Hillary Follows the Same Election Track as Rudy

Just checked the Intrade online betting market. Traders have Mike Huckabee winning Iowa, John McCain winning New Hampshire and South Carolina, and Rudy Giuliani taking Florida. Many pros, of course, doubt whether Giuliani's Sunshine State lead can actually survive a string of early losses.

Interestingly, Hillary Clinton may be forced into the same gambit if she is to grab the nomination: losing early and winning late. Right now, traders have Barack Obama winning Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina before Clinton wins Florida. Again, those Florida odds for both Giuliani and Clinton are likely to drop if predictions of early losses come true.

Yet overall, traders still give Clinton a roughly 65 percent chance of being the Dem nominee while among Republicans it's a more-or-less three-way tie between Giuliani, McCain, and Romney. McCain has inched by Romney only in the past couple of days.