• Jan 20, 2007 - Hillary formally enters race for presidenct. Intrade odds of winning: 52% [not shown above…those are amazing odds considering 27 candidates shared the remaining 48%]
• Feb 11, 2007 - Obama formally enters race for presidenct. Intrade odds of winning: 2% [not shown above]
• July 23, 2007 - Obama mentioned he would meet with the leaders of our enemies. Drops from 40% to 10%.
• December, 2007 - Obama hits campaign trail w/ Oprah Winfrey. Jumps from 18% to 35%.
• Jan 3, 2008 - Obama wins Iowa Caucus (the first contest). Jumps from 20% to 71%.
• Jan 9, 2008 - Six days later, Hillary unexpectedly wins New Hampshire. She Jumps from 30% to 77%.
• Feb 5, 2008 - Obama wins more delegates on Super Tuesday. He Jumps from 39% to 85% over the next month.
• Mid March, 2008 - Reverend Wright Scandal. Barak drops from 85% to 72%.
• May 6, 2008 - Obama wins NC and splits delegates in Indiana. Jumps from 72% to 91%

May 7th odds of candidacy: Obama 91% Clinton 9%

Obama = 847 741 1,121 1,253 1,327

Hillary = 834 823 1,148 1,211 1,255

[Updated Monday, Feb 25]

Hillary thought she was like the New England Patriots: UNSTOPPABLE. This democratic race is proving to be more exciting than Sunday’s Superbowl! It’s the proverbial 4th quarter, and the last play comes March 4th in Texas and Ohio.

Why am I cheering for Obama? I’m sure a big part of it has to do with “The Underdog Effect” (the reason most of you rooted for the Giants), but Obama seems to win people voting for personality. He’s cool. When he says something, you feel it’s coming from his heart, not from years of political conditioning like Hillary and McCain. What he’s actually saying is in some ways irrelevant to voters, because his words convey such passion that it doesn’t matter what they mean. That kind of scares me.

Hillary circulated this top photo of Obama in traditional Kenyan attire. Supposedly that makes him look bad. Here is a pic of Hillary dressed in a Hijab.

Everyone thought Rudy would be the presidential candidate for the Republican Party in 2008. I predicted his demise here, but I didn’t expect him to be a complete FAILURE.

Note to future candidates: Don’t put all your eggs in Florida!

Last sentence of my last post I predicted Huckabee would come back swinging, and that things between Romney and Huckabee would get nasty. I guess that makes me prophetic because today Huckabee throws out anti-Mormon rhetoric by saying Mormon’s believe that Jesus is the brother of Lucifer (YAWN). C’Mon Huckabee, not only is that the oldest one in the book, but it’s a pretty low blow to attack someone’s religion, especially in this country: wasn’t if founded on freedom of religion? That’s right, and you wanna be president?

Here’s an article where you can read more about Huckabee’s bigotry.

Although, and I’m not saying another revelation has come, but I think things are just getting warmed up between these two.

Correlation is not causation, and even though Romney’s PLUMMET in the polls over the past month certainly correlates with INCREDIBLE amounts of media coverage on his Mormon Faith, it’s not the cause. Check out these two graphs taken from the prediction market Intrade:

About November is when Huckabee enters the Republican nomination scene, and you can see what that did to Romney. Things couldn’t be better for Giuliani, because while they’re sparring for second, he’s enjoying a 40 pt spread over both of them.

That is why I wasn’t surprised in the least to see Romney on the Huckabee attack today, accusing him of being “soft on immigration.” It will be a tight and exciting race between the two, BUT, second place means NOTHING in this race for the Republican nomination. Giuliani has made his disgust for Romney quite public in the last debate, accusing him of harboring illegal’s in his “sanctuary mansion,” which means Romney can kiss hopes of being nodded for vice president goodbye (should Giuliani win - which it looks like he will). The Iowa vote is almost 20 days away, and I expect things to get much more nasty between Romney and Huckabee if either of them wants to win.

“Faith in America.” Full Text Here 

I felt something so modernly rare while reading the speech: patriotic. I’m not sure why or how, but since I left grade school about 5000 years ago people just don’t hype up America. They denigrate it. Being “American” in the sense that Romney puts it makes me feel like a hero; like I should go out and help old ladies across the street; like I should lay down my life to defend freedom. It’s refreshing to feel pride in America again. I had forgotten about it.

If religion be a cause of world wide contention, this paragraph could be the cure:

I believe that every faith I have encountered draws its adherents closer to God. And in every faith I have come to know, there are features I wish were in my own: I love the profound ceremony of the Catholic Mass, the approachability of God in the prayers of the evangelicals, the tenderness of spirit among the Pentecostals, the confident independence of the Lutherans, the ancient traditions of the Jews, unchanged through the ages, and the commitment to frequent prayer of the Muslims. As I travel across the country and see our towns and cities, I am always moved by the many houses of worship with their steeples, all pointing to heaven, reminding us of the source of life’s blessings.

This idea of not only tolerating, but admiring differences is THE key to peace. Romney’s speech did this for religion. We should spread his example. Let religion be the first and most important, but our nation’s leaders should follow this idea with culture, traditions, languages, history, etc., etc. Just imagine Bush showing Ahmedinejad West Yellowstone and the Grand canyon, and then traveling to Iran to see the ruins of ancient Persia. Why don’t we do things like that? I’m glad one potential candidate for president does.

I follow the drama of the world quite closely each day through news.google.com. I remember reading that Saddam Hussein was captured. I haven’t read an article more important until today – AND THERE WERE TWO OF THEM!

Of all the villainous leaders of the world (Ahmadinejad, Castro, Chavez, Bush, Kim Jong-Il), I respect Chavez the least. What’s funny is all these guys have a particular reason they are despised: they’re ignoramuses (I suppose that could be some grand conspiracy with the media). When they open their mouth it’s shocking, not only at how stupid they are, but that they’re leading powerful countries. Chavez has a special brand of idiocy so awful the world allows his behavior: like parents of an autistic child throwing a tantrum in a shopping mall who don’t have the courage control their child.

The first news article is about the election which Chavez mandated demanding ridiculous amounts of power (be dictator for life, more military power, right to seize private property, etc.). Anyway, he lost.

But by far the best news of the day was that American spy agencies agree with ‘strong confidence’ that Iran is not pursuing nuclear weapons. Does Bush have enough time in office to rally the American public to war with Iran over some other reason? Hopefully not!

Mayor Giuliani responded to a YouTube question about how New York was a ’sanctuary city’ for illegal immigrants by saying that in fact it was not. Govener Mitt Romney did a fine job in putting Giuliani in his place by quoting Giuliani as saying that if fact it was a sanctuary city and mentioning how Giuliani filed suit against the federal government to maintain its sanctuary status. Giuliani did not appreciate the truth coming out, and his response wasn’t a defense, but a childish and “offensive” (Romney’s words) attack. He said that Governer Romney hired illegal immigrants to work in his mansion, which he called the ’sanctuary mansion.’ This of course got quite a few laughs from the audience, but Romney’s face has never been quite so flustered. Apparently, a company he hired to do some work on his house had hired illegal immigrants. Romney defended himself, “Are you saying that if you hear someone speaking in a funny accent you should come up to them and ask them for their identification?” Like a 12 year old saying over and over “I know you are but what am I?” Giuliani continued to repeat “Sanctuary mansion, sanctuary mansion.”This could be the downfall of Rudy Giuliani. Not really connected to this mudslinging event with Romney at last night’s debate, but the media is ALL OVER these extraneous expenses to the Hamptons for “security reasons.” Sure, over $600k for security so you can go to the Hamptons and cheat on your wife! If these allegations turn out to be true I hope America won’t pick Giuliani for the Republican Candidate.

This graph shows you how in late July, Obama took a hard hit. This is when he was asked if he would meet with foreign enemies. He responded without hesitation, “Yes, unconditionally.” These countries include Iran, Syria, Cuba, and Venezuela.

Obama’s answer to the question mirrors my own conviction as to how this country can begin repairing its appalling foreign policies, the second most important issue in this election after the economy (although they are closely related). However, I predicted such honesty would hurt him in the polls. But instead of betraying his policy of candor and honesty by rescinding the comment, he waited for the public to get used to it. As you can see, it’s taken three months, but he’s on the rebound.

With Oprah vowing to hit the campaign trail with Obama this week, I predict he’ll achieve his early summer position of 45% chance of beating Hillary within in 2 weeks. He’s already at nearly 20% up from 10%. The Double O Tag Team (Obama and Oprah) will make this Democratic showdown much more interesting, although unless something spectacular happens for the Obama camp, or something outrageous from the Clintons, Hillary remains likely to win.

Link: “The Poliltical Compass”

The Political Compass asks you a series of odd questions which help you determine where you stand politically. I’ve always been frustrated with America’s oversimplified Left/Right, Conservative/Liberal, Neo-Con/Commie, way of looking at things. This gives you a Cartesian spectrum, and allows you to compare yourself with the likes of Hitler and Gandhi. I’ve included my graph:

I guess I’m “hand’s off” government, both socially and economically.

I was really frustrated with the questions because they seemed slanted and outrageous. But FAQ #1 says:

Most of them are slanted ! Some right-wingers accuse us of a leftward slant. Some left-wingers accuse us of a rightward slant. But it’s important to realise that this isn’t a survey, and these aren’t questions. They’re propositions - an altogether different proposition. To question the logic of individual ones that irritate you is to miss the point. Some propositions are extreme, and some are more moderate. That’s how we can show you whether you lean towards extremism or moderation on the Compass.

I also thought there should be a ‘neutral’ or ‘not sure’ option in the questioning, but it said in FAQ #4:

This makes it too easy for people to duck difficult issues. By forcing people to take a positive or negative stance, the propositions make people really evaluate their feelings. Often people find they wanted to select ‘don’t know’ mainly because they’d never really thought about the idea.

It’s also fun to see where famous composers fit in, and where the 2007 candidates for US President fit in.