UI in the National Political News

June 2007

Redlawsk Comments On Immigration Bill (Associated Press, June 30)
Online groups are taking credit for leading grass roots opposition against an immigration reform bill, saying they persuaded Americans to flood Congress with hundreds of thousands of phone calls, faxes and e-mails. "We think it was a rising tide of citizen response that forced the senators to stop and consider what the American people were saying, and what the American people were saying was they didn't like this bill," said Steve Elliott, president of Grassfire.org, headquartered in tiny Maxwell, Iowa. Such vocal groups "always want to claim responsibility" when legislation goes their way, said DAVID REDLAWSK, a University of Iowa political science professor. But they probably did play a role because they drowned out other Americans who weren't speaking up, he said. This Associated Press story was published by the WASHINGTON POST; the ANCHORAGE DAILY NEWS, of Alaska; the MORNING HERALD, of Sydney, Australia; CANADIAN BUSINESS MAGAZINE; and other news outlets. Link to article

Squire: No Risk In Edwards' Call To "Hardball" (The Politico, June 28)
Elizabeth Edwards said she hopes other Americans will do what she was trying to do when she confronted conservative Ann Coulter on national television this week. Edwards said people like Coulter trade in hurtful insults instead of honest debate. "At some point, somebody has to stand up and say, 'That's enough,'" she said. PEVERILL SQUIRE, a University of Iowa political science professor, said it's unusual for a candidate's spouse to make such a public challenge to a critic. But he said she risked little in making the call. "Certainly, among Democrats, going after Ann Coulter is not going to raise any concerns," he said. The Web site is based in Arlington, Va. Link to article

Clinton Leading, McCain Fading On IEM (TheStreet.com, June 27)
A story about online futures markets, including the Iowa Electronic Markets at the UNIVERSITY OF IOWA, predicting the upcoming presidential nomination winners points out that Hillary Clinton has a commanding lead in the Democratic markets and John McCain is fading fast in Republican markets. Link to article

Squire: Huckabee Campaign Short On Iowa Supporters (Washington Post, June 26)
For the last several months, the conventional wisdom surrounding former Gov. Mike Huckabee's, R-Ark., presidential bid is that while the candidate is among the best, the campaign organization is among the worst. Huckabee's two leading backers in Iowa are Bob Vander Plaats, a candidate for governor in 2002 and the lieutenant governor nominee in 2006, and former state Rep. Danny Carroll. PEVERILL SQUIRE, a political science professor at the University of Iowa, praised the quality Huckabee's backers but said there just weren't enough of them. "Almost all of his competitors have organizations with much greater reach, both geographically and across the breadth of Republican interests," Squire said. Link to article

Gronbeck: Immigration Bill Hurts McCain With GOP (National Examiner, June 25)
Already dropping in the polls, Republican presidential candidate John McCain could fall even further this week as the Senate resumes debate on an immigration bill despised by most conservatives. "The immigration bill debate will haunt the McCain campaign until it's completed, because every time it comes up somebody will identify McCain with both George Bush and Ted Kennedy," said BRUCE GRONBECK, director of the University of Iowa's Center for Media Studies. "Those are not the bedfellows he can afford if he's going to win the nomination." Link to article

IEM Lets Investors Wager In Presidential Elections (Madera Tribune, June 23)
A story about futures markets notes that a number of Internet sites have already cropped up allowing the general public to speculate in these "prediction markets." Among them is the Iowa Electronic Markets, operated by the UNIVERSITY OF IOWA business school, have let players wager up to $500 on the outcome of every presidential election since 1988. Spurred by the profit motive, people bring to markets everything they know, and place their bets accordingly. That means markets, with all their chaotic buying and selling and hedging and speculation, are really very efficient mechanisms to bring together information. And all that information is revealed in one simple number -- the price. The Tribune is published in California. Link to article

IEM Is Leading 'Prediction Market' (International Herald Tribune, June 23)
A number of Internet sites have cropped up allowing the general public to speculate in "prediction markets." The Iowa Electronic Markets, operated by the UNIVERSITY OF IOWA business school, have let players wager up to $500 on the outcome of every presidential election since 1988. Link to article

UI News Services Election Site Recommended (Post-Bulletin, June 23)
Columnist Mike Dougherty lauds the election Web site maintained by the UNIVERSITY OF IOWA NEWS SERVICES -- http://www.uiowa.edu/election. "The neighbors to the south have lots of political action, and it's going to get busier and busier as the push toward February's Iowa caucuses nears. Check out this site from the University of Iowa News Service. It's got a range of news and links to find out what's happening in Iowa with both Democrats and Republicans. It should be one stop of many for political junkies." The Post-Bulletin is published in Rochester, Minn. Link to article

Polls Show Support For McCain Falling (Miami Herald, June 21)
Sen. John McCain was the one-time front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination. New polls this week showed support plummeting in two key early-voting states. He is tied for fifth place in Iowa, with 6 percent. He fell to fourth place in South Carolina, with 7 percent. He apparently has not captured the imagination of many Republican voters. "On immigration, when Ted Kennedy's your best friend, that's a problem," said BRUCE GRONBECK, the director of the University of Iowa's Center for Media Studies and Political Culture. Link to article

Squire: Straw Poll Hurt By McCain, Giuliani Absences (The Politico, June 18)
In the course of a week, the Ames straw poll went from a closely watched early test of the Republican presidential campaigns in the leadoff caucus state to a face-off between mostly lesser-known candidates. Decisions by former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Arizona Sen. John McCain to skip the high-profile Iowa Republican Party fundraiser could signal the end of the mid-August event's relevance. That could reduce the amount of money the state GOP will have for its campaigns next year and prompt questions about whether Iowa's influential role setting the tone for the presidential nominating campaign is slipping. "This is a huge blow to the straw poll and to the Iowa GOP," said University of Iowa political science professor PEVERILL SQUIRE. The publication is based in Arlington, Va. Link to article

Squire Discusses Romney Surge (CBS, June 17, from Christian Science Monitor)
GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney is now running first in Iowa and New Hampshire polls. John McCain and Rudy Giuliani may have insulted the party faithful of Iowa by declining to participate in the straw poll. "I suspect there will be a bit of a backlash, probably not too much, but it certainly didn't improve their prospects," says PEVERILL SQUIRE, a political scientist at the University of Iowa. Link to article

Farmetrics Is Based On IEM (Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, June 17)
Grain company Bunge Limited has set up a Web site that uses individual farmers' knowledge to forecast how the country's crops will perform. Farmetrics functions like the IOWA ELECTRONIC MARKETS, which the UNIVERSITY OF IOWA started in 1988 to predict the winners of presidential elections. The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette is published in Indiana. Link to article

Squire Comments On Republican Presidential Candidates (Miami Herald, June 15)
In Iowa, polls are harder to decipher than in New Hampshire, because with caucuses - the state's nominating vehicle, which typically attract only the most dedicated voters - it's more difficult to predict who will turn out. Still, analysts take seriously the fact that Mitt Romney shot into the Republican lead last month in the Des Moines Register poll with 30 percent, ahead of John McCain and Rudy Giuliani (18 and 17 percent). The latter two subsequently announced they would not take part in the traditional Iowa straw poll in August, a nonbinding event that in the past has winnowed the Republican field. McCain and Giuliani say they will still compete in the Iowa caucuses, but there's a risk that in snubbing the straw poll, a fundraiser for the state GOP, they have insulted the party faithful of Iowa. "I suspect there will be a bit of a backlash, probably not too much, but it certainly didn't improve their prospects," said PEVERILL SQUIRE, a political scientist at the University of Iowa. Link to article

UI Electronic Market More Accurate Than Any Poll (Popular Science, June 14)
A prediction market is like a stock exchange, except people trade not stocks but predictions. The first and most famous prediction market, established at the UNIVERSITY OF IOWA business school in 1988, was designed to forecast the outcome of that year's presidential election-which it did, with remarkable precision. Anyone could join the market and buy or sell propositions such as "What percent of the popular vote will George H.W. Bush receive in the presidential election?" Traders who thought Bush would get 60 percent or more of the vote would buy the shares if they were less than $60. Traders who disagreed would sell. The market price reflected the consensus view, which turned out to be more accurate than any of the six polls released in the week before the election. But if predicting a landslide Bush I victory over Michael Dukakis seems like fish-in-a-barrel stuff, consider that the Iowa Electronic Markets have correctly predicted the winner of the popular vote in every national election since then, and with greater accuracy than the Gallup poll in all but one of those years. Link to article

IEM Noted As Political Futures Market (Chicago Sun-Times, June 14)
The Iowa Electronic Markets are political futures markets created by professors from the economic and political science departments at the University of Iowa. Think of presidential candidates as pork belly futures or oil futures, and you get the idea. Anyone can play the Iowa Electronic Markets, http://www.biz.uiowa.edu/iem. You're allowed to spend $5 minimum and $500 maximum on shares -- and if your candidate wins, you earn $1 for each share. You also can invest in several candidates. Let's say you bought Obama shares at 32 cents each and he became the Democratic presidential nominee. You'd make $1 for each share you bought, earning a 68-cent per share profit. Most of the players are University of Iowa faculty and students, but 20 percent are outside investors. "Some of the people who are in the investment business say they find it relaxing to come home and do this," says JOYCE BERG, who teaches accounting at the school's Henry B. Tippie College of Business, which runs the IEM. In the 2004 presidential election, IEM investors spent a total of $400,000 on candidates. "We've had people double or triple their investments," Berg said. Link to article

UI Students Go To 'Camp Obama' (National Public Radio, June 13)
Camp Obama is a camp for adults - mostly young adults and college students - who are hoping to hone their political skills and learn the basics of organizing for a certain barnstorming presidential candidate. It's being held this summer in Chicago. UNIVERSITY OF IOWA student Andrew Wiess, a 21-year-old intern in Obama's Iowa City office, says he hopes the camp makes him and other volunteers greater assets to the campaign, so "you go back to Iowa City, or where ever you're from, and just be able to make more of an impact and really know what you're doing, to maximize your potential that way." Tia Upchurch-Freelove, 19, came with Wiess from the University of Iowa as part of the group Hawkeyes for Obama. She says that even though she's lived in Iowa her whole life, she came to Camp Obama to learn more about how the state's caucuses work. "It's really funny, because it seems like a lot of people would know about the caucuses, but for young people especially, they're not taught as much about the caucuses as they should," she says. Link to article

Squire: GOP Must Campaign In Nevada Caucuses (Las Vegas Sun, June 11)
The Nevada Republican Party has been playing catch-up on its presidential caucus most of the year. The party decided in April to move the date to coincide with the Democratic contest on Jan. 19. The Democrats chose that date last August. The small steps by the Republican candidates are a sign they are reluctant to give away strategy or commit too many resources to the state when the election calendar is in such flux. The calendar is more compressed than ever, as dozens of states jockey for position in hopes that an early primary will bring newfound influence. PEVERILL SQUIRE, a professor of political science at the University of Iowa and a caucus expert, said Republicans can't afford to skip Nevada, especially given the media attention the Democratic caucus has attracted. For now, Republicans appear to be waiting for the other guy to make the first move. "As soon as one decides it's worthwhile, the rest will have to scramble," Squire said. The same story appeared on the Web site of the KNOXVILLE (Tenn.) NEWS SENTINEL. Link to article

Squire Comments On Richardson Candidacy (Denver Post, June 10)
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson intends to "break out" in his quest for the Democratic presidential nomination. "He has had some success here with TV advertising, and that sort of sets him on the right path," said PEVERILL SQUIRE, a political science professor at the University of Iowa. "Now, he needs to spend a lot of time in relatively small venues, at homes and the county fairs, to generate talk among activists." Link to article

IEM Profiled (Daily Kos, June 7)
The Iowa Electronic Markets, maintained by the UNIVERSITY OF IOWA, are explained, and current prices of presidential futures are listed. The Daily Kos is a widely read political blog. Link to article

Redlawsk: Skipping Poll May Hurt Giuliani, McCain (Washington Post, June 6)
Republican presidential hopefuls Rudolph Giuliani and Sen. John McCain will skip Iowa's August straw poll, but their campaigns insisted on Wednesday they would compete in the state's 2008 nominating contest. Skipping the straw poll could hurt, particularly if all the other Republican candidates are at the event, one expert said. "Iowa caucus-goers pay attention to these things," University of Iowa professor DAVID REDLAWSK said. The same story was published on the Web sites of the NEW YORK TIMES and REUTERS. Link to article

Obama Spoke At UI (New York Observer, June 5)
An analysis of Barack Obama's health care plan notes that he outlined the details in a speech he delivered at the UNIVERSITY OF IOWA. Link to article

Obama Delivered Health Care Reform Speech At UI (BusinessWeek, June 4)
A story about Michael Moore's new documentary critical of the U.S. health care system notes Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama recently proposed a sweeping health care reform in a speech at the UNIVERSITY OF IOWA. The same story appeared on the Web site of MSNBC. Link to article

Squire Comments About Iowa Religious Conservatives (Boston Globe, June 1)
Iowa's religious conservatives, a powerful force in Republican presidential politics for two decades, could be kingmakers again in 2008, but it is unclear which candidate will win their support. "They are still a significant factor in the party and they will play a prominent role in the caucuses, which rely heavily on mobilization and identifying constituencies you can turn out," said political analyst PEVERILL SQUIRE of the University of Iowa. This story also appeared in the Washington Post. Link to article