NEWSFLASH - Sarah Palin for VP? Betting says yes
ChimbaChumba says - Sarah Palin, 4 times snowmobile champion, moose-hunter, Miss Alaska runner-up, and oh - currently Governor of Alaska, has been backed from 100-1 to odds-on favourite at Betfair as McCain’s VP pick. This could be the “wow” selection by McCain that squashes Obama’s Convention bounce, and stirs up the no-Hillary camp? Lets not be premature - it might be bullshit, but money talks?
But is it significant if it is Palin? Normally VP is fairyfloss (Bush the 1st won with Dan Quayle, Lloyd Bentsen couldn’t help Dukakis). But this time it might be important, and I suspect it is a very smart gamble by McCain. McCain was behind, so he is right to gamble.
Selecting a young dynamic female as VP, given the Hillary factor in the DEM primaries and Obama’s refusal to take Hillary as VP. could give Obama more trouble in the polls with women. We quoted Dick Morris 2 days ago saying “Obama is tied with McCain because he can’t win the votes of women, especially older women”. Well, does this compound that problem? Sarah Palin also makes Joe Biden look like grandpa, to offset the Obama-McCain contrast.
Lets recap the betting movement so far - at about 4.00 AM ET time, Betfair had Pawlenty $1.54 for VP, Romney at $2.84, and Sarah Palin was $100! At 8.08 AM ET, Palin is $2.00. At 8.54AM ET Palin is in to $1.21, but 8 minutes later at 9.02AM ET the sceptics step in and Palin drifts to $1.65, and 5 minutes later at 9.07 ET she gets out to $2.10. But by 10.08 AM (about 2 hours shy of the announcement) a flood of money comes for Palin, and she is backed in again to $1.12! At 10.10AM $1.10. At 10.33AM $1.07. At 10.35 FOX News announces they have it from an “official source” that Palin is the candidate, one minute later Palin is $1.03. Two minutes later Betfair closes the market, with the official announcement still an hour or so away. So who leaked? Cindy McCain?
P.S. Its official - the betting market read it correctly (or was it insider-trading). Early effect on the Presidential betting market? McCain’s price shortens from $2.80 yesterday to $2.66 - for this to happen on the heels of Obama delivering a speech most pundits praised, and Gallup moving Obama to +6%, is a surprising fluc in the betting. Punters have assessed Palin as a good choice. Will punters be proved correct again, or have egg on face?
P.P.S Come on Betfair - put up a market for 2012 - lets see what this does for Hillary’s 2012 price? Lets see - for Hillary to do it, McCain must win 2008 (say 40%) x Hillary wins DEM nomination 2012 (say 50%) x Hillary wins 2012 (say 60%) = 12%, round it off at 8-1. And what about a dream-ticket? Hillary with Obama as VP? LATE AMENDMENT: make that 33-1 for Hillary 2012 - if Palin gets 4 years as VP, Hillary couldn’t beat this girl - she is Wonderwoman.
P.P.S.S. My more sober partner will probably slap me for this, but as I watch Palin’s speech I think its all over. Palin is superb, and adds reality to McCain’s rhetoric. She is a plain talker and, whilst in the Alaska backwater admittedly, she actually delivered what McCain prattles on about, “change in Washington, fighting vested interests” etc. She was elected Governor of Alaska in 2006 on the theme of governmental reform, gained some notoriety for publicising ethical violations by state Republican Party leaders.
Plus you get husband Todd a union member with the Brad Pitt beard, a hockey-mum with with 5 kids (not 2), a 20th Wedding Anniversary on the same day she is selected on McCain’s ticket (which was McCain’s birthday as well), her son joined the army on September 11, and some “reach across the aisles” stuff. Not to mention the Marge Simpson hairdo! What a resume!
Will the potential weaknesses matter - inexperience re more highbrow stuff, foreign affairs etc? Dunno, but picking holes in Wonderwoman can wait till tomorrow.
Sarah also won Miss Wasilla pageant, where she plays the flute and won Miss Congeniality to boot. Did I mention that Wonderwoman was also the head of the school Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and led the team in prayer before games?
As I type, McCain shortens to $2.66 on Betfair as Palin closes her speech - the punters love her. 2 minutes later McCain is $2.58!!! Twenty minutes later McCain/Palin sceptics step in, and McCain drifts back to $2.62. One thing you can bet on without risk - the Palin selection will torture the pundits who were rooting for Obama - watch them twist and turn looking for a way to bag Palin.
ChimbaChumba Twisted Pundit Golden Gong Award - it took about 30 minutes to get an excellent 1st nominee - from Vanity Fair, that renowned oracle Dee Dee Myers who says - “But is she ready to be commander-in-chief? Unlike Barack Obama, whom McCain has so emphatically condemned as not-ready, Palin hasn’t run for or served in the Senate. Nor has she run for president, which would have required her to think through and take positions on critical issues from the war in Iraq to the war on terror, from Iran’s nuclear ambitions to the Russian incursion into Georgia, from the emerging power of China to the march of globalization“. She hasn’t served in the Senate - most new Presidents are Governors (Dee Dee even suggests just “running for the Senate is important…go figure). But why Dee Dee earns our 1st nominatiuon is the ludicrous comment that she hasn’t run for President!! Why say this? Because that way Dee Dee avoids shooting Obama with the same “inexperience bullet”! Obama has Commander-in-Chief experience because he has run for President! Therefore, everyone who runs to be Prez has the right stuff to be Commander-in-Chief. Lets not complicate matters stemming from the point Sarah picks up a little “experience” Dee Dee values so much by running for VEEP. Congrats to Dee Dee - a very worthy nominee.
August 29th, 2008 at 10:08 am
This selection makes Dan Quayle look like an inspired choice.
In one fell swoop, McCain has destroyed any chance of campaigning against Obama on his supposed inexperience.
What’s more, he’s chosen an unknown who has been a Governor for two years. Her only other claim to political experience is 6 years as Mayor of Wasilla (where IS that?).
It’s going to be very difficult to take this woman seriously as a potential president. She has no experience of foreign affairs and no record on domestic policy issues.
Her main claim to fame is as an ethics whistleblower in Alaska. Good, but not enough to outweigh the other factors.
McCain has blown it!
August 29th, 2008 at 10:24 am
Well, Obama has 4 years as a Senator, and he goes straight into the chair? The 2 year Governor only sits in the chair if MCain falls off the twig?
Does Obama really win by elevating the issue of experience?
August 29th, 2008 at 10:01 pm
Updated assessment: From what I’ve been hearing and reading, Palin is a hardline right-winger. She’s even promoted teaching creationism in schools, always a sign of a real nut-job.
Far from being a clever pick which confounds the critics, a young mom acceptable to Hillary supporters, etc, etc, it seems to me that her selection is an attempt to shore up support amongst the hardcore Republican base who don’t much like McCain.
The idea that she helps McCain win over women who wanted Hillary is simply laughable. Palin has a hardline view on abortion, for example.
I just heard someone on CNN saying she was a great choice because she’s the only one of the 4 candidates on the ballot who has executive experience. Try selling McCain with that line.
When push comes to shove, my instinct is that she won’t be seen as a good choice in comparison to Biden if she were suddenly to become president.
It may be that all this makes no difference because it all comes down to McCain/Obama, but I don’t think this is a clever, calculated gamble at all. I think it’s a gamble aimed at consolidating the base. It may help project a maverick image of the John McCain who is different from George Bush, who offers a new approach for the GOP, etc, but that’s not its real objective.
The most amazing thing about the selection is that McCain has apparently only ever met her once or twice. I can’t wait to see what Letterman and Leno will do with that.
If he’d chosen Romney, no-one would say he couldn’t be president, but the GOP base wouldn’t wear him. He could have chosen other GOP notables but they each had their political drawbacks, just as we saw in the primaries (think Giuliani, Huckabee, Thompson). So Palin is plucked from nowhere because it’s really all about saving the furniture.
August 30th, 2008 at 2:37 am
Maybe she is a double-barrelled winner, shores up the right, and wins some from the “middle”? I stand by my assesment she has been nominated not to achieve an honourable loss, but as a bold gamble by McCain to win in a year when the GOP start from 3 lengths behind. Choosing the plastic Romney would have been guaranteed death.
My point about Hillary is not that Palin will win the ardent Hillary fans from the “left”,but some of the suburban mums in Ohio etc. You may have forgotten that once the going got tough for Hillary vs Obama, she turned herself into supermarket-Hillary, looking after the working class. “A woman in the Whitehouse” has never had such prominence as in 2008 with the Obama-Clinton contest - can you dismiss the possibility 1-2% of that hoopla attached itself to Palin? 1-2% closet racists, looking for an excuse to vote against Obama, opting for the other “historic opportunity”?
She may have nutty views about abortion and creationism, but what I saw was a person I think will connect with the masses (not the political activists or liberals). And whilst the Alaska background as mum, PTA, mayor and 18 months as Governor can be sneered at, it sits pretty equal to Obama’s short time in the state Senate, and the Senate.
I would like to see some evidence that the thought McCain might fall off the twig influences 1 vote. And anyway, if he waits 2 years, Sarah will have 2 years VEEP experience!