I guess I don't understand Intrade. I thought that I did but I don't. I honestly do not see why the numbers aren't closer to 50/50 right now.
All that I can guess is that the people who traffic in Intrade (at least as regards the presidential election) are heavily invested in the Nate Silver universe where Obama is going to win with a 75% probability.
I don't see it and I'm not going into the reasons why again.
So...I am either very wrong about the election and the Intrade people and Nate Silver are right or it's the other way around.
Either way I do not understand the thinking behind Intrade or Nate Silver. And this does not trouble me.
But here is
a pathetic left wing hack (Ezra Klein) to explain all about why Nate Silver really is a genius:
My guess is Silver and his successors will win this one, if only because, for all the very real shortcomings of models, election forecasters have better incentives than homepage editors. For instance, note that all these attacks on Silver take, as their starting point, Silver’s continuously updated prediction for the presidential election, which includes point estimates for the popular vote and electoral college, and his predictions for the Senate races. Those predictions let readers check Silver’s track record and they force Silver, if he wants to keep his readers’ trust, to make his model as accurate as he can. That’s a good incentive structure — certainly a better one than much of the rest of the media has — and my guess is his results, over time, will prove it.
And here is the
Politico with their "wisdom" on the issue:
Nate Silver could be a one-term celebrity.
The New York Times's resident political predictor says President Barack Obama currently has a 74.6 percent chance of winning reelection. It's a prediction that liberals, whose heart rates continue to fluctuate with the release of every new poll, want to take solace in but somehow can't. Sure, this is the guy who correctly predicted the outcome of the 2008 election in 49 of 50 states, but this year's polls suggest a nailbiter.
"Romney, clearly, could still win," Silver told POLITICO today.
Prediction is the name of Silver's game, the basis for his celebrity. So should Mitt Romney win on Nov. 6, it's difficult to see how people can continue to put faith in the predictions of someone who has never given that candidate anything higher than a 41 percent chance of winning (way back on June 2) and — one week from the election — gives him a one-in-four chance, even as the polls have him almost neck-and-neck with the incumbent.
One of the things that crosses my mind is that the polls are wrong. They don't have to be off by much in order to skew the results of someone who counts on them for a prediction.
To me, it seems that it is entirely reasonable that left leaning polling organizations (and I have every reason to believe that most do lean left) would be more likely to give more accurate results in a year where "their guy" is expected to win. This would result in a prediction which is based on those polls to have a more accurate result. It seems equally reasonable that these same left leaning polling organizations would be less likely to give accurate results when "their guy" is not doing quite as well as he did last time. It seems reasonable to me that they might put their thumb on the scale if even just a little bit. This would result in a prediction with a less accurate result. Add to that the fact that the prediction "expert" is also biased toward one result and you have a compounding factor toward the results.
In other words, garbage in-garbage out.
The common sense point of view seems at odds with this "expert" prediction.
- We have an incumbent with almost zero accomplishments.
- We have arguably the worst economy of our lives which has not improved (not significantly, not even marginally) in four years.
- We have wars that have been mismanaged (more dead in Afghanistan under BO than under GWB).
- We have a new war situation in Libya.
- We have a foreign policy scandal in Benghazi that seems to lead directly to the WH.
- Gas prices are historically high.
- Food prices are very high.
- Unemployment is very high.
- Food stamp usage is very high.
- Foreclosure rates are extremely high.
- Consumer confidence is very low.
- The net worth of most Americans is very low.
- The national debt is at an all time high, nearly double what it was four years ago.
- We have not had a budget in years.
I could go on and on and you could, too. I don't like to quote Democrats and I especially don't like to quote Algore but in 1992 he said, "Everything that should be up is down and everything that should be down is up." Anyone can see that this is what we have been experiencing for the last four years and anyone can see that there is no reason to believe that a continuation of BO's administration will not change the situation for the better.
So, polls aside...the common sense take on the election is that BO is ripe to be thrown out.
Which is it? Which line of thinking is going to win out? Polls and "expert" prediction gurus or common sense?
I'm betting on common sense. I'm betting that a majority of the voting public will not pull a lever or fill in a circle for another four years of this misery.
