RE: Hey - let's not forget the "other guy"

Oh, I agree - Ron Paul is too extreme to get elected. Especially since the Republican party has in so many ways been hijacked by the religious zealots. But Romney's not really doing much better. Fred Thompson, who's not even officially running, is doing better.

Actually, for those who are interested, the Iowa Electronic Markets are a real-money futures trading system that offer trading on the outcome of the election. Because you can't put more than $500 in it, the commodities commission has declared it exempt from certain regulations, and it's not really any way to make serious money, but because it is real money, the underlying mechanisms of futures market are at work on it. This means that it's almost always a really good indicator of the likely outcomes.

It's been running since at least the '92 election, and it's been very accurate in predicting winners. Since trading on the 2008 Republican Party nomination opened in March, Romney's been pretty steady at around 22%. Giuliani started at around 35%, but then dropped down to around 20% in early June, and is now back in the lead at about 36%. Thompson's only been split out from the "other" group for about six weeks, but he's doing well at about 30%.

The bad new for the Republicans is that the "winner take all" market for the outcome of the 2008 election is running at about 65% in favor of the Democrats. In the Democratic nomination market, it's about 50% for Clinton and about 33% for Obama. The others are all pretty much in the toilet.

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