The Institute of 2012 GOP nomination Intrade rankings

[Averroës Nix]

Huntsman's numbers are kind of unbelievable. There is no reason for him to be hovering between 5-10%.

The guy has run a horrible campaign and his favorability is about 20-40 nationally in his own party. I know that he got a lot of media attention early in the summer - but that has tapered off recently. Why buy Huntsman?

[Averroës Nix]

Huntsman's numbers are kind of unbelievable. There is no reason for him to be hovering between 5-10%.

The guy has run a horrible campaign and his favorability is about 20-40 nationally in his own party. I know that he got a lot of media attention early in the summer - but that has tapered off recently. Why buy Huntsman?

Basically, because the GOP talks with its heart and votes with its head.  The GOP has a storied history of lunatics in its midst yet still selecting centrist presidential candidates.

I agree, with the added qualifier that the party won't nominate a candidate who doesn't appeal to its electorate. Which is why I think that Romney and Perry are the only realistic potential nominees.

Huntsman's problem is not that he is a moderate, or that he's unqualified. He has conservative positions on most issues, and he has executive experience. But he's running a poor campaign, that's been alienating to voters. Nor have donors shown that they're willing to support him yet.

With regard to his Intrade odds, he doesn't inspire the kind of media circus that Palin or Nachmann do, and he doesn't have the fervent support of Paul. Nor is he a "grass is greener" kind of candidate like Christie. So I wouldn't buy Huntsman expecting his odds o periodically inflate unrealistically.

And that's why I don't understand how he's hovering in third or fourth at between 6 and 8 percent.

[Averroës Nix]

Iowa

Perry 55.0
Bachmann 25.0
Paul 9.0
Romney 9.0

No idea what the trade volumes are in this market, but Romney looks like a really good buy. He definitely has a better chance than Paul of winning IA, and I'd put him well above the quickly-fading Bachmann, too. Romney's chance of winning is at least 25%, and likely higher..

[Averroës Nix]

I wouldn't call it incredible, but clearly his best.

At odds as low as where Santorum is currently trading, it's hard to say what is going on. But I've never understood why Santorum has consistently traded at below 0.5%. He definitely should be higher than Gary Johnson and much closer to Gingrich and Cain.

[Averroës Nix]

Christie's ascent reminds me a lot of Paul Ryan's brief spike a few weeks ago. He was trading at as high as six percent before prices crashed when he put a stop to the speculation.

[Averroës Nix]

Honestly, it looks like the Republicans, once again, will have everything decided before the first primary. Romney it is, and Romney is likely to be the first non-Christian president of the United States.

Except for Calvin Coolidge (and possibly J.A., depending on your definition).

[Averroës Nix]

Honestly, it looks like the Republicans, once again, will have everything decided before the first primary. Romney it is, and Romney is likely to be the first non-Christian president of the United States.

Except for Calvin Coolidge (and possibly J.A., depending on your definition).

Huh? I thought Coolidge was Presbyterian. How about Jefferson.
or, if Mormons aren't Christian, then Unitarians aren't either, so yes, you can include the Adamses and Taft.

I have my suspicions about Coolidge.

Seriously, though, you're right about excluding Unitarians as well as Mormons with really restrictive definitions of Christianity. It just gets annoying when people here like to casually refer to Mormons as "not Christian" (when convention says otherwise) without mentioning that they're using an unusual definition of Christian.

[Averroës Nix]

Almost all Mormons self-identify as Christian and about two-thirds of the American public agrees. Whether Trinitarian church bodies formally recognize Romney as baptized is a technicality.

[Averroës Nix]

Perry is now down to 14%... Unless he's visibly drunk at the debate, we should be able to count on that moving up. Right?

[Averroës Nix]

The long and the short of it comes down to:

-A lot of positions that are practically unjustifiable in a Republican primary
-No particular strengths that the other candidates don't have
-Sounds like a complete idiot in debates
-Was being hyped up like crazy by the media

You could actually make a strong case that every current member of the Republican field meets most of these criteria (or has at some point).

[Averroës Nix]

yeah, but every candidate says things he later regrets, but Perry and Bachmann do it on a regular basis.

Unlike Cain, they can't get away with the "America's got to lean to take a joke!" act. (Or they're not witty and likable enough to pull it off.)

[Averroës Nix]

I suspect the spotlight will cause him to make more gaffes, but time alone should get rid of his current popularity to some degree.

Sound analysis, IMO. Forgive me if you've mentioned this before, but do you then expect a Romney victory?

[Averroës Nix]

Cain is not a serious candidate and is running to earn himself a more prominent position as a talking head and to sell books. If you don't believe me, look at his schedule and his non-existent campaign in Iowa. He is a joke.

"Herm & Newt's Campaign to Sell Crap and Get Airtime"

[Averroës Nix]

Cain is on Meet the Press tomorrow.  Sailing past Perry or Huntsman both seem like plausible consequences of that.

He's already well past Huntsman, who is currently trading below Gingrich and Paul.

Do candidates typically experience a significant bump on Intrade after appearing on the Sunday shows? I think that a Gingrich-style flub is more likely than an increase in momentum.

[Averroës Nix]

I still think Perry is undervalued, but I'm surprised that his quasi-birtherism and his tax plan haven't had much effect on his trading value so far.

[Averroës Nix]

Wow, that is quite the rally for Gingrich.

Obviously a reaction to Gingrich's declaration that the contest will "end up being Mitt and Newt."

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Does anyone with at least an  eight  grade education believe Gingrich can compete with Obama in the general?

Yes, I'm sure that someone does.

[Averroës Nix]

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Every other candidate has already fumbled multiple times.

[Averroës Nix]

Newt hasn't messed up during the debates.

Sure, Newt hasn't had any damaging moments in debates. But until about a month ago, his campaign was little more than a series of fumbles, regardless of how inconsequential that may seem now.

[Averroës Nix]

It's all about the electable status. He wins Iowa, and he becomes electable. Romney lost Iowa last time and became unelectable.

I don't think you know what "electable" is.

[Averroës Nix]

Try to consider what "electability" means outside the Paulite bubble of epistemic closure and wishful thinking.

Winning between 1/4 and 1/3 of the vote  in a caucus state in which you've been campaigning heavily for months by no reasonable measure equates to a demonstration of electability. Nor will it be perceived as such by party actors, the media, and the electorate. (The same holds true, by the way, for Bachmann and Santorum.)

What justification is there for the idea that Republicans are withholding support from Paul because they perceive him as unelectable? Doesn't it make more sense to assume that his lack of support instead stems from his important, substantive differences with the party mainstream on issues of national security and foreign policy?

[Averroës Nix]

That's quite a surge for Santorum (he's now at 1.5). I don't know if I've ever seen his price stay that high, at least not while there's been a significant volume of trades happening in the market.

[Averroës Nix]

Is Wonkish still here?

Either he's busy paying for his Escalade or the Gingrich implosion has driven him deep into hiding. 

EDIT: Tory, if I remember correctly Wonkish said that he was undecided, but he had quite a Gingrich fetish. He claimed to have spent hundreds of hours watching Gingrich speeches and bragged that he'd managed to parlay several of Gingrich's ideas into a "lucrative" raise. And he was a vehement defender of the idea that Gingrich had a plausible shot at the nomination, arguing with me over that fact as early as late September.