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I don't really link opinion pages often, but it's kind of interesting how this odds maker puts the election. I wish there was an Obama odds maker so we could compare the two opinions. This guy might be totaly off his rocker and on the way to busted, but at least he's got a good line and it'll be something if he's called it right.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/10/09/romney-will-win-in-landslide-las-vegas-oddsmaker-doubles-down-on-prediction/?intcmp=obnetwork

Fox News found someone that is predicting a Romney win? It is like my whole world is falling apart.

If he's wrong, everyone will forget about it in a week... But if he's right?

 Ahtman wrote:
Fox News found someone that is predicting a Romney win? It is like my whole world is falling apart.

Actually, Fox has been tough on Romney... it wasn't until after the 1st debate that Fox's polling was favorable towards Romney.

Nate will come around to Fox reasoning...

psst: He's saying Florida is likely for Romney:
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/

FOR NOW!

 Ahtman wrote:
Fox News found someone that is predicting a Romney win? It is like my whole world is falling apart.

Here's another Fox opinion stating the opposite:

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/10/03/obama-president-whose-record-doesnt-matter/?intcmp=obinsite

Frank Luntz said on Real Time with Bill Maher last week that he thinks Obama will win (though not by much).
I trust Frank Luntz a hell of a lot more than Wayne Root.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Luntz

 labmouse42 wrote:
Frank Luntz said on Real Time with Bill Maher last week that he thinks Obama will win (though not by much).
I trust Frank Luntz a hell of a lot more than Wayne Root.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Luntz

Was that before or after the 1st Debate?

Fox News.

Wanna see my shocked face?

Didn't think so...

After 1st Debate

 Jihadin wrote:
After 1st Debate

Huh... after that debate, Frank was shocked at the focus group's reaction... overwhelming for Romney.

*shrugs*

We shall in a few weeks... eh?

Obama will bounce back on his second debate I think. He is not the sort of man to make the same mistake twice with regards to rhetorical style.

Romney can win, he may make a surprise win because there may be a quiet factor similar to what moved Obama to power. Obama's election in 2008 was in fact highly unusual. A lot of Americans quietly decided to vote for Obama because he was black, and not just those who did so because they were black themselves, a lot of non blacks voted for Obama as a point of conscience salving equality, a choice counter to the usual mentality of man. However Obama hasn't been an especially good president and a number of people might quietly decide its best to go back to what they are used to, but cant give that as a reason. Tribalism is strong in the human, its not common for people to vote against their own ethnicity if the option to do so or not to do so is open to them. It's not racism per se, no hatred is implied, just the tribal nature of man to stick with their own kind. America has a white majority and enough people may well just decide to vote for whitey and thus viote for Romeny or another candidate. Whether Romney deserves to win is ancillary to this.

I give Romney a 1 in 4 chance of somehow winning.

Can I be a Vegas book keeper now?

Edit : It was already answered.

Don't get me wrong -- its possible Romney will win, but I don't think its likely.
It's not that Romney positions are bad. (You can just wait a day or so and he will change his positions to match yours)

It's that the Obama administration has been overseeing things, and the average american sees that its getting better. The DOW is at ~13,000. Unemployment is down to 7.8%. Housing prices have stopped freefall.

You might think thinks are worse than they were in 2008, but the question is "Does the average American think that way?" Despite the ads blasted by Koch funded SuperPACs, Americans don't seem think that things have gotten worse in the past 4 years.

That's why I think Obama is going to win.
What I am really curious about is how the house/senate will shift over the next election.

 Ahtman wrote:
Fox News found someone that is predicting a Romney win? It is like my whole world is falling apart.

Its shocking, just shocking!

 Frazzled wrote:

 Ahtman wrote:
Fox News found someone that is predicting a Romney win? It is like my whole world is falling apart.

Its shocking, just shocking!

These are the same guys who say that polling does not matter when their candidate is behind, yet polls are invaluable when their candidate is ahead.

These are the same guys that say the Bureau of Labor Statistics is rock solid evidence of the economy when its favorable, yet that same organization is "suspicious" when the numbers are not.

Are you surprised that they publish an editorial saying their horse will win by a landside? Of course not. Fox news is the loudspeaker for Rupert Murdoch, and they will say helps his political agenda.

Now that you got that off your chest, do you feel better now?

Relapse wrote:
I don't really link opinion pages often, but it's kind of interesting how this odds maker puts the election.

This is usually not a good way to establish credibility.

In November of 2004, only days before the presidential election, I went on CNBC and predicted a Bush victory by 3 points and 30 electoral votes. Every poll at the time showed Kerry in the lead. Bush won by 3 and 35. Newsmax magazine called it the most accurate prediction of 2004.

In October of 2006, I went on Fox News to predict the GOP would get slaughtered in the midterm election and lose Congress. They did.

"I was right before, therefore it is likely I will be right again."

This is even better:

In December 2011, before the GOP primary, I predicted Mitt Romney would win the GOP presidential nomination and go on to win the presidency. For the next few months, Romney trailed by a wide margin to a range of contenders -- Donald Trump, Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum. It seemed no one wanted Mitt for president. It seemed no one believed in Mitt. No one, that is, except this Las Vegas oddsmaker and capitalist evangelist.

Yep, Mitt sure was the dark horse.



I believe he meant to say "the next two weeks" and "to Newt Gingrich".

I could go through the rest, but its all just spurious reasoning. I would say this would make me question how the guy has stayed in business as an oddsmaker, but I suspect that being a former Libertarian VP candidate has more to do with the way this article was written.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Orlanth wrote:
A lot of Americans quietly decided to vote for Obama because he was black, and not just those who did so because they were black themselves, a lot of non blacks voted for Obama as a point of conscience salving equality, a choice counter to the usual mentality of man.

I take it that you have evidence for this?

I said since 2011 that Romney would get the nomination.

I can has blog now?

d-usa wrote:I said since 2011 that Romney would get the nomination.

I can has blog now?

Right, because it was real tough to figure out who was the least cartoonishly insane out of the clown-car of possibilities in 2011. Trump? Bachman? Perry? Cain (oh, how I wish...)?

Relapse wrote:
I don't really link opinion pages often

Isn't that pretty much all you do?

 azazel the cat wrote:

d-usa wrote:I said since 2011 that Romney would get the nomination.

I can has blog now?

Right, because it was real tough to figure out who was the least cartoonishly insane out of the clown-car of possibilities in 2011. Trump? Bachman? Perry? Cain (oh, how I wish...)?

You'd have to admit... even as a horrible candidate... Trump would be down-right hilarious!

 SilverMK2 wrote:

Relapse wrote:
I don't really link opinion pages often

Isn't that pretty much all you do?

Show me three I've linked in all the time I've been a member.

 dogma wrote:



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Orlanth wrote:
A lot of Americans quietly decided to vote for Obama because he was black, and not just those who did so because they were black themselves, a lot of non blacks voted for Obama as a point of conscience salving equality, a choice counter to the usual mentality of man.

I take it that you have evidence for this?

Look at the reaction to his election and the commentaries before. He even won the Nobel prize for Peace in 2009 before doing anything evidently it was for being elected and black.
Part of the message of 'hope' was leaving ethnic divisions in the past, it was a huge conscience salve for America.

I can also expire, the evidence for that is found in the phenomenon 'token black' which is a particularly American methodology normally referring to industry and the media, I see no reason why it cannot also apply to presidents . America has had its black president, conscience salved.

Don't get me wrong, America made a huge leap forward by voting beyond tribal identities, but people are people, sooner or later they will regress to trusting in their own kind. Even so in 2009 at the inauguration a lot of blacks especially in the deep south came out and said that this was the first time they voted, because it was the first black candidate. So as some are getting less tribalised in their voting others may be getting more, or how acting on the ability to vote tribally. People like to think that race has nothing to do with it in elections now, that would be a naive look at human nature.
We have our differences dogma, but I never saw you as naive with regards to realpolitik, or the darker side of human nature, I think you will understand this and see it for yourself if you scratch the surface.
Perhaps I have an advantage looking at this from the outside, normally few people want to admit their voting habits are tribal so there will be more denial the closer you are to American politics.

What I am not saying is that this will happen now, or it will sweep Romney to power. Obama is still far more likely to win IMHO, I don't like him because he is a threat to us and other traditional allies, but credit where credit is due he is competent in his internal handling of the US, and is frankly one of your better presidents and I think the average American has seen that. Still he has made mistakes and some are quietly angry with some of his policies, particukarly in healthcare reform, and if there is an underswell of tribalism it will not show up in the polls easily, so I am braced for a surprise upset.

 whembly wrote:

 azazel the cat wrote:

d-usa wrote:I said since 2011 that Romney would get the nomination.

I can has blog now?

Right, because it was real tough to figure out who was the least cartoonishly insane out of the clown-car of possibilities in 2011. Trump? Bachman? Perry? Cain (oh, how I wish...)?

You'd have to admit... even as a horrible candidate... Trump would be down-right hilarious!

Though not as good as Cain. Let us have a moment of silence for the Cain campaign and all of the beautiful comedy it could have produced.

*sniff*

 Orlanth wrote:

Look at the reaction to his election and the commentaries before. He even won the Nobel prize for Peace in 2009 before doing anything evidently it was for being elected and black.
Part of the message of 'hope' was leaving ethnic divisions in the past, it was a huge conscience salve for America.

Sure it was, but do you really think there were a significant number of white people who chose to vote for Obama for no other reason than he was black?

 Orlanth wrote:

Don't get me wrong, America made a huge leap forward by voting beyond tribal identities, but people are people, sooner or later they will regress to trusting in their own kind.

I think the problem that you're running into is in assuming race is a major component of any given person's identity, tribal or not, when this is not necessarily true. No doubt being black (and that doesn't just mean in terms of skin tone) often has a significant impact on how a person defines themselves, but that has more to do with a common heritage vis a vis slavery and persecution leading to the development of a unique sub-culture. Being white, on the other hand, breeds no such sense of identity; at least not among the people who would be willing to vote for Obama. People that emphasize their whiteness generally aren't going to be persuaded to vote anything other than Republican, at least absent some weird minority party.

Voting for my own kind doesn't necessarily mean voting for a white guy.

 Orlanth wrote:

Even so in 2009 at the inauguration a lot of blacks especially in the deep south came out and said that this was the first time they voted, because it was the first black candidate. So as some are getting less tribalised in their voting others may be getting more, or how acting on the ability to vote tribally. People like to think that race has nothing to do with it in elections now, that would be a naive look at human nature.

Of course race matters in elections, I never said that it didn't. I'm simply disputing your claim that a significant number of people voted for Obama over McCain because of white guilt. You would have a much better case if you were to consider Obama's defeat of Hillary, but even then its overshadowed by the way Hillary was often regarded as "part of the problem" by younger Democratic voters.

 Orlanth wrote:

We have our differences dogma, but I never saw you as naive with regards to realpolitik, or the darker side of human nature, I think you will understand this and see it for yourself if you scratch the surface.
Perhaps I have an advantage looking at this from the outside, normally few people want to admit their voting habits are tribal so there will be more denial the closer you are to American politics.

You misunderstand, I don't deny that Obama's race had a noticeable impact on the electorate, especially the black vote. What I deny is that "white" can be considered a tribal identity of any sort, at least among people willing to vote for a Democrat. I also deny this claim with respect to "black", but I can least understand the argument; though "culture" is a better term than "tribe".

Either way, you can call me naive all you want, but from my perspective it seems you are being obtuse in your consideration of the way race works in the United States.

 dogma wrote:
'm simply disputing your claim that a significant number of people voted for Obama over McCain because of white guilt.

It's also a silly claim because the people who do have anything that could reasonably be called "white guilt" tend to be skewed to the liberal side (anti-racism activists, etc) and there was no way they were going to vote for McCain no matter who he was running against. So pretty much the pool of "lost McCain votes" consists of the same undecided voters (IOW, uninformed idiots) who voted for Bush because he "seemed like a regular guy you could have a beer with".

Fivethirtyeight has obama at a 61% chance to win down significantly from before the debate but still a solid win for obama

Thinking about this a bit more, I would also posit that the "black" identity is most prominent within the same socioeconomic groups in which the "white" identity is most prominent. The difference regarding the importance of race therefore seems to follow from the relative importance of those socioeconomic groups with respect to the overall population of whites and blacks.

 dogma wrote:


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Orlanth wrote:
A lot of Americans quietly decided to vote for Obama because he was black, and not just those who did so because they were black themselves, a lot of non blacks voted for Obama as a point of conscience salving equality, a choice counter to the usual mentality of man.

I take it that you have evidence for this?

I dont have actual links to such. BUuuuuuuuut I was talking to a group of people last weekend and this came up. Luckily there was a small group of Black folk in on the discussion. They all brought up how they were voting for Obama again for certain, with out even thinking of hearing any argument for Romney. So I asked why exactly are they voting Obama versus any other nomination. They really didnt give me anything other then bland "Times are are better!" answers. Sooo you know, theres that.