DON’T JUST TAKE MY WORD FOR IT

In the upcoming months, I will explain why this country doesn’t just NEED Barack Obama, but more importantly, why it wants him. I will also explain why now is WAY past the time for John McCain, whose day should have come in 2000 but his political party had its head up its tuchus and cared more about getting elected than governing a nation. The consequences of that choice for the entire world speak for themselves, wouldn’t you say?

So, “my friends,” as Mr. Iraq War likes to say, you’ll get my pontification soon enough. Just not this morning. I’m going to save you my attempts at reading tea leaves, or speculating about the minds of old ladies from Lansing or young men from Columbus. I’m simply going to point out two numbers -- the current betting odds from Intrade.

Intrade reports the odds that candidates will win elections. Slate.com has listed Intrade numbers for a while, and today, I saw them listed in realclearpolitics.com. The people whose bets are reflected on Intrade put their money where their mouth is. Unlike the political pundits you see on TV, Intrade betters can’t afford to simply spew their biased crap without considering reality – after all, losing money gets old pretty quickly. That’s what makes Intrade worthy of our attention.

Now, I’m not saying that Intrade is infallible. For example, at different points in the past year, it was predicting that Hillary Clinton would win the nomination. Then again, for much of 2007, so was I, and I’m an admitted Obamaniac.

In any event, recognizing that Intrade could be wrong, I still think its numbers are more reliable than most. So here they are: Obama 61.3 McCain 34.9.

I won’t reveal my bias by saying that Obama’s odds should even be higher. I’ll just leave you with the numbers. You can figure out for yourselves WHY Obama is such a heavy favorite even though those other numbers you’ll see (the polls) are so close.