Is Romney’s price almost bound to tighten?

There’s a new Gallup poll out that gives the presumptive Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, a nine point lead on the economy. The latest daily tracker poll from the firm has Romney on 47% to Obama’s 44%.

In many key state races the margins are very tight yet, overall, punters on Betfair continue to put their money on the incumbent.

The chart above shows the trend and there’s been almost no real movement.

My biggest current political bet, amounting to four figures, is on Romney simply I believe that his price will tighten and there will be the chance to close the position down at a profit.

Interestingly Betfair is lagging behind the Dublin-based Intrade market which has many US customers. It makes Obama a 59% shot against Betfair’s 64%.

@MikeSmithsonOGH

The news tonight that ex-senator Rick Santorum is pulling out of the race sets the seal on what everybody has known since the Wisconsin primary last Tuesday – Mitt Romney is going to be the nominee.

For smart punters who like to trade this presents a great opportuntiy for currently the UK’s main betting exchange, Betfair, prices Romney as just a 30.1% chance to become the next president.

In my judgement, backed up by a four figure bet, the Romney price is about to tighten as everybody starts to see White House 2012 as being Mitt vs Barrack.

The 3.2 Betfair price is just to big and it must, surely, move in.

Like most punters who see themselves as traders I am NOT betting on the final outcome of the race – just the way I envisage other punters reacting. The art is to close your bet down after it has moved in so you can guarantee yourself a certain profit.

@MikeSmithsonOGH

Wikimedia Commons (Gage Skidmore)

Morus examines the candidate leading the GOP polls

It’s not easy for the party outwith the White House to unseat a sitting (elected) President. Since the last depression, FDR, Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, and GW Bush all strode to re-election. Truman retired, JFK was shot, Johnson beaten by his own party, Ford was never elected. Carter would be unique, were it not for the three-way split caused by Ross Perot that allowed Clinton to beat GHW Bush. We can be as bullish or bearish as we like about Obama’s chances, but however unpopular he may be, donors to the GOP are not going to risk six and seven figure sums on a sub-optimal candidate.

Presidents have an unique ability to raise money, and to get things without needing to spend it. If the Obama juggernaut was impressive last time around, it will be a leviathan this time around. Donors were less than keen about risking money on a bona fide war hero with 30 years in the Senate against an African American with barely 2 years in Washington who admitted to Iowan voters that he ate arugula lettuce from Whole Foods. All I want to impress upon bettors here is the innate risk-aversion in the amoral and apolitical world of political donations.

Herman Cain is a wonderful candidate. He is the best orator, the cleanest message, the biggest character, and will not under any circumstances be elected President of the United States next year.

Cain is reputedly being bankrolled by the Koch Brothers. Their pockets are deep, but they are unlikely to unilaterally fund an entire campaign, unless Cain is a third party spoiler to punish a moderate Republican for securing the nomination. Cain will have enough to survive the primaries, but even in the unlikely event of him winning, I cannot see him securing sufficient funds from mainstream Republican donors to make him a credible challenger.

What is important is that none of this is unknown to the political operatives who run the GOP. Cain is not a credible candidate in and of himself – in the same way Ron Paul isn’t. That is not to denigrate their integrity, intelligence, or their achievements. In fact, they should consider it a warped sort of complement – if either man were to make the ugly compromises and quid pro quo deals required to be elected President, they would be different men. What makes them so attractive to a certain set of voters is that they aren’t capable of that – it’s the secret ingredient that allows them to look different from the field of ‘state-wide elected, good teeth, multimillionaires’ in the first place.

But don’t underestimate Cain as a curative VP pick. McCain threw a Hail Mary pass in choosing Palin, hoping to excite a lukewarm Bible Belt base after the main GOP donors had decided he was dead in the water, and that their greenbacks would be better invested in Congressional races. But as much as he won on the Right, he lost in the center. Her straight talking brought many voters into the race, but lost those certain to vote who thought the selection beneath him. The cure was as deadly as the disease.

The disease afflicting Romney, the viable frontrunner in this race, is that he is bland, dishonest, rich, socially liberal, Mormon, and plastic. He is the very antithesis of Herman Cain, but by virtue of his money, name recognition, his ‘good-for-all-timezones’ brand of generic conservatism and perfect teeth, he will beat off Cain, and Paul, and Bachmann, and Alan Keyes, and any other unserious candidates. What shape his reputation is in by the end of a battle with Perry, or Jeb Bush(?), and Huntsman remains to be seen, but it looks bad right now. If you’re wondering why Cain – whose communications director has just quit, and is scheduled to be on a book tour for much of the lead-up to the Iowa Caucus – is polling so well, it is because he is the Not-Romney candidate now Perry’s star is on the wane.

When Romney’s father, George, ran for the GOP nomination in 1964, he was beaten by Barry Goldwater. Goldwater lost by a record share of the popular vote, and the US Conservative movement, even at its most fundamental, has retained a coarse pragmatism ever since. This movement would love someone like Cain given the national platform to talk about his 9-9-9 plan (9% income tax, federal tax, corporation tax) on a weekly basis, to spread the gospel of Freedom Works on Fox with the title that comes with Federal Office to give right-wing wet dreams the heft that Palin or Bachmann could never now convey. To make such a man President they know to be fanciful (though the same people – C Boyden Gray in particular – engineered Clarence Thomas onto the Supreme Court, so do not underestimate their ambition or ability) but as Vice President – unencumbered by the weight of the Presidency – would be a remarkable coup for the Koch Brothers.

Romney knows his weakness, and knows that Cain would balance many of them. He would be nervous about the voltage at the bottom of the ticket, he would be nervous about striking a deal with these devils, and would worry about the collateral damage to his candidacy if he allowed himself to do to his campaign what McCain did with Palin. But make no mistake, if Romney wins the nomination, there is a reasonable chance that Cain will be run against him as the Tea Party candidate at the General. If that happens, Romney is sunk.

In my opinion, Herman Cain will never be elected President of the United States. But if no serious candidate manages to challenge Romney, then Herman Cain begins to look very much like the candidate that the Tea Party demand as VP in order to let Romney’s candidacy survive to next November.

Morus

Wikimedia Commons

Might there be a Democratic contest after all?

Betting on the next VPOTUS is a mug’s game. Our Genial Host, I think as a rule, avoids throwing money on it beyond treating it like an amusing raffle. I, for my sins, can’t resist it: the political punter’s version of the Grand National – after all, form only counts when half the horses don’t fall over their own feet.

The permutations and combinations for the Republican VP nomination would require a whole other thread and likely a prescription, but I’m actually wondering when we’re going to see the Democratic campaign for the VP nomination kick off in earnest.

Completely unrelated to my personal disappointment at not being chosen, the minute I heard Joe Biden had been chosen in 2008, I announced my certainty that he would be a one-term pick. I’ve not resiled from that view: Biden, grand old man of the Senate and a Foreign affairs specialist, was a perfect foil for the neophyte Obama; a steadying influence to callow youth.

I do not need to be told that the impact of VPs on actual voting demographics is oft overstated, nor that being Vice President is actually a job (and a heartbeat away from a bigger one), but the message that is sent by the choice of VP – especially by a sitting president – has an impact on the tone and tenor of the campaign more broadly. Keeping Biden would be to offer nothing new, to insist on the successes of the first term, and at worst to remind them of the bright, refreshing candidate who was exciting enough to need a silver-haired Delawarian to keep him from nationalising McDonald’s. Biden is the perennial reminder of how different Obama the candidate is in 2012 than he was in 2008.

With respect to Biden, he also brings nothing to the ticket this time. His state is small, and fairly safe. His foreign policy experience is no longer required by a President who has intervened militarily in Libya, Pakistan, Yemen and Afghanistan. Biden’s demographic are key, but they are too old for candidate worship.

Obama needs a VP who can excite. He needs to give the Liberals a reason to vote for him, because a candidate like Mitt Romney – a former Massachussetts Governor – is not scary enough to get them out on his own. There needs to be a reason to vote FOR Obama, and in absence of any policy salvation, VP might be the most a sitting President out of greenback bread can offer the people by way of circuses.

If in August, at the Convention, Obama were to nominate a female, hispanic, or gay Vice Presidential candidate, the agenda of the following weeks would be set. Hillary Clinton on the ticket – to be the first woman elected by the country as a whole – would be historic. Bill Richardson – if peccadilloes can be avoided, probably the most perfectly qualified candidate for the VP slot – would likewise send a powerful signal to America’s fastest-growing demographic. If Obama really needs a Hail Mary pass, then he could do worse than Barney Frank – as a fundraiser, he’s unparalleled, and he would eviscerate his opponent in TV debates.

Or maybe, the centrist and pragmatist supreme might think about shaking up the race another way. The Republicans have been stupid enough to ignore quality candidates for chaff – could Obama outflank them on the right, and offer a place on the ticket to Chris Christie or Jon Huntsman? Both have proven themselves capable of working well with Obama, and they would take Speaker Boehner to task for stymying Bills in Congress. The country would recognise talent over party, a new economic compromise, and a ruthless side to Obama that seems to appeal to his less-regular admirers.

I don’t know whether he needs to throw some red candidate meat to his Liberal supporters, or whether he needs to outflank and outfox the Republicans by elevating their best talent to his Right Hand and the benefit of incumbency for their own nomination in 2016. But what I do know is that Biden gets him nothing, and sends the worst possible signal.

Who will be the next VPOTUS? I don’t know. But I’m selling Joe Biden.

Morus