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betting on the horse-race, Australian style
My money's on the upstart underdog. Quite literally. Way back in March 2007 a mate and I disagreed over the relative likelihoods of America seeing a female or African-American
in the White House come 2009, and decided to make it interesting. I expressed such certitude that Hillary Clinton represented an unelectable figure that i gave him the better end of the stick, promising to pay out on our $100 bet if madam Hillary should so much as secure the nomination, while only requiring him to pa out if my preferred candidate made it all the way to Washington. So i gotta wait til November for my hundred bucks.
Come late January, its gettin pretty interesting. My mother's partner (a gambling man) offered a $100 wager on the issue, which i happily accepted. He wore the smug certitude of a gambler onna smart bet ('look on Intrade if you want to see where the smart money is!') and I made a further proclamation of my faith by accepting another weighted bet: this time around, i lose should any candidate but Senator Obama attain the Democratic nomination! (this being back when John Edwards was still a contender).
I offered to double-up following Super Tuesday. He accepted.
I offered another double-up after North Carolina. He declined.
Get out of the race, Hillary, you're a lame horse. Do it for the sake of the party. Do it for the sake of the country. Do it for the sake of the amplifier i want to buy. I'm just about two hundred bucks short and i don't want to wait til August.
Comments (1)
I simply cannot put my faith in someone who voted in favour of the Iraq misadventure. By my reckoning, a 12-year-old of perhaps slightly above-average intelligence in early 2003 with an Internet connection could ascertain with a fair degree of certitude that the best option for the USA to ensure no threat from any Iraqi WMDs would be for the USA to permit the UN weapons inspectors to complete the job of ascertaining the absence of that threat, as they declared as being within their capacity, given the time. Oh, and who called on the inspectors to do that job? Wasn't it the USA?
The same 12-year-old could probably figure out that under any traditional rationalist framework of international goings-on, the unpredictable and unintended consequences of such an enterprise outweighed any likely benefits.
I'd rather have that 12-year-old in the White house in 2009 than someone with such a deficit of foresight that they would willingly vote for such an unmistakably dangerous and unnecessary misadventure.
April 2, 2008 6:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
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