Waiting on Perry

Is Rick Perry basically running for president now, and is the implosion of Newt Gingrich related -- with several long-time Perry staffers leaving Newt to return to their real guy? My brother floated the wacko idea that Newt was a stalking horse for Perry back in May; that's presumably not really what was going on, but who knows?

At any rate...wait, first: mostly, this is entirely a self-indulgent post, so I'll apologize for that right now.

Where was I...oh yeah: we here don't call 'em all right*, but there's this, from November 2010 about the Intrade pricing of some longshots:

I'd say that Barbour (2%), DeMint (1%), and Perry (1%) are all seriously undervalued, and if I were placing wagers that's where my money would be.

No dice on the first two, but Perry right now is at 10% and rising, which I believe means that anyone who listened to me then can sell and make a nice profit.

Overall, by the way, the five candidates who I believe are plausible nominees -- Romney, Pawlenty, Perry, Palin, and Bush -- are still only at a combined 65%. I started saying that it was too late in the cycle for most candidates to get in back in March; at that point, I identified eight plausible nominees (the others were Barbour, Huck, and Daniels), and noted that they had a combined 72% from Intrade. So buying those eight then would still be a losing bet if you sold now...but of course in my view, you would have a winning ticket in your pocket.

Really, I'd guess that Romney, Pawlenty, and Perry combined probably have somewhere north of a 90% chance to win; I really don't think Jeb is getting in, and Palin, while still a plausible nominee, isn't getting any closer to actually winning it.



*Hey, I never said that a government shutdown over FY 2011 appropriations was certain; that was just some headline writer. I said it was very likely, or hard to see it not happening, or something like that. Oops.