-
Did Bush Win by Losing?
Tweet Share on Facebook November 9, 2006 Comment (18)President Bush's subdued showing at his press conference Wednesday was nothing like his rather peppery performance right after he won re-election in 2004. Could it have been all just an act? Maybe Bush is actually better off having lost the House and apparently the Senate than with the GOP narrowly holding them. Hard to believe–and unless he has Morgan Freeman-esque acting skills, Bush doesn't appear to believe it himself. But the guys at Macroeconomic Advisers, an economic consulting firm with great inside-the-beltway connections, sure do. Here is the firm's contrarian take on the election outcome:
-
A Few Observations on the Big Democratic Win
Tweet Share on Facebook November 8, 2006 Comment (1)— Yesterday's elections results bring to mind this quote from a recent story I wrote about the impact of a Democratic congressional victory. As a Bush administration official put it then, "The president is going to be a veto machine."
-
Online Betting Markets Predict Dems Take House; GOP Holds Senate
Tweet Share on Facebook November 7, 2006 Comment (1)With the first polls closing at 6 p.m. in the eastern parts of Tennessee and Kentucky and the network exit surveys beginning to slowly leak into the blogosphere, here are the latest election odds — as of 5:40 — from the TradeSports and Washington Stock Exchange online betting markets.
-
The Latest Election Odds
Tweet Share on Facebook November 7, 2006 Comment (101)A lot of political junkies–particularly those on Wall Street–love to check out TradeSports, a Dublin-based betting market. There, they can see the latest odds on U.S. elections as well as the chances of various events taking place, such as capturing Osama bin Laden or airstrikes against Iran and North Korea.
-
Why Day Traders Love Elections
Tweet Share on Facebook November 6, 2006 CommentWhat will tomorrow's elections mean for the markets and economy? To be honest, most investors, analysts, and economists I talk to are more concerned about 1) what the Federal Reserve will do next, and 2) what the eventual spillover from the bursting housing bubble will be to the rest of the economy. (Of course, many of these guys still check the betting markets and political websites throughout the day.)
-
Eight Things Political Junkies Should Consider
Tweet Share on Facebook November 3, 2006 Comment (13)If you're a politics nut who's betting on the outcome of next week's midterm elections—and whose eyes are bleeding from all the bouncy-bouncy polls—here are a few other factors to consider:
-
Next Week's Election Numbers Today?
Tweet Share on Facebook November 2, 2006 CommentWill Democrats capture the House? And, if so, by how much? Polls on congressional races tend to be a bit spotty. To attack the question from a different angle, I checked in with Tom Brunell, a political science professor at the University of Texas–Dallas. He, along with fellow poli-sci Prof. Patrick Brandt, has constructed an economic forecasting model that attempts to predict the outcome of the battle for the House. The three main factors are the presidential approval rating, inflation, and the unemployment rate. (I first mentioned the model in my U.S. News cover story that examined the Bush economy and the midterms.) A month or so ago, the duo was predicting the GOP would barely hold the House with 220 seats. Brunell didn't want to update the model–"predicting an election on the eve of an election is like betting on a horse race with one furlong left," he wrote me in an E-mail–but I finally pressured him into it. Using the latest available numbers (Bush's rating is down, but the economic numbers are better), the Brandt-Brunell model now predicts ... the GOP will win 219 seats. But given the 6.5-seat margin of error, "it really is a coin flip right now for majority control of the House. It is anybody's ballgame," Brunell adds. So Dems may win, but no tidal wave.
-
Are Improving Economic Attitudes Too Little and Late for GOP?
Tweet Share on Facebook November 1, 2006 Comment (26)So what do Americans think about President Bush's handling of economic policy? A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows attitudes are improving, with 46 percent of voters approving his management and 48 percent disapproving. That's a gain from 39 percent approval and 56 percent disapproval in June. To take a different angle on the issue, I gave a call to Richard Curtin, director of the University of Michigan's Survey of Consumers. The school's monthly poll of 500 consumers asks a question that rarely gets much publicity. Here it is, word for word: "As to the economic policy of the government–I mean steps taken to fight inflation or unemployment–would you say the government is doing a good job, only fair, or a poor job?"
-
Political Gridlock May Not Be So Good
Tweet Share on Facebook October 31, 2006 Comment (12)A month ago at this time, political analyst Mark Melcher was "moderately confident" that the Republicans would hold the House and Senate. Today, Melcher, who for years tracked politics and policy for a major Wall Street investment firm and now puts out the Political Forum newsletter (a must-read for the big-money crowd), thinks the Democrats will probably take the House next week. Not that he's thrilled about that prospect–he admittedly leans to the right. But Melcher's not in a panic, either.
-
A Bad Time to Return to Rubinomics?
Tweet Share on Facebook October 30, 2006 CommentDemocratic candidates have been running as fiscal hawks this election season, lambasting Republicans as a bunch of free spenders who mismanaged the Clinton surpluses into the Bush deficits. It seems as if they are arguing for a return to Rubinomics, the economic theory named after President Clinton's second treasury secretary, Robert Rubin.
advertisement
Follow U.S. News Money
Like Us On Facebook
advertisement
Subscribe
U.S. News Weekly
An insider's guide to politics and policy, available on the iPad or as a PDF download.
