Even if you don’t understand game theory … or poker … and haven’t slammed down enough beers yet to remember Oktoberfest, this piece by Peter Schorsch — the ‘Burg half of the SPB-RR blog bureau, is well worth your time. A clip:
The latest polling in the US Senate race shows Marco Rubio leading Charlie Crist by either six or seven points, depending on the pollster. Kendrick Meek’s Campaign, broke and stubborn, yet on-message and resilient, is still stuck in the teens. In fact, at this rate, Meek will be lucky to get only two or three times the number of people he had sign a petition to qualify him for the ballot to actually end up voting for him.
Of course, Kendrick Meek isn’t going anywhere. It’s ridiculous to suggest that Meek, an African-American candidate running in a Southern state, drop out of the race to clear a path for Charlie Crist. I don’t care how much you want Charlie Crist to win, there are just bigger principles at stake here.
Then again, I am not convinced that Crist absolutely needs Meek to drop out for the Governor to edge out Marco Rubio (internally, the Crist campaign is now predicting their guy will win by two points). If you squint your eyes hard enough and stare at your tall pint of Sam Adams Oktoberfest long enough, as I did last night, you can still come up with a path to victory for Charlie Crist.
All you have to do is introduce the Alex Snitker effect, factor in the implied odds of poker and advanced game theory, slam back another Oktoberfest, and, voila, Charlie Crist is really down only a point or two to Marco Rubio. Here’s how I arrived at my theory (again, lots of Oktoberfest is involved).
I’ve done a fair amount of blogging on the “Snitker effect” myself, and while I don’t see him necessarily topping 5 percent, I think 2-3 percent is well in range for the feisty Libertarian (who plans to debate his opponents on Wednesday whether they like it or not.) And to my mind, he doesn’t get 66 percent of his numbers from Rubio — he gets 80 percent or more from out of Marco’s hide. Snitker is a genuine tea party candidate, while Rubio is a mere tea party poseur, who used the movement to get ahead, and now is running as your garden variety Republican, thanks to the strategery of the Bush team. Snitker’s fans won’t go away quietly, and there’s nothing to indicate that they’ll pull a Sharron Angle and hate the party, while still drinking it’s “juice.” That doesn’t mean Rubio really isn’t at 40 percent. But it does mean that there is a chance that he isn’t. And chance is all that elections are about.
Meanwhile, one small dent in Peter’s ed board scenario: maybe the SPTimes will endorse Crist — that wouldn’t surprise me — but don’t look for the same from the Miami Herald, which went nuclear on Crist today.
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