Voting: Keep It Simple

If I knew nothing else about this election or recent history, I’d vote for Bush based solely on who his enemies are. The anti-Bush roster includes: the international Left — including MSM, academia and much of the entertainment industry; the governments of France, Iran, Germany, Venezuela, Canada, Cuba, N. Korea, Syria, etc.; the Palestinians; probably the Saudis and the Chinese; the UN; the US State Department bureaucracy; and numerous intellectuals who have been getting the big picture wrong for years.

When you think about it that’s not a bad way to make complex decisions: look at what the groups that have big stakes in the matter are doing, then vote with the ones that share your interests and against the rest. That’s how I vote on issues I don’t know a lot about. For example, on a referendum item that would cap lawyers’ fees in medical-liability cases, I am split. On the one hand I think medical liability is out of control, on the other hand I oppose price fixing. But I know that the trial lawyers favor the measure and the doctors oppose it, so I vote against.

All I need to know about this election is that the UN crowd wants Kerry to win. (As the WSJ pointed out in today’s editorial, the UN has already voted, by ginning up the missing-explosives story.) So to all the clever bloggers who are publicly agonizing about whom to vote for, I say, look at the obvious. Figure out who your enemies are, observe their preferences in our election and take the opposite position.

UPDATE: One of the commenters raises the issue of rational ignorance. I agree that that issue overlaps the issue that I discuss, as my main reason for using my “enemy of my enemy” heuristic is that I don’t have the resources or ability to evaluate each issue by myself. However, the overlap isn’t complete. I argue that by observing the behavior of better-informed players I am able to obtain, more economically than by conventional methods, the information that I need to make good decisions. It is a little like trading stocks based on market behavior, as opposed to trading on fundamental analysis of underlying economic conditions. Maybe I could learn enough about each company’s fundamentals to trade its stock successfully. But if I can trade just as well, with less effort, solely by observing the stock’s behavior and making reasonable inferences, why not do so? It is similar with voting decisions, especially when I am having difficulty making up my mind using conventional decision criteria.

UPDATE 2: Here’s someone who gets it.

What’s Up With Intrade?

I’m watching Intrade’s Bush-reelection mkt and reading comments on Lex’s recent post about the election.

I agree with the commenter who suspects manipulation. The mkt’s acting like there’s a big, aggressive seller: there are size bids, but only small resting offers below about 53. The seller is the only one tightening the mkt. Also, IIRC (and I may not be), it appears there’s been huge volume in the past hour or so.

This behavior doesn’t quite fit the pattern that observers noticed in the mkt earlier, where someone came in when the mkt was thin and spiked it down quickly by taking out a lot of bids. Today’s price action looks more like the scenario I hypothesized about, where someone is willing to spend hundreds of thousands to hold the mkt down, for an extended period, by entering a stream of sell orders in small units. Not as dramatic as the big plunge, but perhaps more believable to uncommitted or easily-discouraged voters. (And anyway, there are probably now so many resting bids at lowball prices that the mkt can no longer be spiked.)

If I were George Soros I’d do the same thing.

(Related post here)

UPDATE: Don Luskin shares another theory.

2nd Quote of the Day

I’m not saying Bush is Reagan, but like many ordinary guys at Omaha Beach, he figured out in a hurry what was necessary. Kerry strikes me as a strange man, driven by his ambitions to take on a job he is really not suited for.

Tom Smith

Not Necessarily

A friend sent this article, about Democrat efforts to use legal procedure to derail the election in Florida, saying “here we go again”. I responded as follows:

It will only matter if it is close.

It is all about turnout and that is a complete wildcard. This year, turnout will be high. Maybe the highest since the 1930s. All the polling models assume a lower turnout than we are likely to see.

The polls are increasingly unreliable for other reasons as well. Numerous writers have emphasized the decaying reliability of polls. (See Dick Morris on this.)

In other words, we are flying blind.

The election may defy predictions and end up not even being close.

I think a solid Kerry majority, or even a blowout Bush majority are both possible outcomes.

Also, the media will almost certainly attempt to spring one or more “scandals” tomorrow, on “dirty Thursday”, the Thursday before the election. So a renewed, last minute attack on Bush by the Democrats’ proxies in the MSM is nearly certain.

Another wildcard is this: Our enemies will equate a Bush defeat with a victory for them.

The Iraqi resistance may try a large attack, a Tet 2004, though I think they lack the combat power to do anything spectacular. Slaughtering 50 unarmed Iraqis is about their speed at this point. Nonetheless, Ralph Peters says “The terrorists are pulling out all the stops to shed blood in Iraq this week.”

The terrorists may launch an attack here in the USA. If they have any assets here and operating, this is the moment to strike, to put all their chips on the table. So we may get our own “Madrid”. A succesful attack would give Kerry a last minute chance to say that Bush failed to protect us, to play the card the terrorists handed Zapatero. Friday would probably be optimum since large crowds of commuters will be available for attack on a workday, and it would give the story a few days to percolate and for Kerry and the MSM to spin it as a Bush failure.

And random stuff can happen. What would the fallout have been if that registered Democrat in Florida had run over Katherine Harris and killed her instead of swerving? What if some significant violence were to occur in the run-up to the election? Can anyone say this is unlikely given the angry and frankly psycho tone this year? What will the response be? Depressed turnout? Increased? It is impossible to say. It depends on the details of the whatever happens.

So it is way to early to rule out “events, dear boy, events” determining the outcome, particularly if the race is actually as close as is commonly assumed.

Here’s my gut. I don’t think it is close. I think it is volatile. Not the same thing. If nothing major happens between now and election day, Bush should win. If something major does occur, he may not.

Still, being cool-headed and conservative, and going by the futures markets and the oddsmakers as the most compact and objecive sources of information, if I had to bet a dollar today, I’d bet that Bush wins with 52% of the popular vote.

But I wouldn’t bet a dollar.

It’s still too early to say what will happen.

Political Funny Business

The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) is intended to balance the interests of North American Indian tribes and scientists.

There’s a long-running scandal in the handling of the prehistoric skeleton known as Kennewick Man, which is thought to be over 9000 years old and is of great scientific interest. An Indian tribe claimed the skeleton as one of its own and refused to allow it to be studied. Despite a lack of evidence for its claim, the tribe was supported by various government agencies and other Indian tribes. Scientists who want to study the skeleton sued the government and the tribes, claiming a right to access under NAGPRA. The suit dragged on for years during which the tribes and government did not distinguish themselves by their behavior. (Typically, the defendants repeatedly insisted that tribes have the right to control the remains of their members, while they ignored requests to show a connection between the Kennewick skeleton and the tribe that claimed it.) Eventually, and only quite recently, the defendants exhausted all appeals and the scientists prevailed.

Now comes a bill, S-2843, introduced by retiring Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R, CO), that would amend NAGPRA essentially to give control of all pre-1492 human remains in North America to Indian tribes, whether or not there is any evidence of affiliation. In the words of a press release from a group opposed to the bill:

. . . the amended definition would now include all human remains that pre-date European contact (1492), even if the remains are not from Native Americans. It presumes that any remains found this century, even if 50,000 years old, are somehow related to modern American Indians and should be placed off limits to scientific study (and buried if tribal groups so wish).

S-2843 is stealth legislation designed to moot the scientists’ court victory. If enacted, it would give Indian tribes a legal choke hold over much North American anthropological research. It upsets the reasonable balance struck in the original NAGPRA, and invites the extraction of rents from scientific institutions that wish to obtain permission to do archaeological studies. It deserves wide publicity and scrutiny and should be defeated.

More information:

Moira Breen’s Kennewick Man Links (indispensable)

Friends of America’s Past

Center for the Study of the First Americans