End of the road

Final words from TPT

After much thought, I have decided to wrap this site up.

I made profits on my Intrade account (turning $500 into $568) and a substantial amount of money on my Bet-fair account. I predicted that McCain would be the frontrunner for the GOP nomination in December 2007 ascendancy while Romney and Giuliani were still favourites. I had a spectacular near-miss with regard to Joe Lieberman being McCain’s running mate, and I believed that McCain’s selection of Palin would be a disaster. My formula predicted the popular vote margin correctly.

However, I completely overlooked the Barack Obama phenomenon and I made the cardinal error of allowing my political views to creep into my commentary (views that I should have kept to myself given that I am not American). With a full time job in consultancy that I am fighting to hold onto in the current economic environment, my blogging was perfunctory and scattered.

Thanks to all those who have visited this website.

Final rant about the bailout

My (hopefully) final thoughts about the bailout

What really annoys me about this is the scaremongering from the press and Paulson. The irony is that things are nowhere near a depression. A technical recession maybe, but even at the nadir last week the money markets were merely as bad as they were in the early 1980s and much better than they were in the 70s. The problem is after twenty years of relative stability, at the first sign of a slowdown people assume that it is 1929 again. This is the first time in history that we are going to bail out the banks long before any of them actually go bankrupt. The irony is that the glut of international regulation that is going to follow Paulson’s socialist folly (nationalised ratings agencies, caps on bonuses, IMF involved in global financial regulation) will make thing permanantly worse.

What this site will be doing between now and the convention

TPT previews the next three months

Given that the primary season is all but over, with a McCain vs Obama contest all but certain, meaning that there are no primary polls to track, this site will shift gears a bit. Firstly, the extended pieces on why McCain is a really good value bet will be completed. I will still track all national, and swing-state, polls. Additionally, some of the more obscure betting markets, including those on the Veepstakes, will be covered. There will also be some more in depth commentary on British and American politics and there might even be a few interviews with experts.

Note for users

Just to say that I just deleted several posts in order to fix a problem with my web-log. Unfortunatly, there does not seem to be any means of retreiving them. Apologies if your comments were deleted as well.

Pennsylvania Prediction Contest Update

According to CNN, the final result with all precincts counted is a Clinton victory by 9.29%. This means that the winner of the contest is JL. Although the unofficial results of the Pennsylvania Secretary of State are closer to 9.2%, I have gone with the CNN results because they seem to have counted all precincts. Although it didn’t generate enough interest to make this sort of competition an economic form of advertising, thanks to everyone who took part.

TPT users predict a Clinton Victory by 8.86%

Good news for Clinton, but is it enough?

The Pennsylvania Prediction contest is now closed. There were 30 entries with only two predicting an Obama victory. The predictions ranged from an Obama victory by 1.2% to a Clinton victory by 14.5%. The average prediction was Clinton by 8.86 and the average of the two median predictions was 9.2%. This suggests that although Clinton is certain to win Pennsylvania, she performs roughly in the middle of the 8-10 spread that most pundits, including myself, think that she needs to cover to be able to continue in the contest. Good luck to all those who took part!

Do you want to win $100?

The TPT Prediction Contest

To encourage some interest in the contest, if more interest is needed, I am going offer $100 to the person who correctly predicts:

Clinton’s margin over Obama in Pennsylvania.

To avoid any ambiguities this means Clinton’s votes in the Democratic Primary minus Obama’s votes in the Democratic Primary divided by the overall number of votes in said primary. Of course if you believe that Obama will beat Clinton then you should post a negative number. The margin should be to the nearest 0.1%. The winner will be decided by myself and must have a PayPal account. If two posters are tied then the winner will be the poster who posts first (note: I am automatically moderating each post so your post might take a bit of time to appear). Only one entry will be allowed per person and only entries posted in this thread will be counted.

I’m going to kick off the contest with my prediction: 11.2% (and yes, if I win I will claim the prize!)

All entrants must provide an email address.

UPDATE: The contest is now closed. Good luck to all those who took part!

New Comments Policy

I have decided to moderate all comments. This site is a hobby of mine, not a full time job, so I will check my email twice every day.

Miscalleneous

I’ve put £50 at 13.00 (12/1) on Joe Lieberman being the Republican’s Vice Presidential choice – I’ll be writing an article about it tomorrow. I’ll also be looking at the next primary opinion polls – as well as producing some detailed head-to-heads for November. Stay tuned…..

Merry Christmas from The Political Tipster

TPT goes on Christmas hiatus

The Political Tipster will be resuming election commentary on the day after Boxing Day (December 27th). Have a Merry Christmas!