“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” — Sun Tzu, 5th century B.C.
There is an old rule of war, which includes politics. If you misunderstand your opponent’s philosophy of life, you will misunderstand his goals. If you misunderstand his goals, you will misunderstand his strategy. If you misunderstand his strategy, you will misunderstand his tactics. This will place you at a disadvantage.
Intrade, the international betting site, has Obama’s odds of a win at about 58%. It has not been below 50% since November 2011. (http://bit.ly/ObamaBetting) Intrade is rarely wrong in bets on political outcomes. So, if this really is a crucial election, what is your personal fall-back position if he wins? What is the Republicans’ fall-back position? After all, if the Republican Party gets out the Republican voters base by telling them that this is yet another “election of the century,” and Obama still wins, despite a rotten economy, which should doom his chances, what can they tell the troops? “Oh, well, we won the House of Representatives. We can block every bad law he proposes.” That will be the truth. Intrade bets are 90% that Republicans will win the House. If they win the Senate, too — now about 50-50 — they can even block his Supreme Court appointments.
So, that would mean that this isn’t the election of the century.
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