The Washington Times’ Inside the Beltway column (free registration required) touts PoliticalDerby.com’s subjective power rankings of the 2008 presidential contenders. Notably, the site ranks George Allen #1 among Republicans based in large part on Ed Gillespie’s support:
News that uber political guru Ed Gillespie has joined Team Allen has given the Virginia senator a significant boost as the story carried well beyond just the Commonwealth. Chatter suggests that Ed is too savvy to align himself with someone so early unless he is supremely confident.
Similarly, Hotline editor and NationalJournal.com columnist Chuck Todd also singled out Allen as surging (subscription required):
2008 Republican Presidential Candidate Who Had The Best Year
George Allen
The guy’s still in single digits, but the Republican intelligentsia mentions his name more as a “co-front-runner” than any other Republican not named McCain or Giuliani.
Research by a group of political scientists at UCLA suggests that elite support is crucial in securing a party nomination. However, it’s interesting that the futures markets on Tradesports.com haven’t registered the Gillespie news — here’s the price history of the share for Allen winning the nomination, which corresponds to a 16 percent chance of victory:
Meanwhile, the John McCain shares seem overpriced given the obstacles he faces in winning the Republican nomination:
Charlie Cook, the campaign guru, writes on NationalJournal.com about a recent poll he conducted with RT Strategies on McCain’s prospects (subscription required):
[R]espondents were read the following question: “Some people say that McCain would be a good candidate for president because he has demonstrated a great deal of personal integrity%u2026 he has a strong military background and he has independent political views; while other people say McCain would not be a good candidate for president because at age 72 (his age in the fall of 2008) he is too old to run for president, he is too stubborn in his issue positions and he does not always represent Republican views on the issues.” … “Which of those two statements comes closer to your point of view on John McCain running for president in 2008?”
Among all adults, 48 percent were pro-McCain and 35 were anti-McCain. Among registered voters, 49 percent were pro-McCain and 34 percent were anti-McCain. But among Republicans, just 41 percent agreed more with the pro-McCain statements, while 45 percent favored the anti-McCain arguments. Among Democrats, it was 47 percent pro-McCain, 32 percent anti-McCain. Among independents, a whopping 55 percent agreed with the pro-McCain option and 29 percent agreed with the anti-McCain option.
Among the Republicans and independents who say they usually vote in GOP primaries, it was better for McCain — 48 percent agreed with the pro-McCain position, and 39 percent agreed with the anti-McCain position, though this may well overestimate the true participation rate of independents in party primaries and caucuses. Among hardcore Republican primary voters, he ran about even — 45 percent pro-McCain, 43 percent anti-McCain. In short, McCain has a real problem among Republican voters who seem, in [pollster Lance] Tarrance’s words, to be “ambivalent about whether he is a good Republican.”
So who’s right? It’s possible that the Tradesports.com shares aren’t reflecting available information very well since most people aren’t following the race and trading volume is relatively low. If the legality of trading in their markets were clearer here in the US, I’d be putting my money where my mouth is and buying Allen shares.
Interestingly, Cook and RT Strategies also asked respondents about Hillary Clinton, and the pattern was virtually the opposite from McCain:
Respondents were read the following statement: “Some people say Clinton would be a good candidate for president because she has White House experience in her husband’s administration, as the first woman president she would bring in new ideas and she is personally a strong and charismatic leader; while other people say Clinton would not be a good candidate for president because she is too tied to all the problems of her husband’s administration, she is too liberal to win a national election, she voted for the war in Iraq.”
Among all adults, 42 percent chose the pro-Clinton option and 52 percent the anti-Clinton option. The numbers were almost identical among registered voters, with 42 percent choosing the pro-Clinton option and 51 percent the anti-Clinton option.
But as with McCain, the real story is in the party breakouts. A huge 66 percent of Democrats agreed with the pro-Clinton statement, with just 29 percent opting for the anti-Clinton package. But among independents, just 41 percent of independents chose the pro-Clinton case, with 51 percent favoring the anti-Clinton arguments. Not surprisingly, among Republicans, 76 percent opted for the anti-Clinton arguments and 18 percent opted for the pro-Clinton.
Among Democrats and those independents who usually vote in Democratic primaries, 60 percent chose the pro-Clinton package and 34 percent chose the anti-Clinton arguments, while among the hardcore Democratic primary voters, it was 65 percent pro-Clinton, 28 percent anti-Clinton. In Tarrance’s eyes, Clinton has a “brand image problem.” The negative brand of being “too liberal” is an enormous albatross around her neck among independents and Republicans.
Thus, it makes sense that Hillary’s share price is still huge at approximately a 45 percent chance of winning (though Mark Warner is impressive at 20):
It’s going to be a fascinating year as the candidates position themselves for the pre-primary fundraising and name recognition sprint in 2007 — we’ll see how the insiders and prediction markets react.