In studying the Google stock message boards at Yahoo, Clearstation, and MSN, I find there is a pattern of pro-Bush long traders on Google and pro-Kerry shorters. I can't imagine Google has really all that much to do with politics, although some have complained that their news section has a liberal bias. That being the case, it is interesting that the liberal postings on the Google boards are mostly betting on a correction, if not a cratering, in the near future for the stock. Are liberals basically more realistic? Do they avoid buying into stock manias, preferring rational grounds for stock-buying?

Perhaps this pattern of Pro-Bush-long-on-Google/Pro-Kerry-short-on-Google is about a bigger question of the basis for one's optimism, and whether you believe in Google in the same way some people believe in America and God — in some unequivocable and largely irrational way. Don't get me wrong — Google is a great company, but at nearly $200 a share, something's gotta give.

On Clearstation the number of professed shorts outnumbers the professed longs 3 to 1. This being the case, one might infer that John Kerry will be our next President. Plus, according to Ron Insana in The Message of The Markets, the presidential challenger almost always wins in a year like this year when the stock market is down. And Kerry also has the statistical height advantage (the taller candidate almost always wins), being the long and leggy Lincoln lookalike that he is.