US Politics | Midas Oracle .ORG

Barack Obama drops hints about who his VP candidate will be. — Might be Evan Bayh.

Chris F. Masse August 21st, 2008

QUESTION: One of the biggest moments in the campaign is going to be your announcement of a vice president. What is that decision going to tell voters about you?

BARACK OBAMA: Hopefully, the same thing that my campaign has told the American people about me. That I think through big decisions. I get a lot of input from a lot of people, and that ultimately, I try to surround myself with people who are about getting the job done, and who are not about ego, self—aggrandizement, getting their names in the press, but our focus on what’s best for the American people.

I think people will see that I’m not afraid to have folks around me who complement my strengths and who are independent. I’m not a believer in a government of yes—men. I think one of the failures of the early Bush Administration was being surrounded by people who were unwilling to deliver bad news, or who were prone to simply feed the president information that confirmed his own preconceptions.

“Not about ego”… is no good for Joe Biden.

“Complement”…. is no good for Kathleen Sebelius and Tim Kaine.

So, it might be Evan Bayh.

UPDATE: Or Jack Reed.

Tags: 2008 US presidential elections, Barack Obama, Evan Bayh, Joe Biden, Kathleen Sebelius, Politics, Tim Kaine, US politics, US presidential elections, vice president, vice presidents, VP, VPs

Barack Obama + Kathleen Sebelius

Chris F. Masse August 21st, 2008

Tags: 2008 US presidential elections, Barack Obama, Evan Bayh, Joe Biden, Kathleen Sebelius, Politics, US politics, US presidential elections, vice president, vice presidents, VP, VPs

Barack Obama + Kathleen Sebelius

Chris F. Masse August 20th, 2008

New York Times publishes the portraits of all the VP candidates.

I have just read the article on Kathleen Sebelius… and that has strongly reinforced my view that she is the best pick for Barack Obama.

I am less opinionated as for what should be the ideal Republican ticket. (Wait… I want Ron Paul as VP candidate. )

Tags: 2008 US presidential elections, Barack Obama, Evan Bayh, Joe Biden, Kathleen Sebelius, Politics, Ron Paul, Tim Kaine, US politics, US presidential elections, vice president, vice presidents, VP, VPs

ENDLESS VEEPSTAKES: Why you should never trade on VP prediction markets, and why their probabilistic predictions are as stochastic as Paris Hilton’s daily dress picks.

Chris F. Masse August 20th, 2008

As I explained in early June 2008, the VP speculations that appear in the Press should never be taken seriously. Most of them (and you don’t know which ones) are a big orchestration of pure lies aimed at creating publicity, or wicked lies in the form of trial balloons. The aims of the political campaigns are to:

creating suspense (sometimes false) so as to generate free publicity;
sending a positive message to the supporters of each VP candidate;
letting the Press do the vetting of the VP candidates;
flattering the political journalists by leaking to them;
sending out false leaks so as to preserve the surprise for the scheduled announcement day;
sometimes, buying time to impose the head of the VP search committee as the most serious VP candidate (remember Dick Cheney in 2000). [Psstt... Funny enough, in the 2008 election, Michael Moore is pulling for Caroline Kennedy. ]

All that means that there are no good primary indicators for the prediction markets on the Democratic and Republican VP-candidate selections.

I want to offer 6 remarks:

Not all prediction markets are created equal. Some have good primary indicators (e.g., the prediction markets on the presidential elections, thanks to polls), while some other prediction markets have unreliable primary indicators (e.g., the prediction markets on who will be on the ticket).
The prediction exchange executives (like InTrade-TradeSports CEO John Delaney) will never tell you that, because their job is to sell their wares, of course.
The public needs prediction market analysts, who can judge the quality of the primary indicators of one particular prediction market, so as to separate the grains from the shaft —reliable prediction markets from unreliable prediction markets. (A prediction market analyst has also other functions, which I will blog about later on.)
A prediction market analyst should have a dual competency —in a vertical (in our example, US politics), and in prediction markets.
The expertise in the vertical (here, politics) should be a major, and the expertise in prediction markets should be a minor. Take a look at these 2 mainstream media news stories: the one written Jack Shafer in Slate (which I linked to at the top of this post), and the one written by Justin Wolfers in the Wall Street Journal. Obviously, the one that shows the most mastering is the one written by Jack Shafer, an American professional journalist who follows US politics for a living.
The consequence of that for prediction market journalism is that the writer should be an expert in a vertical, and the editor should be an expert in prediction markets —and not the other way around.

That said, I wish the very best of luck to our good friends Caveat Bettor (who is betting on Tim Kaine) and Nigel Eccles (who is predicting Joe Biden).

UPDATE: My (informal) Democratic VP-candidate bet is on Kathleen Sebelius. Hint, hint.

UPDATE: Gawker says that Joe Biden would be a horrible choice. I agree. Plus, he has denied to be the pick. He could have lied to reporters, though.

UPDATE: New York Times publishes portraits of all VP candidates.

DEVELOPING…

Tags: 2008 US presidential elections, Barack Obama, Caveat Bettor, HubDub, InTrade, Jack Shafer, Joe Biden, John McCain, Justin Wolfers, Kathleen Sebelius, Politics, prediction market analysis, prediction market analysts, prediction market journalism, prediction markets, Tim Kaine, US politics, US presidential elections, vice presidential candidate prediction markets, VP-candidate prediction markets

Barack Obama + Kathleen Sebelius

Chris F. Masse August 19th, 2008

The Speculation

IN THE DARK: Caveat Bettor + Justin Wolfers

Tags: 2008 US presidential elections, Barack Obama, Kathleen Sebelius, US politics, US presidential elections

Arbitrage in the InTrade Dem VP Market

Koleman Strumpf August 19th, 2008

There has been an unexploited arbitrage opportunity in the Intrade Democratic VP market (”2008 Democratic VP Nominee (others upon request)”). As the attachment shows, you can sell the slate of candidates for 123.2 (just sum the bids) while you will only have to payout 100. This possibility has existed for at least three weeks, and is particularly puzzling now given that the announcement is likely to occur this week.

What is also a bit odd is that Intrade has another market (”2008 Democratic Vice-Presidential Nominee (with Field contract)”) on the same outcome which includes a catch-all field contract which does not have the same arb–again see the attachment below. It is substantially cheaper to buy the field contract in the second market than the omitted candidates (Kaine, Sebelius, Hagel, Schweitzer, Gephardt, Kerry, and others) in the first market.

Any thoughts on why this is occurring?

attachment: intradedemvp_summedbidsexceed100.pdf

Tags: 2008 US presidential elections, arbitrage, InTrade, Politics, prediction markets, real-money prediction markets, trading data analysis, US politics, US presidential elections, US Vice President, vice president, vice presidents, VP, VPs

2 interesting links — Monday Morning Edition

Chris F. Masse August 11th, 2008

- 2 pieces of research by HP Labs’ Social Computing Lab, headed by Bernardo Huberman.

- The Economist on how the US stock markets (not the “prediction markets”) can predict political elections. A bad piece, in my view.

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Tags: political elections, social computing, stock markets, US politics

Finance , Forecasting , Politics
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CNN closed their 2 VP prediction markets… and immediately opened 2 not-brand-new VP prediction markets, with a full listing of candidate names, this time.

Chris F. Masse August 4th, 2008

Tags: 2008 US presidential elections, Barack Obama, CNN Political Markets, John McCain, US politics, US presidential elections, vice president, vice president prediction markets, VP, VP prediction markets

For Once

Chris F. Masse July 18th, 2008

I agree with Nancy Pelosi.

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Tags: George Bush, George W. Bush, Nancy Pelosi, US politics

I told you that vice presidential search committees and VP prediction markets are complete bullshit, didn’t I?

Chris F. Masse July 15th, 2008

The McLaughlin Group of mid-June (yes, I know, that’s last month):

MS. BERNARD: Well, here’s what I think. I think the dirty little secret is Barack Obama probably already knows who he’s going to select to be his vice presidential running mate. You put out the search committee, probably because Hillary Clinton was all over his back last week –

DR. MCLAUGHLIN: So this is a smokescreen. This is a smokescreen.

MS. BERNARD: I don’t know if it’s a smokescreen, but I think he has a good idea who his vice presidential running mate is going to be. And the search committee is much ado about nothing.

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I told you so.

No good advanced, primary indicators.

Don’t trade on VP prediction markets.

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Tags: 2008 US presidential elections, Barack Obama, BetFair, Betting, event derivative parkets, event futures markets, Hillary Clinton, information, InTrade, John McCain, NewsFutures, political prediction markets, prediction markets, US politics, US presidential elections, vice president, VP