Wow, this is a great post. First, you've managed to intuit that (fill in the blank) would be a disaster for Dems. So true! If my political readings have taught me anything, it's that everything is a disaster for Dems.

Second, you've correctly managed to figure out that the ONLY HOPE for Dems is a Republican. So true! I don't know why the current Dem candidates are even trying to compete without the aid of a center-right figure with an ambiguous constituency.

Great work, Paul!

I'm sorry, but didn't we fuckin' learn with Lieberman? Does anyone actually think the Dems have that much of a problem winning the next Presidential that we have to have a former Dem cum Republican cum Independent on the ballot. Fuck that and put a real Progressive up there. NO MORE "BALANCE".

I think this notion that Bloomberg would hurt Dems is way off.

The only way Bloomberg hurts anyone is if a block of voters are greatly dissatisfied with the major party nominees. Right now there is every reason to think that Dems and Dem-leaners are satisifed with the Democratic choices.

Hillary supposedly is the one who would fare the worst among the Dems, but all current trial heat polling shows that she can beat all the Republicans and fares as well against them as does Obama or Edwards. Indeed, only Giuliani and McCain EVERY beats Hillary in trial heats, and right now neither one looks likely to be the GOP nominee.

There are some polls that show Bloomberg pulling Perot-like numbers in a 3-way, but not only does he pull much more from GOPers than Dems, but polling always overstates indy & 3rd-party support. Those 3rd wheels always fare much more poorly in actual votes.

Ultimately I think the most likely outcome is that Bloomberg, even with all his money, would pull in no better than Nader-like numbers, which admittedly can hurt us in a razor-thin race like 2000, but that close a race seems unlikely given the strong known personalities running and the anti-GOP sentiment in the country. Money is no substitute for message, and Bloomberg would have no message to pull people away from the major party nominees.

A MUCH better choice for Veep than Chuck Hagel...

Could Bloomberg be thinking ahead to the Senate? If he thinks Hillary is a shoe in for the Dem nomination and any Dem is going to win that leaves a plum Senate seat open.

Bloomberg is basiclaly the moderate Dem he's always been, the dysfunctional Dem party in NY City left him an easy path to City Hall as a Republican. But state wide he probably needs to be a Dem again, switching at the last minute would look lame, by leaving the Republicans now he has plenty of time to rejoin the Dems.

Oh for crying out loud. That's about as insightful as your triumphalism about the invasion of Iraq.

Fantasy politics is always fun. You make a good point ... the reachable Republicans are, first, the Rockerfeller Republicans that are everywhere, but mostly in the Northeast & Midwest; and second, a certain number of working class white Christians who have soured on the war and are not getting ahead economically.

The Rockerfeller Republicans have been slowly leaving the GOP since 1980, and Bloomberg switching to unaffiliated is part of that trend (yes, Bloomberg was a Democrat, but he's basically governed as a Rockerfeller Republican). Becoming a Dem VP would speed it further, and do more to help Democrats than anyone except maybe Colin Powell.

But I say: take the man at his word! He's "done the government thing". He'll go back to philanthropy.

Contrary to some of the other commenters, I think this was interesting speculation. I'm not sure what his motive would be, though.

Hmm. Didn't Perot get Clinton elected? Why are you so sure that Bloomberg wouldn't get another Clinton (or Obama/Edwards) elected? I would need to see some real numbers before I going to listen to someone blithely say, "oh yeah, definitely he'll hurt the Dems."

"The Democrats are so weak that they couldn't find two of them to put in the White House."

Another GOP talking point is born.

Didn't Perot get Clinton elected?

Not even close! It's amazing how many BS wingnut arguments from the 90s are still part of our conventional wisdom, simply because liberals had no effective means of pushback in those days.

I agree with Stoic and strannix.

Bloomberg left the Democratic Party opportunistically to become mayor of NYC. He praised the George W. Bush at the 2004 Republican convention for his leadership in the “War on Terror.” For his leadership.

Meanwhile, lots of other Democrats, for instance "red state" governors, have remained loyal to the party even when "it wasn't cool" (i.e., 2002) and it potentially imperiled their political future. Many others have done the yeoman’s work to get progressives the opportunity they’ll probably have in ’08. I'm not saying a "red state" governor should be our VP nominee, but rather that I'm, ahem, hesitant to give the nomination to a man who was a Republican yesterday, even if he does have “a lot of money” and a “centrist image".

Mayor Michael Bloomberg has done a very good job running NYC. His switch of party affiliation from Republican to Independent has fueled speculation that he may well run as a third party candidate for president in 2008.

Let's look back to the effect of the campaign of a major third party candidate, Ralph Nadar, in 2000. Mr. Nadar garnered some 90,000 votes in Florida; Al Gore lost the state, in "official" count, by a little more than 500 votes. Certainly, Mr. Gore could have won by doing lots of thinks differently in his campaign, but clearly Nadar cost him the election.

Think of some of the probable difference in the last six years, had Gore won:

No invasion of Iraq with its disastrous consequences.
No massive deficit
No illegal eavesdropping, renditions, and the like.
No extensive and questionable politicizing of the Federal government
Continued respect by foreign nations and peoples.
Environmental improvement instead of deterioration.
Action on global warming
Appointment of Justices who respect women's rights.

A Bloomberg candidacy would draw from Democratic voters, which could result
in continued Republican misrule. Mr. Bloomberg, if you are pro-choice and believe in honest and competent government, make the right choice and do not run!

homer www.altara.blogspot.com

I don't see a Bloomberg candidacy being more than a ripple in the pond, if he runs as an independent - and if he has a significant effect, it'll be to pull a few percentage points of dissatisfied moderate Republicans into his column, thereby killing the GOP candidate's hopes of winning.

Polls have already shown that Hillary would crush Giuliani in NY state, with or without Bloomberg. Maybe he'd get some Dem votes in NJ, but my bet is we'd still win the state.

And there's no, repeat, NO reason for a Dem to choose Bloomberg as his/her VP candidate. We've got loads of good choices. If Obama doesn't get the nomination, he's a GREAT veep choice for whoever does. And if Obama is nominated, picking Edwards or Richardson for some policy heft would work well, and there are loads of other good picks.

One thing not mentioned is that the Constitution probhibits having a presidential and vp nominee from the same state, therefore, Bloomberg couldn't be Clinton's choice... Cheney had to change his Texas residency to Wyoming (where he previously represented), but it would be more difficult to do in this situation.

Also, I must speculate that Bloomberg would never want serve in the Senate as one commenter wrote. He's a CEO at heart and loves to run things and get things done.

That being said, with his credentials, $5 billion in assets and the fact that he's far from being loony like Perot, he'd be a formidably independent candidate as well as great pairing w/ Obama.

I have to say I think hes looking towards the senate as well.

The Constitution does not prohibit the President and Vice President being from the same state. What is prohibited is a presidential elector voting for both president and vice president from his/her own state. That is, in the event of a Clinton/Bloomberg ticket, there is nothing preventing electors from any state other than New York from voting for them. Electors from NY would have to vote for somebody other than Bloomberg (assuming of course they voted for Clinton). Admittedly that might force a close election into the Senate if a majority was not achieved.

"If he ran as an independent candidate for president, Bloomberg would almost certainly cut into the votes of self-identified independents that Democrats picked up in 2006 and that they will need again if they are to win the presidency in 2008."

I am a little bit puzzled by the prevalence of this notion among TAP pundits despite poll after poll showing Bloomberg hurting the Republicans worse than the Democrats. The fact is that there are a *lot* of moderate Republicans who voted somewhat reluctantly for Bush in 2004 but will just *never* vote for Hillary, who does seem likely to win the Decmoratic nomination. They will hold their noses and vote for Giuliani or McCain (in the unlikely event he is nominated) or even Thompson or Romney. But some of them will be willing to vote for Bloomberg.

But there seems to be no reasoning with people who say "Damnit, a social liberal has *got* to hurt the Demcorats worse than the Republicans, I don't care what the polls say!" Remember that Bloomberg is after all known as a *businessman* as well as a social liberal. And remember that Perot took pretty liberal stances on social issues in 1992 and ended up hurting Bush more than Clinton (although I don't agree with people who say Perot is repsonsible for Clinton's victory, I do think it would have been narrower without him.)

The Mark Penn/Hillary/union buster thing really wasn't such a big deal after all.
Just ask Rodger Toussant.

The Mark Penn/Hillary/union buster thing really wasn't such a big deal after all.
Just ask Rodger Toussant.