Archive for October, 2008
Taking Power — A Campaign Like No Other
Sarah Palin once ventured that the mayor of Wassilla and a community organizer were about the same thing. She is about to learn otherwise and is unlikely to enjoy the lesson. Barring catastrophe, Barack Obama is our next President. Obviously a tarnished Republican brand, a very unpopular incumbent, and an awful economy helped. At one [...]
Did Hank Paulson Give Away the Store — To Himself?
There is a lot to like about the US Government recapitalizing banks with direct government investment in equities. First, it is fast. Several economists have pointed out that Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson destroyed a lot of value by dithering with government repurchases of toxic mortgage securities — a process that would take too long, even [...]
The Really Right Answer is "What if he is Muslim?"
If you missed Colin Powell’s endorsement of Barack Obama, take a moment to watch it here. It shows why Powell remains one of America’s few popular Republicans. The most moving part of his comments — insufficiently discussed in the press — was a story he told about five minutes into his remarks. He reflected on [...]
Obamanos
Intrade’s state by state political map looks like this. Click on a state to see the current trading price for a futures contract betting on either McCain or Obama in that state. Allowing for uncleared trades, the price reflects the odds of success for each candidate. Geeks should play with the black buttons before reading [...]
Palin by Comparison
Democrats and our media have now intercepted the mother of all Hail Mary passes. As George Bush learned when he selected Dan Quayle, it is a bad sign when the most thoughtful conservative commentators deride your Republican Vice President pick (see David Brooks, Peggy Noonan, David Gergen). And although it’s good news for Saturday Night [...]
Republican Pros Analyze the McCain Campaign: "Stupid" "Incoherent" "Ridiculous" "Impulsive" "Erratic" "Malpractice"
Democratic fantasies of electoral landslide are becoming mainstream Republican predictions. Following the lead of David Brooks, who last week termed Palin a "cancer on the McCain campaign" the men of the right piled on over the weekend. Watch Reagan campaign manager Ed Rollins predict an Obama landslide and Wall St. Journal editorial writer Paul Gigot, [...]
The Choice
The New Yorker is a national treasure (and not only because of David Remnick, the magazine’s prolific and talented editor — profiled here). The magazine’s writing is justly legendary: nobody publishes consistently better English prose. The Economist and The Wall Street Journal challenge The New Yorker for clear exposition of complex ideas, but for commentary [...]
September Surprise
Two weeks is a very long time in politics. To get a read on political outcomes, prediction markets are a much better tool than opinion polls. Prediction markets enable people to bet real money on specific races by buying futures contracts that trade real-time. Intrade is one of the most active, thus "liquid", of these [...]
