GOP Senators are opposing Obama's presumptive nominee for Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel. Their rationale is that he is weak on support for Israel and on sanctions against Iran.
That's plausible, but I'm not buying it. Republican senators are opposing Hagel's nomination for the same reason that they opposed Susan Rice's nomination for Secretary of State: they think they can take out the nominee, and thereby win a minor skirmish with Obama, and make him look weak. Susan Rice was a decent candidate for Secretary of State, but not great. There are generally 3 kinds of nominees for that job: career diplomats, prominent figures within the president's party, and people close to the president. Susan Rice is a career diplomat who is close to the president, but she's not a prominent figure within the party. As Republicans were opposing her, there were some other rumblings that she wasn't eminently qualified. So the GOP smelled blood in the water, and wanted a scalp. Fortunately for Obama, Rice figured out what was going on, and saved herself and the president a lot of grief.
They're doing the same thing with Hagel. This time there is some opposition to the nomination from the left, which isn't thrilled about the idea of another Democrat president choosing a Republican Secretary of Defense just to look tough on national security. So the GOP is betting that, if they gang up on Hagel, their opposition, combined with the qualms on the left, will sink the nomination, making Obama look weak on national security. They don't really care about whether or not Hagel is qualified or not to be Secretary of Defense; they just want to beat Obama somehow.
Showing posts with label Chuck Hagel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chuck Hagel. Show all posts
Sunday, January 6, 2013
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Funky business on Intrade - Obama-Hagel
Mark Nickolas at HuffPost noticed something interesting on Intrade.com on July 20: someone bought 20,000 contracts for Obama to choose Chuck Hagel as his VP. That's beyond bizarre. The total contracts for Hillary to be Obama's VP are currently just over 5,000. So Hagel traded four times as many contracts in ONE DAY as Hillary has ever traded.
What's particulary bizarre about this is that the price of the contract didn't really move much, despite massive demand. Whoever bought the Hagel contracts paid $0.675, and Hagel is currently trading at $0.51.
Another twist is that there are still over 1,000 bids for Hagel, including one block of 889. That's unusual - the only other candidate I could find with that kind of bidding is Hillary, who also has a huge block, 865. Both of those could easily be aggregations of orders, or they could be mostly one person.
One thing that Nickolas doesn't mention is that for someone to buy that many contracts, someone else had to sell them. I'm fairly certain that Intrade has someone to make a market in these contracts, i.e. someone has an agreement with Intrade to buy contracts, to get things going. Whoever has that would have massive amounts of capital available. So maybe somebody decided to blow a wad on Chuck Hagel, and the market maker swooped in and decided to take the bet.
Nickolas asks if whoever bought these contracts knows something that we don't, i.e. do they have a source inside the Obama campaign, or are they actually inside the Obama campaign. It's a good question, and it's entirely possible - trading on inside information is pretty much a given on Intrade. But it's also highly unlikely. I haven't heard any buzz about Hagel anywhere else, and so much activity on one day suggests one or maybe two buyers - a handful, at most. I also seriously doubt that it is from someone inside the campaign - that would be embarassing for Obama.
And I just don't think Obama choosing Hagel makes that much sense. He's got solid foreign policy/military credentials, but socially, I understand he's a standard conservative. Plus he's a Republican. As much as Obama likes to talk about being bipartisan, I think that would be going a little far.
Another possibility is that a Hagel supporter bought all these contracts as a way of generating buzz for the good Senator from Nebraska. I think that's the most likely scenario. They paid $13,500 (plus commissions), which is one hell of a lot cheaper than buying advertising in any national media. And, if it pays off, it would be one hell of an investment (it would pay off $200,000, assuming this was all one person buying the contracts). This buy took place on July 20, when Obama and Hagel were in Afghanistan. So maybe it was timed to generate buzz around that event.
An interesting thing to watch, that's for sure.
What's particulary bizarre about this is that the price of the contract didn't really move much, despite massive demand. Whoever bought the Hagel contracts paid $0.675, and Hagel is currently trading at $0.51.
Another twist is that there are still over 1,000 bids for Hagel, including one block of 889. That's unusual - the only other candidate I could find with that kind of bidding is Hillary, who also has a huge block, 865. Both of those could easily be aggregations of orders, or they could be mostly one person.
One thing that Nickolas doesn't mention is that for someone to buy that many contracts, someone else had to sell them. I'm fairly certain that Intrade has someone to make a market in these contracts, i.e. someone has an agreement with Intrade to buy contracts, to get things going. Whoever has that would have massive amounts of capital available. So maybe somebody decided to blow a wad on Chuck Hagel, and the market maker swooped in and decided to take the bet.
Nickolas asks if whoever bought these contracts knows something that we don't, i.e. do they have a source inside the Obama campaign, or are they actually inside the Obama campaign. It's a good question, and it's entirely possible - trading on inside information is pretty much a given on Intrade. But it's also highly unlikely. I haven't heard any buzz about Hagel anywhere else, and so much activity on one day suggests one or maybe two buyers - a handful, at most. I also seriously doubt that it is from someone inside the campaign - that would be embarassing for Obama.
And I just don't think Obama choosing Hagel makes that much sense. He's got solid foreign policy/military credentials, but socially, I understand he's a standard conservative. Plus he's a Republican. As much as Obama likes to talk about being bipartisan, I think that would be going a little far.
Another possibility is that a Hagel supporter bought all these contracts as a way of generating buzz for the good Senator from Nebraska. I think that's the most likely scenario. They paid $13,500 (plus commissions), which is one hell of a lot cheaper than buying advertising in any national media. And, if it pays off, it would be one hell of an investment (it would pay off $200,000, assuming this was all one person buying the contracts). This buy took place on July 20, when Obama and Hagel were in Afghanistan. So maybe it was timed to generate buzz around that event.
An interesting thing to watch, that's for sure.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Why Americans should negotiate
HuffPost has an article about Chuck Hagel, Senator from Nebraska and Vietnam War veteran, criticizing his fellow Republican John McCain for some of the things that he has said about negotiating with our enemies.
Which suggests, for me, a key reason that Americans should concentrate on negotiation and diplomacy as means of peaceful conflict resolution: we're really good at it. It's what we do. We are constantly refining our own abilities, both individually and as a country, to achieve non-violent means of resolving conflict. We have name for this. We have a structure for engaging in this process. It's called "democracy." Negotiating non-violent resolutions of conflict is the raison d'etre of democracy.
American politicians are the best in the world at negotiating with people they don't agree with because that's what they're paid to do. It's their day job. That's one reason this is a great country.
Hagel, speaking to a small gathering at the residence of the Italian ambassador, took umbrage with several positions taken by the McCain campaign, including the Arizona Senator's criticism of Obama for pledging to engage with Iran. Engagement is not, and should not be confused for, capitulation, he argued.Hagel, being a Senator, understands the importance of engaging in discussion with people who disagree with you. After all, it's what he does every day as a Senator.
Which suggests, for me, a key reason that Americans should concentrate on negotiation and diplomacy as means of peaceful conflict resolution: we're really good at it. It's what we do. We are constantly refining our own abilities, both individually and as a country, to achieve non-violent means of resolving conflict. We have name for this. We have a structure for engaging in this process. It's called "democracy." Negotiating non-violent resolutions of conflict is the raison d'etre of democracy.
American politicians are the best in the world at negotiating with people they don't agree with because that's what they're paid to do. It's their day job. That's one reason this is a great country.
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