As far as I can tell there are no odds markets like http://www.biz.uiowa.edu/iem/, http://www.intrade.com for Slovakia’s politics, but there are more traditional bookies that sometimes deal in politics.  In 2006 Tipos (http://ekurz.etip.sk) dabbled in parliamentary odds, but did a rather poor job such that straight betting on the poll averages allowed would-be-bettors to make money [...]

 I should probably post something on the presidential election campaign in Slovakia, though there is not much to say, both because the race has been extremely stable and because I simply have not been able to find much polling.  FOCUS has not yet offered numbers and UVVM only started this month (as far as I [...]

I have written a bit about new parties and particularly those parties for which being “new” is a feature (as Allan Sikk calls it, “the project of newness”)–and will be writing a lot more about this–but I never imagined that a single party’s advertising campaign could capture almost all of the basic issues involved with [...]

but more of a brown-green (color scheme courtesy of old US Government world maps, original map from–and hat-tip to–http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/): McCain majorities by county: Obama majorities by county:

“Count it,” reads the headline of this story about my student Becca Cooper, but I’ll let her expression speak for itself.  And this is before she knew who would win. Source: Detroit Free Press, November 5, 2008

Google Image Result for http://thebruceblog.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/obama_hope.jpg

I’ve used up another 15 seconds of fame, this time in the Monday, September 29, Vitebski Kurier: Translation: Did expectations come true?.. Our attempt to have a conversation with one of the long-time observers of OSCE, coordinator Gary Ouellet from Canada were not successful. He providently refused by phone or other means to make any [...]

John Cleese speaks:

I returned two days ago from Belarus where I was an observer in the 2008 parliamentary elections. OSCE rules request that we leave assessments to the organization’s main report and remain silent.  Fortunately, in this instance, the OSCE judgement so closely corresponds to my own experience that I can refrain from my own judgments and [...]