By SKIP TUCKER, Alabama Daily News Featured Columnist
It’s been said that Republicans think the Democrat Party is the worst political party in the history of the world while Democrats think the Republican Party is the worst. In this instance, each is correct.
Political junkies like me despair over political polling these days. Most are proven fakes and frauds funded by private interests with personal agendas. Some skew, some mislead, some lie like an expensive rug – prettily and well.
Their polls are provender for the liberal media, which comprises most. A recent poll (haha) showed that more than 90 percent of today’s media vote Democrat or for some other left leaning party. Some are wildly socialistic.
Finally, for me, an epiphany, at least of a sort. I looked. Sure enough, Las Vegas sports and gambling houses handicap the race for U.S. president. These folks are beholden to no one and have more money than The Post and The Times and Mickey Mouse combined. They don’t give a hoot in the hot place for Bully Jim Acosta and his ubiquitous ilk.
At present, Vegas has Donald Trump a 2 to 1 favorite to win re-election.
While it is extremely illegal to bet on the election for POTUS, it’s also extremely illegal to bet on football game and other sporting activities. The reason handicappers go to great trouble to set odds on the presidential candidates is so your friendly neighborhood bookie can take proposition bets on the race (A prop bet being like the futures market in which one buys things which do not exist yet. One buys pork bellies at a price today hoping to sell later for tidy profit.)
There are ways to place legal bets on the 2020 U.S. presidential campaign. The first is to move to someplace like the UK or New Zealand where political betting is enjoyed by all and sundry. In the U.S., it’s possible to buy “shares” of a candidate.
Because our government makes an exception for “prediction markets” such as PredictIt because valuable data is produced for research, according to The Washington Post. Apparently, it believes, treating the electorate like a dog race provides a pretty good sense of how real voters will go.
Only PredictIt and IEM are licensed by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which limits transactions to $850 to constrain their sizes.
Betting is spread through a gazillion yes-or-no question. Players simply buy yes or no shares on each question. Share prices are set by supply and demand as they are bought and sold.
As of Wednesday, Trump is 2 to 1 in New Zealand and on PredictIt, which means betting $1 on The Donald will return $2, when and if. Joe Biden is 6 to 1; Sanders is 9 to 6; Beto is 48-1. For those who own hearts in which hope springs eternal, Elizabeth Warren is 21-1 and Hillary Clinton is 85-1.
Trump is 89 percent assured of his party’s nomination, Biden is a 3 to 1 favorite for the Dems with Sanders next at 5-1. Liz Warren is at 8.6 to 1. And this is before the Dems begin to tear into each other while Trump smiles and spurs them on.
It’s getting to the point that it’s difficult for the libs to come up with any believable new and better bitter way to try to tarnish Trump. Right now, with all the trash and garbage the media has thrown at him, Trump, even in skewed polls, approaches his most favorable ratings.
One rather strained headline said, “Trump slumps back to normal lead.” Or some such kerfuffle. The media market drains while Trump gains.
It tried at first to call Trump stupid, with a low IQ. Then it realized IQ is widespread and might lead to something ugly. It attacked him personally, attacked his wife and his children. Some have been merciless. None show class.
It is to laugh.
Trump has two big things going for him. Now he has a record to run on instead of having to rely on the insufferable Clinton to melt herself, which is usually a sure bet, at that.
The economy hums a victory tune for him. It’s the top issue in a political campaign, on average. Political ad pictures for Trump and his economy are easy to paint, as of this moment. It’s a matter of then and now – before Trump and after him. While the lib media will rant, rave and befoul itself right there in living color, it isn’t likely to budge voters much, absent a tsunami of a catastrophe by the president. Social media, too, will sow and reap.
Too many talking heads cannot get over the fact that they no longer elect the president, that they were embarrassed to the point of dropping their pants. So far as I can tell, there isn’t a bottom to their antics. So to speak.
Einstein’s heralded definition of insanity was to keep doing the same thing over over and somehow expect a different result. That’s what a lot of media is doing.
He also said the difference between genius and stupid is that genius has limits.
(Next week: Let’s Eat Grandma – the Death of the Comma.)