Election Evening Ruminations

I just got off the phone with Vegas Heavy-T. He has no money on Kerry, and so if things go sour for us Bushies, we have him to blame. I, on the other hand, have plenty of money on Kerry, and so if things go well for us Bushies, please feel free to send me money to defray my losses. Vegas Heavy-T and I have already made plans, in the event of a Bush win, to start buying Hillary futures contracts for 2008. I am being absolutely serious when I say that I hope to put a couple thousand dollars in a fund each of the next four years, all of which will be bet on Hillary. If she wins, I will still be grossly disappointed, but at least I'll own a boat.

On this night in 2000 - where were you? I remember my whereabouts distinctly. I was painting our dining room in Minneapolis for about the fifth time (it was never quite the right color for certain a asthete that I live with) when Vegas Heavy T (who was only Heavy T at the time, living in Minneapolis - maybe we should have called him Minnesota Thins at the time) called me to ruin my day by telling me the networks had just called Florida for Gore. Game over.

I continued painting in a stupor, when maybe no more than an hour later he calls me back to say that Florida is back in play. Talk about nervous energy. Anyway, it gets to around 11 pm, and there is no way I can sleep, but there is also no way I can watch - so I call up Heavy T and we decide to go for a run. I get to his house at about 11:30 pm, and we go on a four mile jaunt in snow flurries. As I am driving home, the radio guy is pretty much calling Florida for Bush. I wake in the middle of the night - turn on the tube - still no damn resolution. So I hold my breath, and 30 plus days later I am in a hotel room in Dublin (where the Guiness, by the way, tastes much better than it does in the states) with my sleep cycle extremely screwed up watching Gore concede - and then I let that breath go.

For all of you economists out there - don't forget this arbitrage opportunity in the mid-term and next presidential election. The exit polls looked so favorable to Kerry early in the day that he was trading north of $70 (for a contract that pays $100) on tradesports. The Corner at National Review online was talking about how exit polls in 2002 and 2000 were similarly biased, giving specific examples, and expressed confidence that the early exit polls were unreliable. As I write, tradesports has Kerry down close to $50, with Bush there as well up from south of $30.

Anyway, Vegas Heavy-T has agreed to call me later tonight to tell me which law suits are set to determine the outcome of the election by December once that has been determined. So now I'll try to sleep easy.