Selling Ron Paul short 2

Finally! After three and a half weeks, my account at Intrade is funded, and I can place an order to sell Ron Paul short.

This has been quite an adventure. My credit card company refused to process a charge from an offshore gambling operation. I could have sent a bank wire, but the transaction costs were prohibitive. I had to airmail a $250 check to Dublin, where Intrade presumably put a hold on it until it cleared. (Intrade could have handled this better. An email when they processed the check and started the hold would have been nice. I had pretty much given up on the whole thing.)

Well! While I'm composing this post, I get an email from Intrade confirming that I've sold 25 Ron Paul short at 7.7. So now they're responsive?

The contract expires on August 31, 2008. If Ron Paul IS NOT the nominee, I make $19.25, which, over 10 months, is about 9% annualized. If Ron Paul IS the nominee, I lose $230.75, which is horrible.

Real Clear Politics, one the few sources where I can find a poll that lists Paul separately, shows him at 3.3%. Keep in mind that someone with 3.3% of the votes gets 0% of the nomination.

Meanwhile, Ron Paul has been very successful at raising money. I watched the last Republican debate, and Paul was the only candidate that was booed by the Republican audience. At the end of the show, he won the instant text messaging poll. I can only conclude that Paul's people spammed the text message number to create the illusion of support. The idea must be that if they can convince enough people that Paul IS popular, then Paul will BE popular. Sort of a high-tech, magical thinking, bandwagon strategy. Very Boomerish.

I suspect that something similar is going on at Intrade. Here is an article showing Ron Paul's Intrade chart and arguing that Intrade is a better predictor of the nomination than the polls. Nonsense. If Intrade is being manipulated, and the polls are not, then the polls are better predictors.