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knb comments on Political impasse as result of different odds ratios - Less Wrong
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I doubt the professional politicians who are making big decisions actually have such wildly disparate predictions. Rather it seems that political amateurs have lousy predictions about who is likely to win--not surprising since the stakes for amateurs are pretty low. Intrade has Obama's chances at 51% for reelection. I would be surprised if the GOP leaders in Washington are banking on winning the trifecta.
*Edited to fix a typo (of should have been if -- in the last sentence).
What makes you think the professional politicians are any better than say, Nate Silver or the pollsters, all of whom go into the Intrade stew? Politicians routinely make epic mistakes ranging from their personal life to grand strategy (in fact, one such example - Newt Gingrich and the government shutdown - has multiple parallels in modern American politics, from Gingrich himself being back to the recent near government shutdown).
You misunderstood what I was saying. I was referring to this:
The post conflates the outcome of an opinion poll of the general population with the beliefs of the Democrats and Republicans who will actually make big budget decisions. There is good reason to expect the professionals have more accurate expectations than a bunch of poll-taking amateurs. I wasn't saying that the politicians are more accurate than Intrade, I was saying they're more accurate than poll-takers. Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of politics professionals use Intrade to estimate probabilities.