But what? Despite losses in California, Intrade thinks Obama emerged stronger than ever from last night's contests; he's now at 47% to win the nomination, while Clinton has dropped to 53%.
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No, no, no. Going in to yesterday, Clinton and Obama were about 50-50. Clinton gained a small amount on Super Tuesday.
No, no, no. Going in to yesterday, Clinton and Obama were about 50-50. Clinton gained a small amount on Super Tuesday.
....no. Look at the states in play from now until the showdowns in Texas and Ohio. It's conceivable Obama could sweep.
It's conceivable Obama could sweep.
And that and a nickel may not even give him an overall delegate lead, at least not if the superdelegates stick to the their guns (and definitely not if Michigan and Florida are counted). He needs to not just finish first, but by impressive margins. He should get that in DC, yes. He should win the others, but will the margin be enough to make a real difference with the proportionate-by-district rules?
It's somewhat hard to tell in the other states right now, because a lot of them haven't been polled in months. Everyone was thinking Super Tuesday and nothing but.
One thing that's extremely clear is that caucuses are not like primaries.
Romney has come in first in initial voting in every caucus or convention. Ron Paul has finished clearly better in caucuses than in primaries (reflecting his fund-raising success among committed small donors.)
Obama has won every caucus, some by dramatic margins.
McCain and Clinton, by contrast, have performed best in primaries, though Obama has won some primaries as well, though none with the margins we've seen in caucuses (except in Illinois).
What I haven't seen or heard any commentary amount is the staggering number of people voting in the Democratic primaries relative to the GOP ones. It seemed like in every state, the Democratic slate got 1.5-2X the GOP slate, and the Democratic loser received more votes than the GOP winner. Part of this will be because the Democratic nomination seems more contested right now, so people will want to vote where it matters, but I doubt that that explains very much of the difference.
There was quite a bit of talk about that during the late-night political coverage last night.
The Democratic "base" is clearly a lot more energized than the Republican "base" right now. But it's easy to over-emphasize the predictive value of this. Most voters don't vote in primaries. For example, I just looked up the numbers in my own state (CT), and there were well over 3x as many voters in the '04 general election as showed up for both party primaries yesterday.
I think the general election will come down to which of these factors is more powerful:
a) Conservative apathy/antipathy toward McCain keeps many Republicans away from the polls, or drives them to make "protest votes" (Ron Paul on the Libertarian ticket?)
b) Blue-collar mid-western and southern white Democrats go against their unions and refuse to vote Clinton/Obama (I would be very surprised if that's not the Dem ticket this fall) more for reasons of gender, race, and "likeability" (in Clinton's case) than policy.
(personally, I would like to see McCain win without either of these being a factor)
Freddie, I wasn't commenting on what I thought were Obama's actual chances. In fact, I believe he probably is in better shape than he was. I was just saying that Intrade's actual trading price on the morning of Super Tuesday was 50 for Hillary and 50 for Obama (with rounding). So when Megan says that Hillary lost on Super Tuesday, that's not true. She went up to 60 during Super Tuesday and then fell back down to 53 when Megan wrote her post.
I note that now Intrade has come along to your way of thinking. Obama is now trading at 56 and Hillary at 43.7.
Today the market remains at about 56:43 Obama:Clinton (as of this posting).
But I have some doubts about the "rationality" of these markets.
For example, at one point leading into Super Tuesday, Obama was at 70 to win California. And there really was no rational justification for that price. Hillary was at 46, and 46+70=116. Even though I don't participate in these markets, I thought at the time that the smart money was on Hillary (I'm actually an Obama supporter, but for betting purposes I can look at the situation dispassionately) and the result proved that to be correct.
Even now, the two figures add up to too close to 100, because any sane investor would demand a risk premium for making a risky bet. So I think that there is a tendency by certain Intrade participants to overvalue Obama.
The Obama-Clinton numbers that you mention I am fairly skeptical of. There is an obvious arbitrage opportunity there, so I'm guessing you were seeing the numbers in flux or not taking account of the bid-ask spread or something. However, it was not irrational. The Zogby poll showed Obama up in California by something like 13 points which would certainly translate to a 70% chance of Obama winning (actually much higher). So the market may have taken too much notice of that poll, but that's something else entirely.