Just curious about how easy it is to set up a poll. Why not find out toward whom the CV readership is leaning these days? We promise your answers are not binding.
Updates: We are a famous physics blog!
And Ron Paul supporters have perfected a special brand of annoying.
And polls on the internet are useless.
None of which really qualifies as startling new information, I guess.
Ron Paul didn’t seem so crazy in today’s debate in Iowa, probably because things are running much better in Iraq, so he has dispensed with the hysterics.
Sadly, I am not hearing any initiatives from any candidates that are likely to get done. Venture capitalists are the ones that will provide leadership from now on. Great public works projects in the past – Panama canal, Hoover Dam, continental railroad, interstate highway – were either lead by the federal government, or supported / subsidized by the federal government. I just don’t see the federal government doing that anymore, but companies like Nanosolar, Tesla Motors and others are making the major leaps forward without any initial support from government.
The only issues that the federal government should spend time on are those to which they are assigned – immigration, security, trade, etc., and leave the rest to true visionaries.
Sean, look what you’ve done! Ron Paul zealots have invaded CV.
Personally, I would have included Ron Paul in the “poll”, but rigged it so that the votes for him would randomly go to any candidate BUT Ron Paul. Just imagine how infuriating it would have been for the Ron Paul supporters who came here to stack the poll.
did,
The last paragraph of Obama’s statement on education says
IX. A COMMITMENT TO FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY
Barack Obama’s early education and K-12 plan package costs about $18 billion per year. He will maintain fiscal responsibility and prevent any increase in the deficit by offsetting cuts and revenue sources in other parts of the government. The early education plan will be paid for by delaying the NASA Constellation Program for five years, using purchase cards and the negotiating power of the government to reduce costs of standardized procurement, auctioning surplus federal property, and reducing the erroneous payments identified by the Government Accountability Office, and closing the CEO pay deductibility loophole. The rest of the plan will be funded using a small portion of the savings associated with fighting the war in Iraq.
Constellation is the NASA program to invent new vehicles for manned spcaeflight after the Shuttle is retired.
Current betting odds to win the 2008 US Presidential Election
from http://www.bodoglife.com/sports-betting/political-props.jsp
Hillary Clinton 3/1
John Edwards 14/1
Rudy Giulani 5/1
Mike Huckabee 9/1
John McCain 16/1
Barack Obama 6/1
Mitt Romney 9/1
Fred Thompson 100/1
Ron Paul 6/1
Luke,
If Constellation gets killed, then there will be no more manned space flights by NASA, unless they intend to fly the shuttle until the next disaster. Fortunately, NASA has been doing some great work in autonavigation and ion propulsion, so unmanned flights should remain interesting.
I see in the comments your 5% rule to qualify. I was kinda wondering if Stephen Colbert was not currently striking; might he have the needed 5% for your poll?
This is so difficult to decide. On the one hand you have states like California who allow marijuana to be sold to those who have a prescription for it and the federal government who wants to step all over the rights of the states and inviolate that right – which I completely disagree that the federal government has the right to do … but on the other hand we have the states which would, at least where I’m from, would forbid abortion in a moments notice and make it illegal which I have to give my thanks to the federal government in preventing from happening. The principle is that the government doesn’t have the right to dictate what we do with our own body. I’m still debating between Paul and Kucinich.
Lastly, Paul might come off like a crackpot but you have to consider that a lot of his ideas, though rash, can be reeled in and modified to the point where they don’t come off so badly while still remaining principled. That’s what I would expect Congress and the Senate to do.
Right. The U.S. Congress has a fantastic track record of turning crazy but principled ideas into workable, principled laws.
Those betting odds are way out of line with polling data, which is interesting. Now, I think the polls are even more bunk than usual this year, but those are some really weird numbers.
I have always viewed politics thru the “Campaign Trail ’72” betting-odds lens, largely to protect the fragile remnants of my idealism by distancing myself from the process. I think it’s time to take a break from the cynical view this year, though…
I have a physics and astronomy degree from caltech (although I write software form a living.) I am an atheist. I have read this blog for over a year and have generally thought fairly highly of it.
Meanwhile I am also an active libertarian who thinks that ron paul is the best thing on wheels this election cycle. I don’t agree with absolutely everything he is about, but the important stuff including his stands on foreign policy, civil liberties, sound money and limited federal government all sound correct to me. No one else really comes close.
What baffles me is why anyone who actually uses the internet these days would not understand that ron paul has had an amazingly diverse, powerful and out of control adhoc social network spring up around his campaign. Therefore any internet poll with or without ron paul and any blog entry that mentions him in any way is going to get examined by a lot of eyeballs right away. Anything that is particularly pleasing or displeasing to paulites is going to get spread around the network like the clap.
Then again, one of the memes passed around the network today was a video of some cable TV pundits discussing why the ron paul campaign is choosing to spend so much time and effort on making youtube videos. What a hoot!
Anyway enjoy all that attention. You earned it!
What baffles me is why anyone would think that “acting like jerks on the internet” is a good way to drum up support for their favorite candidate. No wonder the guy’s poll numbers never reached the high single digits.
Ron Paul is a racist. See
this site for details. After reading that, how many Paul supporters on this blog would still vote for him?
Can we vote on this blog if we are not US citizens?
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Sean,
Not to add fuel to the fire, but I’d like to see a Ron Paul option.
For me it’s between Ron Paul and Obama, we’ll see what happens.
Thanks for the arrow of time FAQ.
… a famous WHAT?! blog!
Abortion should neither be a state issue nor a federal issue. It should not be a matter for the government to decide AT ALL.
Anyway, Sean, why the heck not put Kucinich and Paul on the poll?
This long post by “Starshark” in a message board debate about Ron Paul gives a pretty good summary of everything I find crazy and scary about his belief system. Just to pick one example, do his supporters here know about his ‘We The People’ act which would make it illegal for the supreme court to interfere if a state decided to abolish the separation of church and state (suggesting his loyalty to the Constitution is fairly selective), and which also panders to anti-homosexual sentiments by specifically forbidding the supreme court from telling states they must accept same-sex marriage? (even though the likelihood of the supreme court doing such a thing any time soon is virtually nil). And Marc’s point about Ron Paul’s racism is also worth highlighting–do you really want a president who, in his 1990s newsletter, was writing things like this?
There’s also some good info on the affinities between many of Paul’s political positions and those of white supremacist groups and “New World Order” conspiracy theorists (the two groups overlap considerably, since anti-semites often posit that the Jews are behind the ‘New World Order’) in this post from the Orcinus blog. And as pointed out in an earlier post from Orcinus, Paul has a history of being influenced by these types and repeating their rhetoric on a number of subjects (more the conspiracy nuts than the out-and-out racists, but his phony statistics about black crime quoted above were taken from the writings of “pseudo-academic racist” Jared Taylor).
Incidentally, I see that aside from the two posts above, the Orcinus blog has actually done a whole series of posts on Paul’s links with right-wing extremist groups and ideology…scroll to the bottom of this post for a list.
“Current betting odds to win the 2008 US Presidential Election”
I don’t know about that site’s odds… Ron Paul seems way too high, for example. I trust the methodology of the Intrade Prediction Markets a little better to give me an accurate probability. It doesn’t have volume limits and they publish actual bid/ask spreads, with contracts designed so you can easily read the percentages from the price. It is are similar to the Iowa Electronic Markets, except those also have a limit.
For example, the bid/ask on Ron Paul to be the Republican nominee is 5.8/5.9. That means you can buy a contract for $5.9 (the “asking” price) that will pay off $100 if he is nominated. On the other hand, someone is offering (“bidding”) to buy that contract for $5.8, so if you want to take the other side for $94.2, it will will pay $100 is he is NOT nominated.
The market “thinks” the chances he will be nominated are between 5.8% and 5.9%. If you disagree then you have a bet available which should pay off on average. (The key word being “average.” Don’t bet your savings on one contract.) All contracts are made with another user taking the other side, so your two contributions add up to $100 (or whatever volume you actually buy… they are in increments of $1). Intrade has no interest in any of the contracts aside from the small amount they take off the top.
It’s a great concept, and the site is popular enough that the volume is high and the spreads are low on the major events (like the presidential race). This gives a narrow range of predicted probabilities which updates quickly in response to news.
I have no affiliation with the site aside from being impressed. They even have nice historical graphs. Trying to match news events that you remember to spikes in a candidate’s graph is good times.
Kucinich is tops for me on policy and character. As a betting man, though, I’m thinking John Edwards will be the next president, assuming Al Gore doesn’t enter at the last minute (or is it too late for him?)
wanna see physicists turn irrational?
exclude a no-chance candidate from a dumb poll
Being a dutchman, I don’t even have a marginal, symbolical say in this, even though the person occupying the White House influences our situation here in Europe far, far too much, but if I could vote, I’d vote for Kucinich, the only pacifist candidate.
Gov. Bill Richardson.
Definitely has the best CV of any candidate, and those of us in HEP know he did a pretty good job at DoE after the disasters of the Hazel O’Leary years.
So I am supporting Bill Richardson for president, but then again I am also a Cubs fan and lifelong follower of the New Orleans Saints….
Full text of Ron Paul Report on the Los Angeles riots here.
Paul has reportedly denied writing or even vetting this, but even if that’s true, the ffact that it was distributed under his name with his knowledge is enough for me to ashcan him immediately and permanently.