Wednesday
Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.
Post of the day, 2008 U.S. Democratic Presidential Primary Division: Other than long term trend "what does this all mean?" analysis and Vice-Presidential speculation, there is nothing interesting left to say about the contest between Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. As an example of "nothing interesting left to say," yesterday Poblano wrote a blistering, well-written, and obviously correct take-down of a Lanny Davis piece making pro-Clinton arguments about the seating of the Michigan and Florida delegates. I recommend not reading it because first, Sen. Obama is going to win the nomination under any arrangement for seating Michigan and Florida which the Rules and Bylaws Committee might actually decide upon and second, this primary has already taught anyone who cares that Lanny Davis will say any damn thing.
I don't have any idea what this all means, so let's go with baseless Vice-Presidential speculation and a short discussion of Intrade. Intrade facilitates a market in which (in most cases) contracts are sold which pay $10.00 if a particular event happens and $0.00 if it does not. They're selling contracts on who the Democratic Party will nominate for Vice-President, I haven't bought any because I'm too lazy to setup an account, but here are my thoughts: Hillary Clinton is unlikely to be the Vice-Presidential nominee, but I don't think the odds against her getting it are 6:1, so she's a weak buy at $1.69. Webb is priced at $2.18, that's a fair take on his odds (but see Kathy G. yesterday on why Webb's conversion to the Democratic cause being only recent, his troubles with actually campaigning, and most importantly his record on issues clustered around gender equality mean he should not be V.P.), so don't buy. Richardson's a buy at ¢64, Nunn is a strong buy at ¢57, and the field is probably a buy at $3.59 since the listed field doesn't include any women except Hillary Clinton, and there's a good chance Obama will be looking for one. These prices might change by the time you read this, or indeed by the time I post it.
From this post onwards, this blog is returning to standard blogging format in which unrelated topics are not generally crammed into one post but are instead spread across many, but see this letters page for a discussion of the sourcing of various versions of this post's titular quote.
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I don't have any idea what this all means, so let's go with baseless Vice-Presidential speculation and a short discussion of Intrade. Intrade facilitates a market in which (in most cases) contracts are sold which pay $10.00 if a particular event happens and $0.00 if it does not. They're selling contracts on who the Democratic Party will nominate for Vice-President, I haven't bought any because I'm too lazy to setup an account, but here are my thoughts: Hillary Clinton is unlikely to be the Vice-Presidential nominee, but I don't think the odds against her getting it are 6:1, so she's a weak buy at $1.69. Webb is priced at $2.18, that's a fair take on his odds (but see Kathy G. yesterday on why Webb's conversion to the Democratic cause being only recent, his troubles with actually campaigning, and most importantly his record on issues clustered around gender equality mean he should not be V.P.), so don't buy. Richardson's a buy at ¢64, Nunn is a strong buy at ¢57, and the field is probably a buy at $3.59 since the listed field doesn't include any women except Hillary Clinton, and there's a good chance Obama will be looking for one. These prices might change by the time you read this, or indeed by the time I post it.
From this post onwards, this blog is returning to standard blogging format in which unrelated topics are not generally crammed into one post but are instead spread across many, but see this letters page for a discussion of the sourcing of various versions of this post's titular quote.
