiple Presidents were cousins of other Presidents. But for assassination, a tragic accident, and the moral judgement of a hyena[1], there might have been three President Kennedy brothers and one son.
1) leaving a girl to suffocate in a car underwater didn't end his political career but probably cost him the Presidency - that is what's sad in American politics
Interestingly, with Joe Biden in the range (10%, 13.5%) to win the nomination, and (7.7%, 8.3%) to win the Presidency, the lowest his electability could be is
7.7% / 13.5% = 57%
and the highest it could be is
8.3% / 10.0% = 83%
so the market seems to be pricing a probability in the range of (57%, 83%) for Biden to be elected president if he won the nomination - compared to Hillary Clinton's range of (56.9%, 57.7%)
I can think of a few explanations -
1. Biden really is a lot more electable than Hillary Clinton
2. Both candidates have electability at the low end of their range (around 57%).
3. The market is wrong, i.e. they are systematically underrating Biden's chance of winning the nomination (and overrating Clinton's) or overrating Biden's chance of winning the election (and underrating Clinton's) or both.
There is no arbitrage, but if you believe 3, there might be a good profit to be made in expectation by backing Biden to win the election, but Clinton to win the presidency (you wouldn't hold it through to 2016, but take off the bet as soon as the odds come back to something that looks more plausible).
I haven't done the analysis to see if it's still worth it after trading costs, but maybe someone else wants to.
This makes a lot of sense. I see Biden as much more electable than Clinton mainly because Clinton will draw out the 'hate Clinton' crowd to vote against her. I think the DNC is also realizing this, hence all the talk of Biden jumping in to begin with.
If Biden defeats the established nominee, he must have an exceptionally well run campaign making him more electable. That is by winning the nomination Clinton has just met expectations but Biden exceeds most expectations.
I don't know if this has any special significance, but I think the number of FB/Twitter followers for the current frontrunners are interesting. I'll use Facebook numbers.
Hillary Clinton - 1.3 million
Jeb Bush - .26 million
Donald Trump - 3.7 million
Joe Biden - .85 million
Bernie Sanders - 1.4 million
Marco Rubio - .99 million
John Kasich - .14 million
Scott Walker - .36 million
Ben Carson - 2.88 million
No, I don't think that Donald Trump is the runaway favorite for president. On the other hand, a look at these would make Walker's collapse and Bush's struggles (despite a goliath $100 million warchest) less of a surprise than the political press has portrayed. Likewise, Sanders' challenge to Clinton would be less surprising.
Bush is the real surprise to me. Endorsements and dollars show that he's the establishment's pick, but people just aren't interested in the guy. It would be kind of amazing if someone went from having a D-list celebrity following to sitting in the oval office in a little over a year.
This filters based primarily on the 'activity' of the twitter account - maybe Sanders is more likely to convince someone to join twitter just to follow him...
Be careful with using social media followers/engagement as a metric, because it's an easily manipulated stat. According to some recent stories, a million of H Clinton's followers are fake or fakeish users, actually putting her closer to Jeb's actual number.
Also, with the increasing rise of sock puppetry, I would not be surprised to see these sort of artificially inflated numbers are not just organic, but a planned/hired out part of a public relations campaign.
I acknowledge that this could be completely invalid, but a Halloween mask sits in a closet, while a Facebook/Twitter follow can be (assuming the user or the algorithm don't bury it) more powerful than any campaign link to voters, well, ever.
They're already breaking rules of past elections where a "gaffe" would be endlessly regurgitated by news anchors until the candidate agreed to a heartfelt exclusive sit-down apology with some network. Trump (perhaps unwittingly) has figured out that the direct relationship of social media makes that irrelevant, and is taking full advantage by belittling his social media inferiors.
The candidates with good followings are basically getting free focus group testing - I wouldn't be surprised if Trump ran with immigration after floating dozens of wild causes and noticing that immigration had a particular resonance.
Pretty sure that a lot of people who hate Donald Trump are following him on social media because he's the most likely person to say something outrageous.
Yeah, I noticed that after posting (he wasn't on the original list). My guess is that he's attracted a following of libertarian college students who pollsters probably (rightly) don't give much weight. Maybe he's an example of how flawed the metric is, but maybe he'll be surprisingly resilient as the field winnows.
"people just aren't interested in the guy" isn't accurate - "people who use social media aren't interested in the guy" is. The candidates with low numbers on social media seem to also be the candidates whose supporters are less likely to be on social media.
I acknowledge that this is an imperfect, perhaps fatally flawed, metric - I'm sure it skews young, for example. Something I noticed after posting is that Rand Paul isn't on the linked list (and is barely holding on in polls), but has 2 million FB follows. But who knows, I could see him picking up as the fields starts winnowing.
But I think it's fair to characterize Jeb's numbers as indicative of low interest. There are a ton of people on Facebook in demographics that Jeb needs to do well in to win. To stereotype (using known statistics), white males in their 30's tend to vote Republican - there are plenty of those on Facebook and I see them "sharing" conservative links every day (and I can see that many have followed guys like Carson and Paul). In our increasingly "filter bubbled" world, I think we're seeing people aggressively tune out milquetoast establishment types (on the right at least).
Jeb is actually really unpopular with a lot of the Republican base. He gets booed when he's at conventions.
His strategy was to use his Wall St connections (he was working for Lehman Brothers when it went bankrupt) to build a war chest capable of permanently damaging any other candidate in the race with negative ads. Essentially forcing Republican voters to make an early choice between accepting candidate Jeb Bush and getting president Hillary Clinton.
That drove most other candidates from the race, but Trump's entry has completely destroyed that strategy.
Given the unusually crowded Republican field, that's hard to defend as consistent with reality. "Resulted in most of the other candidates that were seen as likely and viable by the mainstream establishment staying out of the race" is, perhaps, not as obviously contrary to reality.
Prediction markets often break Republican because there are a lot of rich idiots who want to see Republicans win.
(Maybe that is why there are so many Republican candidates. If you can pass all the litmus tests, you can get millions of dollars to pay your friends to do things for you -- between the Koch brothers and the rest of them you can get a lot of free money if you are a Republican. I think Trump thinks he can make money off the publicity, which is a different business model.)
I don't think people understand how close presidential elections are in the US (even after the nightmare in Florida with the supreme court picking Bush as the winner).
The idea of Trump picking the next few supreme court judges is nauseating.
Right now, the Jays are the second most likely team to win their Pennant (2/1 vs 9/5 for the Royals). But at the same time, they are the most likely to win the World Series (17/4 vs 9/2 for the Royals). In terms of the original article, the Jays are more 'electable' than the Royals.
I have no idea how this should affect betting strategies, but it sure is interesting from a statistics point of view.
It was a very flawed company (and CEO) but it's a pity it's not around during this election. US Presidential elections were one of the few things were it had enough data and people putting money on it's markets that it's predictions were excellent. (Though I think in hindsight I got the job by telling John Delaney the immediate market highs for the Republican's post-Palin entry was a temporary bounce and Obama would win because the economy was the main issue, the Democrats were polling far far higher on it - guess a political degree can sometimes trump market sentiment :)
In fact, I think it's a pity (with the exception of how badly the company was run) in general that something like Intrade is not around. If I am legally allowed to speculate/gamble on oil futures, I really don't understand why I can't be allowed to speculate/gamble/hedge on geopolitical events.
They seem to be offering to customers in the USA which is interesting. It was the regulatory issues in the US which was one of the biggest problems with Intrade's business.
> I really don't understand why I can't be allowed to speculate/gamble on geopolitical events.
That would get people interested in geopolitical events. At least, more interested than the establishment would like them to be.
There'd be books on geopolitical spread betting, how to become informed, how reading unpopular economics blogs can actually help your understanding, and so on.
Lots of truth would come out if this were allowed. I'm just hypothesizing, feel free to disagree!
Why in the world would they bet on Jeb Bush over Trump or Carson? Look at the actual polls, Bush is doing worse and worse, while Trump and Carson are rising:
Republican Party insiders like organizers, lobbyists, congressmen, senators, governors, media personalities, and fund raisers despise Trump and adore Bush. Republican insiders make bank working for defense contractors and Trump was against their Iraq profit center. The donor class is focused like a laser on driving down wages with unauthorized immigration and H1-B that Trump wants to limit. The Republican leadership sees Latin Americans as a voting demographic they can capture 40% of but only by opening the border to unlimited immigration to prove they really love Latinos and Trump threatens both of those hopes. (How Republicans will benefit by increasing the number of people who will vote 60% against them is a mystery to me, but I'm not a Republican.)
As the election approaches, the influence of insiders rises and Republicans especially are very obedient to authority figures. Historically, the candidate next in line according to Republican insiders always and without exception wins the nomination, even when he's very unpopular with the base. Therefore, analysts find Trump a very long shot.
I wonder when if ever it will be cost effective for a candidate to put many bets in order to manipulate the odds. Idea being when you have reported 75% winning lots of people who would vote against you stay home "cause it's pointless".
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[ 875 ms ] story [ 1207 ms ] thread... um....
https://www.quora.com/Are-all-the-U-S-Presidents-related-to-...
Which in practical terms translates to "no", they are not related.
It kills me when I hear, "Obama hasn't done anything?". Yea, the legislature put on the brakes on everything? (Sorry about the mechanical metaphors--spent the weekend under a truck.)
A few years ago someone/group did a study, and concluded most voters literally don't know who's the best candidate? (Basically saying, the average voter is to--simple--to vote for the best person.) I think about that study often?
I'll admit, I don't know who's the best candidate for this country. It's basically a craps shoot? What I really take seriously is, "What kind of judges will this presidential candidate put in office, if elected?" And I know, history has shown that liberal/conservative candidates can go in opposite directions once they get into office. I just hope for the best?
The problem is politics is a lot like religion where logic leaves the room in favor of polarizing opinions. You mention that Obama does not have all the power so it is not his fault that some things were not done, yet there are people still blaming Bush for everything under the sun 7-8 years later.
The difference I have from who you replied to is that I think yes people are smarter and tired of career politicians. They know DC is screwed up and that no side is any better than the other (anyone who thinks Bush/Cheney had all sorts of back door dealings for their friends can in no way support Hillary). They all just want to consolidate power and help our their friends. That is where someone like Trump comes in. He's out there, but he's not them.
I guess this is why many (even intelligent) people think that their favorite candidate is honest.
The entire Bush family (and it's rather big) is in politics, except the women.
How many Clintons are in politics?
I think it would highly diversify the elections and give the people more of a sense of power. A local election is a lot easier to run than a national one.
1) leaving a girl to suffocate in a car underwater didn't end his political career but probably cost him the Presidency - that is what's sad in American politics
I can think of a few explanations -
1. Biden really is a lot more electable than Hillary Clinton
2. Both candidates have electability at the low end of their range (around 57%).
3. The market is wrong, i.e. they are systematically underrating Biden's chance of winning the nomination (and overrating Clinton's) or overrating Biden's chance of winning the election (and underrating Clinton's) or both.
There is no arbitrage, but if you believe 3, there might be a good profit to be made in expectation by backing Biden to win the election, but Clinton to win the presidency (you wouldn't hold it through to 2016, but take off the bet as soon as the odds come back to something that looks more plausible).
I haven't done the analysis to see if it's still worth it after trading costs, but maybe someone else wants to.
If Biden defeats the established nominee, he must have an exceptionally well run campaign making him more electable. That is by winning the nomination Clinton has just met expectations but Biden exceeds most expectations.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan-hobratsch/when-vice-p...
Hillary Clinton - 1.3 million
Jeb Bush - .26 million
Donald Trump - 3.7 million
Joe Biden - .85 million
Bernie Sanders - 1.4 million
Marco Rubio - .99 million
John Kasich - .14 million
Scott Walker - .36 million
Ben Carson - 2.88 million
No, I don't think that Donald Trump is the runaway favorite for president. On the other hand, a look at these would make Walker's collapse and Bush's struggles (despite a goliath $100 million warchest) less of a surprise than the political press has portrayed. Likewise, Sanders' challenge to Clinton would be less surprising.
Bush is the real surprise to me. Endorsements and dollars show that he's the establishment's pick, but people just aren't interested in the guy. It would be kind of amazing if someone went from having a D-list celebrity following to sitting in the oval office in a little over a year.
https://www.twitteraudit.com/
http://www.socialbakers.com/twitter/fakefollowercheck/
Interestingly, Hillary actually towers over Sanders in terms of authentic Twitter follows.
Also, with the increasing rise of sock puppetry, I would not be surprised to see these sort of artificially inflated numbers are not just organic, but a planned/hired out part of a public relations campaign.
How many Trumps with that hair are going to be running around at the end of October?
They're already breaking rules of past elections where a "gaffe" would be endlessly regurgitated by news anchors until the candidate agreed to a heartfelt exclusive sit-down apology with some network. Trump (perhaps unwittingly) has figured out that the direct relationship of social media makes that irrelevant, and is taking full advantage by belittling his social media inferiors.
The candidates with good followings are basically getting free focus group testing - I wouldn't be surprised if Trump ran with immigration after floating dozens of wild causes and noticing that immigration had a particular resonance.
Paul was polling quite high at one point in 2014, but things changed since then (which is no surprise, 2014 is super early).
;_;
No really, why is it right to not give people like me much credence? Ron Paul made a lot of ground there.
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/05/08/six-take-awa...
But I think it's fair to characterize Jeb's numbers as indicative of low interest. There are a ton of people on Facebook in demographics that Jeb needs to do well in to win. To stereotype (using known statistics), white males in their 30's tend to vote Republican - there are plenty of those on Facebook and I see them "sharing" conservative links every day (and I can see that many have followed guys like Carson and Paul). In our increasingly "filter bubbled" world, I think we're seeing people aggressively tune out milquetoast establishment types (on the right at least).
His strategy was to use his Wall St connections (he was working for Lehman Brothers when it went bankrupt) to build a war chest capable of permanently damaging any other candidate in the race with negative ads. Essentially forcing Republican voters to make an early choice between accepting candidate Jeb Bush and getting president Hillary Clinton.
That drove most other candidates from the race, but Trump's entry has completely destroyed that strategy.
Given the unusually crowded Republican field, that's hard to defend as consistent with reality. "Resulted in most of the other candidates that were seen as likely and viable by the mainstream establishment staying out of the race" is, perhaps, not as obviously contrary to reality.
(Maybe that is why there are so many Republican candidates. If you can pass all the litmus tests, you can get millions of dollars to pay your friends to do things for you -- between the Koch brothers and the rest of them you can get a lot of free money if you are a Republican. I think Trump thinks he can make money off the publicity, which is a different business model.)
If you campaign with free money you are basically marketing your book with free money.
The idea of Trump picking the next few supreme court judges is nauseating.
IIRC, like polls, they are fairly accurate -- if you look at the state of the market at the last point before the election.
Earlier than that, not so much.
Instead of primaries, there's Pennants. Instead of general elections, there's the World Series.
http://www.vegasinsider.com/mlb/odds/futures/
Right now, the Jays are the second most likely team to win their Pennant (2/1 vs 9/5 for the Royals). But at the same time, they are the most likely to win the World Series (17/4 vs 9/2 for the Royals). In terms of the original article, the Jays are more 'electable' than the Royals.
I have no idea how this should affect betting strategies, but it sure is interesting from a statistics point of view.
It was a very flawed company (and CEO) but it's a pity it's not around during this election. US Presidential elections were one of the few things were it had enough data and people putting money on it's markets that it's predictions were excellent. (Though I think in hindsight I got the job by telling John Delaney the immediate market highs for the Republican's post-Palin entry was a temporary bounce and Obama would win because the economy was the main issue, the Democrats were polling far far higher on it - guess a political degree can sometimes trump market sentiment :)
In fact, I think it's a pity (with the exception of how badly the company was run) in general that something like Intrade is not around. If I am legally allowed to speculate/gamble on oil futures, I really don't understand why I can't be allowed to speculate/gamble/hedge on geopolitical events.
They seem to be offering to customers in the USA which is interesting. It was the regulatory issues in the US which was one of the biggest problems with Intrade's business.
That would get people interested in geopolitical events. At least, more interested than the establishment would like them to be.
There'd be books on geopolitical spread betting, how to become informed, how reading unpopular economics blogs can actually help your understanding, and so on.
Lots of truth would come out if this were allowed. I'm just hypothesizing, feel free to disagree!
http://tippie.uiowa.edu/iem/markets/pres16.html
...and their "U.S. Presidential Election Market"?
There was an interesting Planet Money episode lately about the history of betting on US presidential elections - http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/08/21/433557935/episo....
It hadn't occurred to me before how much participation in the public sphere gambling could (and previously did) generate.
http://i.imgur.com/naxgnhi.png
http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/national/rise-of-the-a...
(yesterday's numbers)
As the election approaches, the influence of insiders rises and Republicans especially are very obedient to authority figures. Historically, the candidate next in line according to Republican insiders always and without exception wins the nomination, even when he's very unpopular with the base. Therefore, analysts find Trump a very long shot.