My Election Predictions

I boldly predict the following:

If Bush and Thune win - I will be insufferable.

Bush wins, Thune loses - I will be deeply annoying.

Bush loses, Thune wins - deeply irked;

Bush loses, Thune loses - inconsolable.

As of High Noon, Tradesports has the probability of a Bush victory at 56%, up from last night when he was around 52%. Iowa is at about 51% for Bush, but now its odd design quirk is extremely relevant - Iowa's winner is based on the popular vote (TradesSports is based on the next President).

I continue to believe that polls mean almost nothing, and expert opinion means less. This election is going to be decided by turnout, and although top Reps have a feel for their own GOTV efforts and top Dems know how they are doing, no one has the Unified Big Picture.

The MSM conspiracy theory I like best - the last push for Kerry will come when CBS calls states quickly for Kerry, and slowly for Bush.

Time will tell. Good luck, all.

UPDATE: Bush hits a low of 24 at TradeSports, but has rallied back to 32. Hah! We simply elevate Kerry supporters so that we can cast them down from a greater height (As a Yankee fan still bitter after watching a 3-0 ALCS lead disappear, I speak to this point with some authority).

Or, in another world, I will owe Nathan Newman some money. Oh, dear.

Now, as to a reverse coattails effect - I know the Texas redistricting distorts the results, but what does it say about Bush if the Reps pick up House and Senate seats while losing the White House?

MORE: OK, when the Fox News people are broadcasting live from the window ledge, it is harder for me to remain bullish.

UPDATE: Here we are at 1:00 AM - Fox and NBC have projected FLA and OH for Bush; TradeSports has Bush at about 95%. Maybe this is how Red Sox fans felt after their improbable, unprecedented comeback. I am only guessing, of course - I never had even a flicker of doubt about Bush's prospects tonight!

That said, I am afraid to go to bed, and wake up with the rug pulled out from under me. Bother. That is a doubt-free "bother", of course.

UPDATE 2: The trick I have perfected during Giants football games pays off - doze off on the couch with the TV on, and rely on crowd noise and announcer buzz to wake you for the big moments. I rally from a nap long enough to hear Edwards proclaim "No lawyer left behind!". Nobody cheers. Go away, John.

[Or maybe he said this.]

Comments

[TexasToast]

Tom - not surprisingly, Im exactly your mirror image on "emotional reactions" - but I'll still enjoy reading your harrangs - whoever wins.

[Jim Glass]

The first final result is in...

*** BUSH CARRIES GUAM! ***

http://www.guampdn.com/news/updates/9807.html

[Appalled Moderate]

TM:

I'm sorry, but I really hope you will be deeply irked this time tomorrow, though I will not be too upset if you turn out to be inconsolable.

AM

[sym]

while the kerry gang here are showing TM love, I just thought I'd mention how much I enjoyed your glennreynolds.com pieces. "But don't focus on his decisions!" has me roffling.

[Sando]

I predict Tom will be deeply annoying at worst; more likely insufferable. I can't wait to be deeply annoyed at your insufferability!

This year's early and absentee voting make all the exit polling even more meaningless than usual.

[sym]

based on early votes and exit polls, i'm thinking irked to inconsolable. why all the hate for Daschle, anyways? It's like hating warm milk.

[Jor]

Bush has tanked on tradesports. Apparently people voting is bad for republicans (forget exits, turnout #'s look really, really bad for Bush), who would have thought? Bush Electoral +300 was really just free money, if you shorted it when it was above 30. Besides claiming the election, the reality-based community looks set to also claim a lot of money from repubs.

[Jor]

My winnings from Bush-Electoral 300, will more than cover Yankees-Redsox $$. And because rumor mongering is so much fun, 5th hand info from Wonkette, describes Rove as dejected, and claiming Bush has less than a 30% chance of winning. That seems to synch with TradeSports estimate.

[TM]

Thanks, gents. I am off to what I have been assured will be a "mixed party". I think that means, Bush people and happy people.

[TM]

The things I do for the party...err, Party. I quickly realized that a glass of California wine might stem the tide. Incredibly, the more I drank, the better it looked for Bush (However, Bush did not look better. But don't ask me about Vanessa).

I think it was at about 9:30 that Kerry spokesperson Joe Lockhart came out on NBC looking like he was about to announce that his dog had died. The turning of the tide!

Now it is almost midnight, and Bush is at 74% on TradeSports (and about 70% on Iowa. Hah!)

I told the folks at the party that I felt like a Red Sox fan ducking out before Game 7, but I had to leave.

From "over" to "far from over" - time will tell.

[greg]

Cheer up, Tom. We won!

[Boatswain]

bring on the insuffrable- go man go

[antimedia]

OK, bring on insufferable. Bush won, Thune won and the Republicans picked up four seats in the Senate.

[House of Payne]

Not only did Bush win, he convinced ten million more Americans to vote for him in this election than did in 2000. Or, more likely, Michael Moore and the rest of those raving maniacs did the convincing. Either way, hooray for the voters!

[Meep]

Yes, it's time to be insufferable. Go whole hog. I know I'm enjoying it. 3 of the 4 Senate races I backed with money (campaign donations, not bets) turned out the way I wanted. Feeling very good.

[Jor]

Making money on the election doesn't make me feel any better about its outcome. One day conservatives will care more about fiscal responsiblity, and try and split govt, rather than sheer power. Given all the reservations even conservatives who still wound up supporting Bush had about Bush, I'm surprised they are still cheering senate seat pick ups.

[Appalled Moderate]

Hmm...Seems I am deeply irked instead. Bush yoked to a Congress that won't restrain him with a margin he will call a mandate. Scratch irked -- frightened is more the word.

I worry about my country. But I will worry more if Kerry now tries to sue his way to victory in Ohio. That way, disaster lies.

[TexasToast]

Bush called 2000 a mandate, this will be a message from the almighty. The R's have it all now.

I'd like to see TradeSports on the overturn of Roe v Wade. The Rove strategy to appeal to the base (particularly the evangelicals) apparently worked. I hate to say it - but you guys owe these people.

[Snowy]

>I worry about my country.

Why? Your country has sorely crippled world terrorism; it has freed two nations from brutal dictatorial regimes and has planted the seeds of democracy where it needs most to grow. Those are good, nay GREAT deeds. It's a sad commentary on liberals that they cannot or will not see that.

Last night I heard an American liberal pundit on CBC radio say that her mother had taught her, "Only fools are positive." That attitude is what the Dems really need to worry about. It's an extremely unhealthy mindset that breeds constriction, fear, fraud, hatred, failure, flip-flop and loss. Last night's results are proof that hatred never wins anything.

The Dems need to get over their perpetual anti-American, self-loathing litanies of complaint. They need to replace that negativity with a modicum of gratitude for the good America is and is going.

[Crank]

I am looking forward to the insufferability. Most of us have gloat on ice right now.

[TexasToast]

Snowy

I respectfully disagree. My country has not crippled world terrorism - it has recruted new terrorists and (it appears) it will continue to do so. I hope you are correct about the "seeds of democracy" - but the facts on the ground in Iraq have not changed because GWB has won reelection. I profoundly disagree with his policies - and apparently this election means that instead of 50-50 we are 51-49. I am just as American as you are - don't confuse your views as "American" and mine as somehow not.

[Brad DeLong]

Congratulations! You are now personally responsible for everything that goes wrong in the next four years!!

:-)

[TM]

Good exit polling play by play from Dan Drezner.

Wow. After peering into the abyss in the late afternoon, I suspect any Rep who spent a few hours imagining him or herself under a Kerry presidency might be feeling a wee bit empathetic now that the natural order has been restored.

And setting TradeSports aside for a moment, look at the sell-off in yesterday afternoon's stock market that has reversed this morning - people made/lost serious money betting on those exit polls.

[Sando]

How can you worry for a country that has repudiated Michael Moore? A country that has told George Soros that his billions are useless? That has given the finger to Kofi Anan?

GWB has won the the majority of the popular vote for the first time in 16 years by a spread of some 4 million votes and when you consider how close 2000 was that is Grand Canyon proportions. I'd call that a mandate.

The Republicans defeated everything thrown at them - MSM, MTv, NYT, Dan Rather, exit polling. Awesome...

[Appalled Moderate]

How can you not worry about a country with a leader who is addicted to the largest deficit spending ever, and at the same time wants more tax cuts?

How can you not worry about a country with a leader where the leader enters into a WAR OF CHOICE without sufficient manpower or a decent plan to secure the weapons that led him to enter into the war of choice in the first place?

Permit me my worries. I hope they are silly, but somehow think they are not.

[Tim]

I'm worrying about Bush's cabinet picks for a second term.

Want to know whether he has learned from mistakes or really considers himself "a uniter not a divider"?

His restructuring for a second term (Feith delenda est!) will be my first clue for my worry index.

Worst case? Two years from now the majority decides Bush needs a serious check on his ass and puts a Democratic majority in the House. Articles of Impeachment follow soon after.

Reaching across the aisle and sweeping out some radicals/idiots might be a good idea now.

May not matter, Cohen didn't save Clinton.

[Al]

Bush hits a low of 24 at TradeSports

Somebody made a bundle last night. That's a four-fold increase in value in a few short hours. Damn. Wish it had been me.

[WillieStyle]

Hi TM.
Seeing as your's is my favourite conservative blog, just thought I'd pop in and say congratulations.

[Jor]

TM, do you really agree with everything the republicans have done over the past four years? Like is it really better that they won the presidency and solidified their power in the senate and congress? Who is this really a good thing for. Almost every conservative endorsement of Bush I read began "well even though his domestic policies aren't great, he'l l keep us safe... blah blah blah". If Bush thought he had mandate before, who knows what we are in for now. The sane people in the Bush cabinet are all gone. It'll be a great 4 years.

[Cecil Turner]

"Bush called 2000 a mandate, this will be a message from the almighty. "

I prefer to think of it as a message from the electorate. Considering the most obstructionist member of the Senate was sent packing, it looks like a fairly straightforward call to work together to get things done (e.g., an energy policy).

"The sane people in the Bush cabinet are all gone."

Arguments like this (and "reality-based") are insulting. And from a political standpoint, a talking point that implies a large proportion of the electorate is stupid is, well, stupid. Over the last ten years, increasingly strident Dem tactics led to the loss of the Presidency and both houses of Congress. Now even the 41-vote Senate obstruction block is in jeopardy. So who is "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results"?

[antimedia]

Appalled moderate, your worries aren't silly. They're misinformed. Stop watching CBS and start reading Iraqi blogs. Iraq is in good shape, the terrorists are on the run and soon to be extinct (in Iraq) and elections will be held, on time, in January - just as they were in Afghanistan. You do remember Afghanistan, right? That place where we couldn't possibly win, because the British didn't and the Russians didn't? Where we would lose thousands of American dead and gain nothing? Where democracy could never flourish? Where the terrorists would prevent the electionf from ever happening? And where today, Hamid Karzai was officially named the winner of the first democractic election in the history of the country?

These are accomplishments of earth shattering importance and significance. They were done by a man who was compared to Hitler, who was disdained as too dumb to think for himself, who was considered evil incarnate, who lies before he even speaks.

Yes, that's right. George "Dubya" Bush will go down in history as one of the greatest Presidents ever to have served (and I use that word deliberately), having accomplished more in his terms in office to turn the world toward freedom than any other President ever, including the much-revered FDR.

[Leo Clifton]

If you truly believe that there are less terrorists in Iraq now than before this war or the recent battles then you are a fool. Do you not question why we call them 'insurgents'. I do remember Afganistaan, unfortunately it has been forgotten as an issue for public debate; human rights violations, terrorist presence and in particular drug trafficking (which has increased substancially) are still permeating the country. What have we won exactly, other than a few thousand Afgaan gravestones and the decentralisation of the countries problems. Generally, if you start a war, you're supposed to finish it, or was this all just a stunt to boost your self-esteem over the British and Soviets?