InTrade puts the odds of Hillary Clinton being the 2012 Democratic presidential nominee at 8-9%. That’s *ridiculous*. #EfficientMarketFAIL
InTrade puts the odds of Hillary Clinton being the 2012 Democratic presidential nominee at 8-9%. That’s *ridiculous*. #EfficientMarketFAIL
If anything, odds should be higher than that.
I don’t know how this is possible, but I have buyer’s remorse on behalf of Democrats. I really don’t think things would suck nearly as bad as they do right now if HRC was president. EXTREMELY odd for me to think like this, I know, but if I could travel back in time and accept the fact that McCain didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell no matter who he faced, I would’ve switched parties to vote for HRC in the primary.
Okay, let’s think this through.
What are the odds Obama voluntarily doesn’t run for re-election? Let’s be generous and put them at 5%. Let’s say there’s an 80% chance Hillary gets the nomination in that case. Okay. So 4%.
Let’s also look at the odds he’s killed, incapacitated, whatever, between now and then. God forbid. But let’s put that at another 5% — historically, it’s not all that rare. Gotta believe there’s a 50-50 chance Biden runs in that case, as he’d be in the incumbent. Let’s say it’s 50% Biden, 50% Hillary, though that’s oversimplifying. So that’s another 2.5%, which brings us to 6.5% total.
Now, let’s look at the other 90% chance that Obama runs for re-election in 2012. I think that’s a lowball number, by the way, but we’ll go with it. What are odds Hillary challenges him? I gotta believe they’re less than 2% — it’s absolute career suicide if she does that and loses. She’s his Sec of State for goodness sake! And everybody knows a primary challenge is a death knell for an incumbent, so if she tries and fails, she’d be seen as the ultimate traitor, and she knows it. And imagine the African-American reaction? By far, BY FAR, the safer play is for her to wait until 2016. So I’m giving her 2% odds, AT MOST, of actually challenging Obama. And of BEATING him? Considering Ted Kennedy couldn’t even pull it off against Carter, I don’t think you can reasonably say she’s got a better than 25% shot within that 2% chance she runs. So that’s 0.5%. If you want to be ridiculously generous and she has a 50-50 shot if she runs, then fine, 1%. That still only gets us to 7.5%, and I’m making ridiculously generous assumptions. AND InTrade has like 8% odds on Biden as the nominee! So unless they think there’s like a 20% Obama dies between now and 2012, I don’t see how this is anything but crazy.
Bottom line: any reasonable assessment of Hillary’s presidential chances in 2012 has basically nothing to do with the notion of her challenging Obama. It’s solely related to either Obama choosing not to run, or something terrible happening to him. The odds of her challenging & beating him in a primary are an infinitesimal contribution to any calculation of her overall odds.