Obama job approvals - all polls
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_obama_job_approval-1044.html

Even if every one of your polls were accurate ( those numbers look odd ) 80% only support from your own party is bad. Extreme was the wrong term, granted, let me phrase it differently. An increasing majority from all sides not seen since Bush disapproves of him

Still, His ratings are down badly

Edited 2/1/2016 01:47:57

In an election year for democrats yeah that's not good

He had a strong approval rating for the first 2 years...and then he's been skirting at the edges of 50% ever since. Not surprised that his last 2 years have all been majority disapproval. This is a natural voter tendency for a 2 term president. Overall though this graph is a perfect example of the polarizing nature of our political system. The last 2 presidents have been the most hated men in American politics.

Although a lot more people hated Bush as he left because he lost a lot of support from his own party. Obama is still liked among his own Party. The crazy thing is that the criticism of obama from the left is that he hasn't been progressive enough!! That's ridiculous.

Edited 2/1/2016 01:55:35

"Not seen since Bush".

Lolwat?

You mean a president hasn't been this disapproved of...since the one directly before the current one?

I could similarly say a president hasn't been this liked since Clinton.

Alas, Clinton was a Democrat, Bush not so much.

Currently the reason Trump looks to many to be a leading candidate is not because he stands a chance at winning.

Often when a poll results in the following scenario:

Trump 36%
Cruz: 20%
Rubio: 10%
Carson: 8%
Bush: 5%
Christie: 3%
Paul: 2%
Huckabee: 2%
Fiorina: 2%

It doesn't mean that Trump is the favorite.

You can draw two very different interpretations from such data:

36% of people approve of Trump, as opposed to 20% for Cruz. So if they ran against each other Trump would get 64% of the votes (36/56).

There's also the scenario where 36% will vote for Trump, the other 64% are split on who they'd rather have instead of Trump, but will actually vote for anyone but Trump, and once there's only two main people to choose from the alternative option winds up receiving over 60% of the vote.

Edited 2/1/2016 01:56:13

another bet:
Bernie Sanders will be the next president of the USA
odds: 1 to 4

If only I were 18...I could make serious bank off you, Hitchslap.

You can't argue that the mere existence of risk makes a bet not worth taking, because it's already handled by the lopsided ratio of wagers.

Actually, you can. Sort of. At least, your reasoning is not quite right, because the *value* of money to an individual may not necessarily be a straight linear function. E.g. if it's your last $5 to your name and you haven't eaten in a week, then losing that $5 'costs' a lot more than you would 'gain' by winning another $5.

Betting based on straight odds assumes a simple linear value/utility function for money.

Also, there's a good argument that log odds is the better scale to judge risk, rather than straight odds, based on the idea/theory of martingales (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martingale_%28probability_theory%29). Under this concept, the ideal betting strategy is to bet on all the possibilities, in proportion to the expected *logarithm* of the value of the bet. I may be mutilating the terminology, but the idea is straightforward when one actually applies the theory. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambling_and_information_theory for some intro and further links.