In game theory there is game called entrance deterrence.  The idea is that when a person or firm challenges an incumbent it goes along two nodes of thought.  The first is the challenger's decision to go against the incumbent.  The second is whether the incumbent fights the challenger, or defers to him.  This game will be able to predict both what Specter and what Bunning are doing this election season.

If the challenger decides not to play, his payout is 0 for the challenger and 2 for the incumbent.  If the challenger decides to fight, then it's the incumbents turn to make a decision.  If the incumbent fights then his payout will be -1 to the challengers 0, and if he defers to the challenger it will be a payout of 1 to each.

    As two-bit challengers appear against incumbents from time to time, it should be clarified that this game only applies when two factors are present.  The first is that the incumbent is in danger of losing his election either due to his low popularity, or his opponent's high popularity.  The second factor is that there is gain from leaving the senate, such as a high paying job, or prestige of being a retired senator who didn't lose.  

    An example of this is the election of mark Warner.  Last cycle John Warner was considering retirement, but wasn't sure.  Mark Warner threw out hints that he would run.  John could say that he will fight mark regardless of what mark does, but that is unlikely.  The payoffs show that should mark run, and john fight, john will have a payout of -1, worse than his payout of 1 should he defer to mark, and retire gracefully.  

    This payout comes from john either losing a fierce election with mark, ending his long running senate career in disgrace, or eking out a bare win, where he will be in the extreme minority, and his reputation still varnished.  Thus, when it became clear that john's plans not to retire were bluffs, he realized the most logical move would be to retire.  This is what happened.  If you replace mark with Toomey (scary I know) and Warner with specter, you have the reasons why specter will retire should Toomey run.  There are variables of course, but if specter can't independents in the primary he will retire, soon after, or shortly before Toomey announces.  

    This should suggest that Bunning will retire, as a plausible republican challenger would defeat him, but there is a flaw in this plan.  This all depends on logic, Bunning's potential challenger has to realize the payouts described above, as does Bunning.  If Bunning is Crazy, and playing illogically, then the challenger won't play.  Why bother running, when your payoff will be 0 either way.  Either 0 for not running, or 0 for losing to bunning/winning but getting beaten up, to go onto lose to your democratic opponent.  This is what bunning wants us to think.

    I theorize that he understands this game and the payouts, that's why he has been playing up the whole "I'm crazy" shtick of late.  He's trying to convince his opponents that he would not act logically at this game.  That if he was challenged he might defer, he might fight, he might find a third option.  Either way it would be better not to enter at all.  The reasoning is that the number of votes he loses by acting crazy is less than that he'd lose by losing the primary (where the general election votes are irrelevant) or winning the primary bloodied up and broke.  

    This assumes that he's sane, eccentric, but sane.  He has had a tendency to act weird, but the type of crazy being described here is not that of bunning.  It suggests a sincere lack of logic, not simply acting weird.  Take Bunning's performance back in 2004, it's weird, but not illogical.  Considering his money, the partisan tilt of Kentucky, and the fact that bush was expected to do well, he probably figured he could phone it in.  Lazy and stupid, but there was logic to it.

    Furthermore, consider his recent acts of crazy.  It's all stuff that only would anger liberals, and the political class.  Suggesting that Ginsberg will die soon, picking fights with Cornyn and the NRCC, it's not the kind of stuff that would anger conservative primary voters.  He's not expecting much help from either the political class or liberals to begin with, so there's little to nothing to lose by fighting with them.  There is logic in his eccentricities.  

    This of course assumes that bunning is eccentric, but not illogical.  If he is in fact crazy crazy then everything stated is wrong, but the only way to tell that is to wait until a challenger appears and see what he does.  If he defers, then bunning is still logical, if he keeps on trucking, he's not.  If no challenger appears then all we will know is that it worked.  

    Game theory has numerous applications in politics that are still being understood.  This game shows why other politicians retired and will show why specter will retire.  It will also do what few thought possible: explain Jim Bunning.

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Wow!  I was stressed out all day awaiting the Hillary speech tonight.  All day long I was setting up my middle school classroom (we start next week here in SoCal) and listening to MSNBC's coverage of the convention.  I worked myself into a mega-depressed state while listening to the pundits and interviews from Clinton supporters (Linda Sanchez and Terry McAuliffe, among others) who were dancing around the issue of whole-heartedly supporting Obama/Biden.  Then I listened to Warner.  Ugh.  He may be good in Virginia, but the speech was flat.  As the buildup to Senator Clinton's speech approached, I kept thinking about McAuliffe and remembering the energy he brought to the '92 and '96 campaigns, and how that was absent now.
Then Senator Clinton superseded all expectations and brought the house down with her speech.  I was feeling really good, but a little nervous still.  However, around 9:24 pm (PDT), McAuliffe was being interviewed by Tweety and Olbermann and he said this, "What I would do if I were Barack Obama, I would put Hillary Clinton, I'd put her in that state (Ohio) for the next 72 days.  She was the champion of Blue Collar, let her get out there and let her bring those voters home."

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According to Ambinder (who has staked his credibility with Sebelius and Pawlenty as the veep candidates), sources from Warner's inner circle are leaking that some in Obama's camp, not necessarily Obama himself, attempted to get Warner to flip from his earlier Shermanasque pronouncement about the VP spot.  Unfortunately for us Warner groupies (myself, Jerome, and lori), Warner decided against flipping.  Obama/Warner would have been an amazing team; that crap about VPs unable to swing states doesn't apply to a guy viewed as a savior in Virginia.  Kaine was able to ride his coattails from four years earlier to win the governorship.  The Obama/Warner team would have put McCain in a fetal position, forcing him to win Michigan to take the presidency as McCain is already underperforming dramatically in Virginia.

I too believe that Warner will be president one day, either in 2012 or 2016.  I'm not sure if he made the right call here; Warner may have thought that he didn't want to risk a 99% chance of winning a Senate Seat for a 65% chance of becoming the veep.  However, I believe Obama's chances would have improved dramatically with Warner at his side formally as veep.

I wouldn't be feeling too comfortable about my veep chances if I were Evan Bayh.  That Obama was allegedly trying to get Warner to flip suggests to me that he has some reservations about Bayh, supporting my theory that something in Obama's gut prevented from him pulling the trigger on Bayh last week, which I believe would have been the perfect time to do it as Bayh would have received the spotlight this week with Obama on vacation.  

This movement against Bayh as veep is pretty surprising; you cannot blame it on the Clintonite types either as the true-believers such as Stoller and Bowers over at Openleft are the ones pushing it.  I wonder if Obama is trying to get someone else such Al Gore to possibly flip from an earlier Shermanesque statement.

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The "breaking" news of the moment is that Jerome's man Mark Warner has been awarded the keynote address of the Democratic Party Convention.  His address is scheduled to take place presumably on Tuesday, the same night that HRC is set to headline the evening.  Earlier, it was reported that Ted Strickland was scheduled to speak before HRC as well on that day.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the person giving the keynote address speak last in the evening?  If so, are they really moving HRC ahead of Warner or simply having the keynoter go before HRC, the scheduled headliner?  I have no complaints at all with Tuesday evening (though Monday is shaping up to be quite a dud) as Warner and HRC are my two favorite pols.  It just seems weird to give Warner that much pub on a night that was slated to be Hill's night.

For the record, my #1 ticket with Obama as the nominee was for him to team up with Warner (just ahead of Obama/Gore, Obama/Clinton and Obama/Clark).  I'm hoping he'll get Warner to flip on his Shermanesque statement in the next two weeks

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So the recent Rasmussen poll for the Warner-Gilmore Senate race just shows how much of a badass Mark Warner is in the commonwealth of Virginia.  He may very well earn over sixty-percent of the vote in November.  Is there any other Democratic Senator who has a seventy percent favorability rating in his or her home state (I doubt that even Obama would poll as favorably in Illinois), especially one that is traditionally red like Virginia?

However, there is one other interesting find in the Rasmussen poll.  Despite his outrageous popularity in the state, 32% of Virginians would be less likely to vote for Obama if Warner was his running mate compared to 23% who would be more likely to vote for him if Warner was his running mate.  The results are similar for Kaine in Virginia and Sebelius in Kansas, both of whom are very popular in their respective states.

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