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Jonathan's avatar

I'll bet you a gift subscription to this site right now; do we have a wager?

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Mark's avatar

Gift subscription to the website? Is that even a thing? What's the value of it? I don't really care to get into the business of Romney-style "bets" on political predictions but I bet you'd have been just as confident predicting that Heitkamp and Bullock wouldn't have lost by double digits, so you may want to rethink your oveconfidence. Plenty of people on this site still owe us the "shoes" they promised to eat if certain outcomes materialized that actually did.

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Jonathan's avatar

It is definitely a thing; I will gift you a yearly subscription if I lose the bet; pretty simple actually; is it a bet or not?

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Mark's avatar

Thanks but no thanks. I'm not gonna be goaded into placing bets over every election prediction I make. If you want to gamble, I'm sure there's an establishment within a short driving distance of your home that will whet your appetite.

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IggySD's avatar

ItтАЩs not goading, itтАЩs putting your money where your mouth is. I often add a comment on here about whether I would put money on something because that helps to differentiate between what I want to believe and what I really think will happen. YouтАЩre a good bit more conservative / pessimistic than most people who post here (I think youтАЩve actually stated that so donтАЩt think itтАЩs controversial to say) so asking you to bet on it is more trying to hammer out whether you really think thatтАЩs the most likely scenario, or if itтАЩs just a default response. I donтАЩt believe you actually want Tester to lose, but a double digit loss is a bold prediction considering there have been no polls showing that result and it is against the conventional wisdom. It could certainly happen, but to me it comes across as more of a тАЬhereтАЩs my contrary guess for the surprise result of the electionтАЭ than a true belief.

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Mark's avatar

I definitely want Tester to win. He's one of my favorite Senators, but seeing how things ended for Bullock in 2020 when running with Trump heading the ticket and reading all of the tea leaves pointing to Montana getting increasingly conservative, I think a 10+ point defeat for Tester is more likely than not. And I don't want to set the precedent of "placing bets" on political predictions here. As I said, too many people vowed to eat footwear over the years and got humbled. I know I'm gonna be humbled on plenty of occasions (I already have) and don't see predictions of election outcomes as being appropriate fodder for anything above and beyond verbal statements.

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Jonathan's avatar

And let's be clear, you have zero knowledge about my gambling history; so your take about my supposed 'overconfidence' does not even reach the level of 'pure speculation'

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