Wild Times: Vicious Stompings and the Chase for Power

There is nothing more American than pro football and Presidential elections. Fools and illiterate wimps can say all they like for baseball and apple pie and God knows what else that supposedly exemplifies Americana but nothing shows the United States and Americans at their naked, brutal best than pro football and Presidential elections.

And ye Gods, after the vile ball stomping I took last week when betting heavy on the NFL, I have little choice but to turn my energies to The Election if I am to continue my trek into darkness of the American way. For good or ill.

The weekend was brutal. I was whipped like an Alabaman sodomite. The scars are still fresh and the memories of the beat down are still causing me to pierce the calm night sky with strange howling and high pitched screams. Having gone with the Saints in various spread books around the world for a significant amount a point, I was curled in the foetal position come quarter four when the Bears kept the Soldier Field scoreboard tick, tick, ticking. And the disbelief of the Colts running down the Patriots to make the Super Bowl on the arm of Peyton Manning has caused some severe mental disturbances that have caused those in my general vicinity some worry.

Those tin pan eyes of shame and shock Reche Caldwell wandered around with in the final few minutes of the AFC Championship game after doing his grandest Jackie Smith impersonation, to the amusement of nobody in Boston or Baltimore or the general betting community, still sit in front of me like some cursed talisman handed over by Richard Nixon or Bill Buckner or Old Dorothy Clutterbuck. A feeling of inescapable demolition fills the air and maniacal notions of fleeing and wanton public destruction float on by like a Modest Mouse song.

But so much for all that. The time is right now to realign focus, at least for a week. If only to gain some form of perspective…

So we move to politics and the 2008 US Presidential election, which is already underway. We are exactly a year away from the New Hampshire Primary, where candidates are made and broken and the real viciousness begins. The cycle has begun, the markets are open, the position-sidling is underway and the money is rolling out.

Now 2008 will be the most open Presidential election since 1952 and possibly even 1928, which makes the event a wonderful betting proposition. Americans are torn between their natural conservatism and their general opposition to Bush and Iraq. Not only is there no sitting President running but no sitting VP. And there is a whole pantheon of big name political players who have been waiting and preparing and angling for 2008, ready to crank it up a notch for the big run at the prize. This has really escalated. Brick may have killed a guy with a trident.

The real value in Presidential elections is in betting on party nominations, when the fields are big and the prices are large.

For the Democrats, there is a line of candidates so long that even Kate Moss would struggle with it. A mix of stars, has-beens, wannabes, never-will-bes, hacks, bums, delusional poets and rising hopefuls have their hat in the ring, raising cash and chasing power.

Conventional wisdom has this nutted down to a race in two. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Both are no value. And everybody who has made this the race have no sense of history, a clear lack of understanding of American politics and a misjudged view of the American people. To take under 4-1 that Americans will put up a woman or an African-American is wholly and completely insane. To take the $3 available that Clinton will become President or the $6 Obama will is certifiably mad. In over 200 years, not one woman has taken a party nomination and not one African-American has got close. A bent of religious conservatism which underpins American society has seen to all that.

Not only do these two candidates have the inherent disadvantages of sex and race stacked up against them, the personal history and standing of both will do significant damage to each of their campaigns when the fight turns dirty. Clinton is viewed as extremely divisive and will have the old Whitewater land deal scandal to deal with, a scandal that almost bought down husband Bill. And Obama, derided for his inexperience, has some past drug indiscretions he will have to face up to ad nauseam and Americans are traditionally none-too-forgiving towards Democrats with a sordid past. Where Australians would generally brush it off as an indiscretion of youth, Americans nail you as a deviant. Just ask Thomas Eagleton about the cost of the past.

The last two Democrat candidates for President, Al Gore and John Kerry, are also no bets for either nomination or President. In fact, Gore is the worst bet one could make, with a touch over 8-1 available on him getting the Democrat nomination. Gore has sent messages out since 2005 that he would not be running in 2008, that his focus would be on environmental politics and the liberal media. And even if he does run, which is still an outside but unlikely possibility; it is never wise to back a man who suffered defeat that hard. John Kerry has also made rumblings of late that he is an unlikely candidate. He suffered a terrible beating in 2004 and has never really recovered from being painted as aloof and out-of-touch. A run would be a shock and a victory would be the signal to check for the Horsemen.

Without doubt, the value and the man to follow is John Edwards. Edwards, who ran as the VP candidate for Kerry, is right in the mix as a top-tier candidate. He has a high name profile, he is viewed as youthful yet experienced, he is highly telegenic and photogenic, he is seen as a moderate and he has the ability to win the South, something most Democrat candidates have no hope of doing. The 5-1 available on him winning the nomination is a nice bet.

Other Democrat candidates who may make an impact at big odds are Bill Richardson and Tom Vilsack. These two Catholics are well respected and are strategically well placed. Richardson is extraordinarily popular among Hispanic voters and with strong foreign policy credentials, is considered a strong candidate and the 25’s on offer appears some value. And Vilsack, the former Governor of Iowa, has the ability to gain some strong early momentum in the Iowa caucuses which may propel him into prime contention. Winning early is crucial in the primaries and with the momentum he should be able to generate, the 60’s looks overs as he should be in the race for the long haul.

The Republican race looks a little more up-and-down with the nomination being John McCain’s to lose. He is a strong candidate and Republicans will realise he is their best hope in 2008. Died-in-the-wool conservatives will oppose him, but most in the GOP know that a campaign of overt conservatism in the manner of Bush will sink quicker than Barry Goldwater in ’64. Also in McCain’s favour is the fact that the other two frontrunners, Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney, have a history of social liberalism that will kill them in the South and will make McCain the default choice of conservatives among the frontrunners. The 13-8 is pretty short but is probably the best value in the market.

Giuliani and Romney are both on the record as pro-choice and pro-gay marriage, though Romney now claims to be pro-life and anti-gay marriage, and this social liberalism (as well as Giuliani’s messy personal history and his Catholic background) will ensure the death blow will be landed in the Baptist Belt. Neither can be bet at anything under 14-1 and even that is giving them the best of it.

Two smokies who can make a real shot at the nomination if they can harness the conservative vote are Mike Huckabee and Sam Brownback. Both are strong social conservatives, with a name profile, who will get strong support (and funds) from the religious right. The 25’s and 20’s on offer both seem to be decent bets. Neither would stand much chance in the general election, however, and many Republicans would factor this in when voting in the primary. Newt Gingrich is another candidate who is an outside hope of winning the conservative vote, though his personal history make the 25’s a little short.

One further note: Dick Cheney and Condoleeza Rice are not running. NOT RUNNING. So those humorists at Centrebet and other money hungry books can stop trying to con punters and remove their names from the list of potential candidates. They will not be running. Jesus, in three years time, Cheney will be dead and Rice will be angling to run the NFL.

 And that is probably that. Time to crank up Hi-Fi Wayand pray like hell that I can find a Super Bowl winner.