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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Tips for WH2020: Bullock, Hickenlooper – and Trump
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Tips for WH2020: Bullock, Hickenlooper – and Trump
One of the enduring mysteries of political betting is the continuing strength of David Miliband in the Next Labour Leader market. Despite his not having sat in the Commons for four and a half years, despite his showing no inclination to return, despite there being little opportunity to return in the near term, despite his politics now being completely out of line with a Labour Party whose membership is utterly transformed from the one he left in 2013, and despite his close association with Blair – hardly flavour of the month these days – his odds are no longer than 33/1 anywhere and are ludicrously as short as 14/1 (co-fifth favourite!) with BetStars. In reality, he should be at least 200/1.
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Edit: the gist was DH is right but it is too early for me. The politicians named can be watched on Youtube.
* I disagree that Warren is the same kind of proposition as Clinton, especially with the primary electorate. The primary voters care about corporatism and the war, and Hillary is tainted by both. Hillary is wooden and scripted while Warren is interesting and spikey. But it's true that she's getting on a bit.
* Oprah is good value. There's some sign that she's running, and if she runs then she's in a great place to win.
In wouldn't back Trump though. Even if he wanted to run again, he is not likely to win.
Same with pretty well anyone who has been seriously considered as the Dem nomnnee in 2012 or probably even 2016. What Trump, and to a lesser extent Corbyn demonstarte is thgat anyone who has been around can essily be challenged by a fresh face.
If it looks like Trump will stand again, and he’s probably value at 5/2, the Dems might well go with Oprah to make for a showbiz contest, as opposed to politician v Trump which failed them last time out.
One suggestion which I’ve made before is that the Democrats should hold their primary season a year early, over the summer of 2019 rather than 2020. Assuming they end up with a candidate who wants to be out there, rather than hidden away like Hillary, they can drag the campaign out and be a public “leader of the opposition” for 18 months before the election takes place. They’d better have no skeletons in the closet though.
Re early primaries, while it's not impossible, it'd mean rewriting an awful lot of rules: not just internal party ones but state law too. It's an interesting idea but probably not a practical one.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/jamesball/a-suspected-network-of-13000-twitter-bots-pumped-out-pro
Harris was tipped by Mr. Smithson about a year ago, at 67 for the top job, and 26 to be Democrat nominee. I'd probably hedge now (around 15 and 5-6 on Betfair) but the stakes I put on were so tiny I think I'll just leave it as is.
F1: second practice had a running order of Mercedes, Red Bull, Ferrari, Mercedes, Red Bull, Ferrari. Be mostly content if the race ended that way.
Also on the news was the irksome new(ish) ITV political idiot, this time blathering on about people getting into Oxbridge with weaker grades if they come from less well-off places. Sounds reminiscent of the cultural engineering the Ottomans succumbed to when Islamic hardliners stopped the civil service being run so much by well-educated Christians.
This just a few days after they had Kwame Kwei-Amah[sp], new Young Vic director, advocating ethnic quotas. Ironically, and apparently without realising it, ITV in the same piece spoke approvingly of the all-black play he was responsible for. Mmm, maximum diversity...
/endgrumble
She may not connect as well as Sanders - but she would be much tougher to paint as part of the establishment.
I think it's worth mentioning after last time... Trump is unlikely to believe polls showing him behind - given they were wrong. I worry that if he does lose he won't accept the result.
On Oxbridge and universities generally, I'd be in favour of abolishing interviews where it is too easy for bias to slip in. A lottery based on grades would be fairer, though would still favour those groups who do better at school exams.It would also save time, money and allow admission decisions to wait until after A-level results are known.
I'd also want to stop employer bias towards particular institutions. It is one thing to say that only people with firsts can apply, another to say only graduates from the University of Hull will be considered (subtle Blackadder reference).
My thinking on the celebrity candidate is that they would find it easier to play Trump at his own game, which is very different to the game that everyone else in Washington is used to playing.
Yes Hillary was an awful candidate, literally anyone else the Democrats picked would likely have beaten Trump. I note that she’s in the UK promoting her book - I wonder will anyone ask her her opinion on the Weinstein scandal, powerful men using their position to elicit sexual favours from junior women?
I'm not sure Sanders would have beaten Trump. Admittedly, Sanders did poll well against him in head-to-heads in May, when there was a slight chance he might have become the nominee but would that have lasted once the Trump lie machine got to work against Commie Bernie?
When asked about her husband she has said that 'it was a difficult time' and refused to comment further
In the US they’re trying to get the social media operators to record political advertising but it’s proving very difficult to police, given the first amendment and third-party ‘PAC’ advertising on behalf of candidates. It would also only apply to paid content, so wouldn’t cover comeone setting up a bot net to do the same.
Add in countries like Russia who are happy to employ thousands of trolls to disrupt opinion in the lead up to elections elsewhere, and political campaigning in the next few years is going to be very different from what’s gone before - and not in a good way.
On the downside? Disliked by the Democratic establishment for ousting an incumbent in a primary, and probably too moderate for the Bernie bros. Might be ideologically flexible enough to throw them some red meat though.
5/2 looks like value in absolute terms, but that doesn't necessarily make it a good bet. The markets hate trump and if impeachment talk gets going again, these odds will shoot out. I'd also want to see him consistently on 40%+ before backing.
The danger to this approach (holding off before backing) is that you risk missing a G.W./9/11 swingback.
I'm not saying it's likely, but.....
Anyway. In other, important news: life for the JAMS is about to get worse:
"In April, the amount that will be taken from employees’ wages triples from 1% to 3% of salary, and then the following April it jumps to 5% of pay"
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/oct/21/auto-enrolment-pension-returns-revealed
they are also about to see more money from their employer go in to a pension for them too although that article fails to mention that.
Sounds a lot like a couple of A list actresses trying to join the #MeToo campaign this week, after having spent years willingly going along with the casting couch and prostituting themself to Weinstein and friends if there were Oscars at the end of it.
The degree of control for something like Twitter, which is necessarily far lower maintenance than having a persistent Youtube channel, is much weaker, but people can and are banned or otherwise controlled. For example, replies to tweets can show up in the stats but not be visible, sometimes for weeks after the event (I once had this either when I replied to Miss Plato or vice versa). This disables conversations until after the event but because Twitter's about short, immediate interaction it effectively prevents discourse going a certain way.
People can also, I gather, be shadowbanned, so others can't see their posts but they're unaware of this.
And that's without the open, user-generated options of things like muting and blocking.
This sort of behaviour is sadly prevalent within many industries, organisations and institutions, Harvey Weinstein and Bill Clinton are the tip of the iceberg, the common factor is people in powerful positions who can control personal advancement of others.
He can call on the Obamas, we could make a film called Guess who's coming to Dinner
As an aside, Zuckerberg standing for President would be a nightmare for his company, they’d lose half their customers and users* in the US overnight.
*remember that their customers are advertisers - users of the service are the product.
Note at the last 2 Democratic Conventions Michele gave give or take Bill Clinton the best received speech
It’s ever so slightly hypocritical to go on this week about how bad Weinstein was, when you’ve been sleeping with him for a decade, introducing your friends to him, taking parts in his movies etc. That’s not a abuse victim, that’s an enabler of his behaviour - hence the desperation on behalf of one particular A-lister young enough to be his granddaughter to put herself on the right side of the story this week.
Apparently when there was the hack of celebrity pictures from phones a couple of years back, a number of the pictures came from places they wouldn’t have expected to be found.
I don't think that a defensive selection to ward of Trump attacks (let's pick a former soldier who's white and straight, that'll baffle him). Trump will find ways of attacking anyone including Jesus Christ if it seems convenient, and in today's atmosphere many voters will believe him. It needs a ferocious counter-puncher. Warren doesn't strike me as easily intimidated.
The 22nd Amendment is a very stupid thing.
I mean really, is that the most dangerous threat to freedom ever proposed?
Talking of idiotic Republicans
https://twitter.com/NRATV/status/921390510576562176
https://twitter.com/Mikel_Jollett/status/921439177903808512
Texas votes for Obama.
If FDR had been term limited then the WWII would have turned out a lot of different.
FDR is probably the biggest lying bastard ever to occupy the Oval Office, he said America was neutral, but he did everything he could to support us during 1940 and 1941.
He also sold Germany First to the American public when most other politicians would have gone for Japan First.
For those who find FOX too metrosexual...
That would wipe one of the major advantages an incumbent President has.
Interesting guy, but I suspect this is a cycle too early for him, although he's clearly interested.
A less capable and less confident president than FDR - and whoever replaced him would have been both - might easily have condemned Britain to having to seek terms as the money, and hence the equipment, ran out. Even had that not been the case, it might have been the Red Army rather than the Allies that kicked the Nazis out of Germany, France, the low countries and Italy. France and Italy might have got away with a Yugoslav outcome given the size of the native Communist parties; the rest would have had direct rule. Germany would have been deindustrialised and the mass killings would have run into millions. With no European democracies outside the British Isles, Nato would likely not have existed and after the defeat of Japan, the US could easily have slipped back into isolationism mixed with an even more rabid domestic Commuphobia and social conservatism.
This sort of behaviour is sadly prevalent within many industries, organisations and institutions, Harvey Weinstein and Bill Clinton are the tip of the iceberg, the common factor is people in powerful positions who can control personal advancement of others.
Which part of the iceberg d'ye think Trump is?
The 10% above the surface ?
Interesting header. I had a fun small bets on Zuckerberg and Ivanka a while back, and a couple of more serious ones on Biden and Kasich, but not too keen tying up further money for three years.
This might be Biden, despite the age. Avuncular, respected, experienced, able to reach out to working class in a way HRC never could.
https://twitter.com/DPJHodges/status/921660216890068992
Thank you, David, as always, for another interesting piece and as we've moved off domestic political nonsense (mercifully), there's a lot here with which I would agree.
Bullock is effectively Clinton without (one hopes) the sleaze. A two-term Governor of a basically Republican state he has eked narrow wins against the Republican challengers.
Let's not forget that in 2016 Clinton won more votes than Trump by quite some way and a number of states won by Trump were won by very narrow margins. I can see a candidate like Bullock appealing far more to Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania than Clinton and if he can tip those he's home (more or less).
As for Trump, the GOP have two choices - throw in their lot with him, go down (perhaps) to defeat in 2020 and re-launch with a new candidate or dump him in the primary process. Sitting Presidents have faced strong primary challenges from within their own party and of course Trump might fancy himself as a new Teddy Roosevelt and set up his own party.
Would Kasich seek to challenge Trump from within or, as I read somewhere, would he try to run on a unity ticket with Hickenlooper which would be novel to say the least ? It also seems my long range Democratic hope, Kirsten Gillibrand, has decided to remain in the Senate.
None of this makes me want to play in this market - the 2018 midterms are the next big event. Will we see a big loss of GOP seats (loss of the Senate ?) which will cause disquiet in the Party but then Clinton's Democrats were hammered by Gingrich's Republicans in 1994 yet Clinton convincingly beat Bob Dole (the GOP should have chosen Elizabeth Dole, she's far better) in 1996.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendell_Willkie
While Farley or Newton (who both ran against FDR in the primaries) were both pretty competent and not far from him politically or in terms of competence.
Generally, successful candidates have been State Governors or Senators, usually the former. Hickenloper or Bullock are good tips, but not for more than petty cash at thos point, I think.
Dangerous times.
25th seems very unlikely, given Trump appoints the Cabinet, but who the hell knows anything anymore.
In particular the patronage of SCOTUS and other executive appointments does mean that a third term disrupts the checks and balances of the system. Indeed the 22nd Ammendment was very much supported by Democrats.
Of course, this country and indeed the world owes FDR an enormous debt but had he been unable to run in 1940, it might have been Henry Wallace vs Wendell Willkie. Had Willkie won he might well have acted much as FDR did in supporting Britain and would have had no option once Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.
Wallace, had he won, would initially have been the same but he became a critic of FDR and later Truman's nascent hostility to Stalin and the USSR. A Yalta with Wallace would have been more friendly and much better for Stalin - the Cold War would still have happened but perhaps later.
Had Wallace lost to Dewey in 1948, I suspect Dewey wouldn't have been far away from Truman in foreign policy terms but could that have left Adlai Stevenson as the President in the 50s ?
Just some thoughts.
Heart: Mainly on outcomes that I don't want to see as a sort of disappointment insurance.
Head: Only where the odds are long and represent good value.
I did very well out of Trump, GE2015.
Not so well in GE2017.
I regret not backing Brexit which I had a hunch on and could have backed at 6/1 on the day..
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/saturday-review/review-well-always-have-casablanca-the-life-legend-and-afterlife-of-hollywoods-most-beloved-movie-by-noah-isenberg-6b7r8mg7f
In my view the Democrats will almost certainly pick Sanders or Warren. If it is the latter Trump could beat her, while more liberal than Hillary she carries some of the same elitist tag and leads Trump by less than half the amount Sanders does in early 2020 polling.
If Sanders wins the nomination though I think he would be hard for Trump to beat, as a populist too Trump would find it hard to play that card against him and he would go down far better in the key rustbelt swing states which Trump narrowly won than Hillary did. Indeed Sanders won the Wisconsin and Michigan primaries for example and both states then voted for Trump in the general election.
Indeed Sanders is currently in a similar position to where Ronald Reagan was in 1977 (both men also faced accusations they were too old to be President).Like Sanders Reagan had narrowly lost his party's nomination the previous year to Gerald Ford despite running him close and Ford, like Hillary, then went on to lose the general election by a small margin to Carter just as Hillary lost to Trump last November. 4 years later Reagan went on to win his party's nomination and beat Carter in the fall. Sanders will be hoping Clinton was Ford and Trump is Carter, based on Trump's current approval ratings the signs are good for Bernie.
Of course on this side of the pond in 1979 Thatcher was elected much to the surprise of many a year before Reagan, who would become her ideological soul mate. Corbyn will be hoping he is Thatcher to Sanders Reagan.
Oh.
Wait.