Important message for Michael Bloomberg: No one wants you to run for president

January 19, 2008

Guest Post by Morbo

I doubt Michael Bloomberg reads this blog. That’s a shame, because I have an important message for him: No one wants you to run for president.

Let me say it again: No. One. Wants. You. To. Run. For. President.

How about in capitals? NO ONE WANTS YOU TO RUN FOR PRESIDENT.

Look to the left and you’ll see an ad with items from Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire. Now, it is true that “Taegan Goddard” sounds like an international super-spy, but in fact he offers political stories, often very interesting ones. Check out this one.

It reports on a SurveyUSA poll indicating that if Bloomberg ran, he would not even carry New York City. Here’s another important finding:

Across the country, one in four voters have never heard of Bloomberg and just 11% have a favorable impression of him. In an election for president today, if Bloomberg is on the ballot, he receives at most 13% of the vote. He also consistently finishes third of three candidates.

For some reason, in 1992, a certain percentage of people got worked up over Ross Perot, even though it was obvious that the man was hopelessly insane. Nevertheless, Perot had supporters. There were Perot bumper stickers. You would run into people who planned to vote for him. There was even a party, of sorts, backing him.

Perot dropped out of the race briefly after some bizarre claim about how a race of lizard men from the Crab Nebula was planning to disrupt his daughter’s wedding. But then the voices in his head told him to get back in, so he did. He actually managed to get 20 percent of the vote. That’s because, as odd as he was, Perot actually had some supporters. Still, it was obvious at the end that he was not going to win.

That’s not Bloomberg’s situation.

No one is talking about Bloomberg running — except Bloomberg. Bloomberg convened a conference supposedly to discuss the need for unity in politics. Democrats and Republicans attended. I think secretly he was hoping people would beg him to run. But they didn’t. Instead they said, “Oh, please! No one wants you to run for president.”

The reason they said that is because no one wants Bloomberg to run for president. Democrats have narrowed their field down to three, and it’s a good field. Polls show Democrats feeling pretty good about their choices. Therefore, Democrats see no reason for Bloomberg to run for president.

Republicans have a wide-open race. Yes, the different camps are picking at one another right now, and no candidate has yet shown the ability to pull together the disparate elements of the GOP. But eventually they will settle on someone. Republicans are not going to abandon their party for a socially liberal New York City mayor many voters have never heard of. Therefore, Republicans see no reason for Bloomberg to run for president.

Independents are an important voting bloc these days. Perhaps a Bloomberg candidacy would appeal to them, but so far they have shown no inclination to back him or demonstrated any evidence that they know he exists. In any case, there are not enough of them to propel Bloomberg into office.

Yes, there are cranks out there who have set up “Draft Mike” websites, but you know what? Anyone with $8.99 can create a website. The 2008 race will boil down to whether this country wants four more years of Bushism or is ready for a new direction. I’m for the new direction and say any other candidate is a distraction from getting it.

I hear you did a nice job running the Big Apple, Mike, and I like the way you finally wised up and ditched the GOP. Now go home and write a book or start a venture capital firm or something. No one wants you to run for president.

I think the big difference with 1992 is that he had some supporters because he had a visible issue that people rallied around, opposition to NAFTA. This was something both Bush and Clinton supported, so there was a huge chunk of people who felt unrepresented.

There is no comparable issue for Bloomberg to use. Is he going to run on a gun-control platform? Also, what people hoping for a Bloomberg candidacy don’t want to admit, is that he is essentially a Democrat. Where does he differ markedly from the party line?

  • Hey, I liked a lot of Perot’s economic ideas, but I do agree that rallying against NAFTA was his clarion call. As for his sanity, well, back in ’92 when he came out with this whole wedding sabatoge story, it did seem preposterous. But, given the now daily exposure of republican fraudulency and dirty trickery which permeates them throughout, maybe he wasn’t crazy afer all making that claim.

    As for Bloomberg, I’d much rather him spend his money through PACs or 527s and help take the republicans down once and for all. Swift boat them on a titanic scale.

  • We’ll have a black or female president long before we’ll have a viable third party. Bloomberg offers none of the three.

  • If Bloomberg did get in, he would be the fourth horseman of the apocalypse for some out there. The presidential field already has a black, a woman and a Mormon running, add a Jew and I think some people’s heads would explode.

    If Bloomberg was such a visionary and gutsy leader as his legend has it, he wouldn’t be pussy-footing around throwing his hat into the ring as he’s done. Instead of generating buzz, as he’s hoping to do, he’s becoming more and more tiresome as the indecisive would-be candidate.

  • Yes, there are cranks out there who have set up “Draft Mike” websites, but you know what? Anyone with $8.99 can create a website.

    Maybe they can team up with the Condi for Prez folks and share expenses;>

  • I want Bloomberg to run. No matter who is the Democrat and who is the Republican, Bloomberg will siphon more votes from the Republican than the Democrat.

  • Will he really? I have no idea what kind of voter would vote for him. he mighht match thhe agenda of a moderate Republican who can’t stand McCain (or whoever) but doens’t want to vote for a Democrat. Or he mighht match the agenda of a pox-on-both-houses independent. The problem is that many, many voters are irrational and it is hard to see patterns in how they jump. Independents particularly are prone to be suckers for charisma and immune to appeals to issues or reason. Would Bloomberg attarct the kind of vboter who wants to drink beer twith the President? I’m really curious abouut this.

  • If Bloomberg did get in, he would be the fourth horseman of the apocalypse for some out there. The presidential field already has a black, a woman and a Mormon running, add a Jew and I think some people’s heads would explode.

    dang, petorado, now you’ve made me want Bloomie to get in.

  • We all know that the next president will be a Democrat or Republican (more likely Democrat) and a third party is not likely to go anywhere.

    However to play Devil’s advocate I am compelled to point out a couple of flaws in the reasoning here. Yes, at present both Democrats and Republicans have a field which are attractive to a variety of people in each party. This is true, and is why at present there is little interest by many people in a third party candidacy.

    However conditions will be present once each party picks a nominee. There will be some in each party who are disappointed by the results and will not be willing to vote for their party’s nominee. I’m speaking not of the die hard partisans who will vote for anyone their party nominates, but people who strongly lean towards one party but don’t vote party line 100% of the time. The amount of potential votes for Bloomberg will depend upon who the major party’s nominate, which is why he is waiting to see how this plays out.

    Another flaw is to look at polls now and believe they have any predictive value. Bloomberg hasn’t even entered the race and hasn’t started to spend money to campaign. There is the potential for him to do far better than any polls would now suggest.

    Again that is not to say that a third party candidate has a serious chance, but I would not assume based upon conditions now, which will be much different in a few months politically, that his chances are zero or that he might not be able to receive a meaningful number of votes in a general election.

  • I’m pretty sure there’s gonna be a 3rd party candidate this time. If Huckabee, or Romney gets the Puke nod, it’ll be McStain/Lie-berman in Unity ’08…

    If McStain gets it, the 3rd party could be Bloomberg/Lie-berman (or Boren)…With 13% of the vote, he’d surely have enough support to be a king-hell spoiler…

    Any third party this year draws most of its support from Dim candidates

  • Both ruling parties have colluded to make sneaky laws that prevent upcoming new parties or independents from getting on the ballot. The special interests do not want any candidate that isn’t tied down by their campaign donations. If a Bloomberg-type ran, he’d owe nothing to anyone. No one would have to be paid back. Check out the corporate donations and interest groups represented for D&R at http://www.opensecrets.org. It’s disgusting. And who will our President keep his/her promises to? The people who donated him the money of course!

    That being said, if Bloomberg runs I will vote for him. If he doesn’t run, I’ll put him as a write-in. A democrat or republican president will just do whatever the campaign financiers told him to do. I don’t want special interests controlling the Presidency. Shouldn’t the president be able to make up his mind based on his advisors? Shouldn’t he be a manager? Shouldn’t he admit when he doesn’t know something, and let people know if something bad will happen?

    But most importantly, our leaders have been wasting money on pork projects and making decisions based on no analysis. Our defense department will spend $100 for a $10 part because of sweetheart contracts. The money for anti-terrorism will be allocated based on special interest instead of based on risk. We buy electronic voting machines instead of using Scantrons. How much money is wasted alone because our laws are just hard to read? How much is lost because our tax code is impossible for anyone to figure out? There is so much wasted money.

    I like the way Bloomberg governs my city. I like how he defers to the experts and lets them do the research. He does a cost/benefit analysis to pick what’s best. People get mad that he’s dicking around not deciding whether to run. Only a fool would jump into the shark tank at this point without knowing any clear front runners.

  • I MADE A VIDEO SUPPORTING THE IDEA OF MICHAEL BLOOMBERG RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT OVER HALF A YEAR AGO. RALPH NADER SAID THAT BLOOMBERG IS SO RICH HE CANT BE BOUGHT- WHICH “COULD” BE A GOOD THING. nobody WANTS HIM TO RUN? GIMME A BREAK- I’D VOTE FOR HIM IN A SECOND OVER HILLARY, GIULIANI, OR ROMNEY

  • I really want Bloomberg to run as president. I’m super disappointed by the wayt the two parties are driving the agendas. I love the way he priorises the issues such as gun control, trans fats, transportation, infastructure, poverty, and renewable energy. I think he’d be the smartest guy out there running and he would appeal to both democrats and republicans but most of all, he would appeal to the people who don’t watch or follow politics all year and then decide who they are going to vote for within the last week like say in October or something. I also think that by October both sides are going to be tired of the Clintons, Romneys, Huckabees, and Obamas. People will be looking for a fresh face by then who doesn’t owe nobody nothing. I think he will have mass appeal just because he is not beholden to special interests. He will also do way, way better than any other third party candidate because he has way more money to spend than both the democrats and the republicans put together.
    He would definitly not be a spoiler like the third parties in the past have been. This Bloomberg candidacy would push the dems and pugs into the ground and remember………Bloomberg has his own media, so he won’t be laking in mainstream media converage. Cripes, he’s got his own tv station too now that I think about it.

  • No one wants him to run?

    The far left and far right are so preoccupied with peddling their non-issues that they never noticed independents, moderates, and libertarians who comprise 35% of the electorate leave the room. These are not spoilers. They are the new kingmakers. That’s what usually happens when the country is given a choice between evangelicals and hippies…or should we say the devil and the deep blue sea?

  • The largest problem I see with your post is the statement that “Democrats have narrowed their field down to three, and it’s a good field. Polls show Democrats feeling pretty good about their choices.”

    Why is it a good field? Because Democrats have been successful in addressing the crucial issues facing the country? No. Because Democrats have found a way to remove themselves from the influence of lobbyists and big money? No. Because Democrats are telling us “how” they are going to enact “change.” No.

    There is a quote by R. Buckminster Fuller that I believe is suitable in this case, ““You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

    Politics-as-usual is the existing reality. Post-partisan leadership is necessary for the numerous ills that we face. Our politicians need to stop screwing around and build the team that can lead us back to health.

  • Anyone with $8.99 can create a website.

    Congratulations. You’ve done a superb job of proving that.

  • Mr. Bloomberg’s support goes beyond New York. Jon Fisher, a 35-year-old technology entrepreneur in Tiburon, Calif., said Mr. Bloomberg’s background appeals to him. “Business experience, and specifically this kind of entrepreneurial business experience, is exactly the skill set we need in a president,” said Mr. Fisher, who sold his most recent venture, Bharosa, to technology giant Oracle Corp. last year.

    Mr. Fisher, a Democrat, is inviting others who have sold companies to Oracle to a meeting in Tiburon at the end of the month. The goal, Mr. Fisher said, is to recruit people willing to dedicate time and effort to a Bloomberg campaign. (Mr. Bloomberg would presumably fund his campaign himself, making fund-raising unnecessary.)

    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120062283942299587.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

  • Not all Republicans want four more years of Bushism.
    We do need a different direction for our country; however, it needs to be a direction that brings Americans together instead of maintaining party loyalties. It’s about giving and taking, not just representing the people who voted for you but the entire country has needs. We need to better our economy (without taxing America to death), better our foreign policy, bring jobs back to America, and concentrate on our domestic problems here. That would be a good start.

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