John Kerry – Keeping them Guessing

With just over three weeks to go before the Democratic Convention in Boston there’s speculation that the certain nominee, John Kerry, will announce who he has chosen as his running mate so the the two can appear together at an important fundraiser in New York on Thursday.

Interest in who will be chosen is building because the polls still have him and Bush neck and neck. The handover of power in Iraq has had no real impact on the price on John Kerry winning on November 2.

Although the North Carolina Senator and former challenger for the nomination, John Edwards, is still marked at 1/1 on the US-focussed betting exchange, Tradesports, the second favourite, at the equivalent of 7/2 is “none of the above“. Given the above includes 13 of the most prominent Democrat names this pricing is extraordinary and represents the huge level of uncertainty.

There was a flurry of activity during the week on Hilary Clinton following a story on the “Drudge Report” that she was the choice. This has now receded and her odds are back out to the equivalent of 12/1.

The main possibility in “none of the above” seems to be the Republican Senator from Arizona, John McCain although that looked as though it was ruled out completely a couple of weeks ago.

Another White House race market is “When will the election be certified?” This follows the huge legal battles in 2000 over the Florida vote and the market has the date of December 13 by which the result should be clear. You can get the equivalent of about 6/1 on having to wait this long.

LEICESTER SOUTH AND BIMINGHAM HODGE HILL BY-ELECTION UPDATE. For those who like to make their bets on politics online it is still not possible to find a market on the by-elections. Yesterday we were told by William Hill that the market on these two by-elections, set for July 15, would be put online “during the day”. That does not seem to have happened. The Lib Dems are favourites for Leicester South, and Labour for Hodge Hill. We’ll let you know as soon as we have news.