{"id":11182,"date":"2007-06-20T09:00:03","date_gmt":"2007-06-20T13:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/11182.html"},"modified":"2007-06-20T09:00:03","modified_gmt":"2007-06-20T13:00:03","slug":"will-bloomberg-make-it-a-three-person-race-in-08","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/will-bloomberg-make-it-a-three-person-race-in-08\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Bloomberg make it a three-person race in ’08?"},"content":{"rendered":"

For months, something<\/i> has been driving rumors about NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg running for president as an independent, but to hear Bloomberg tell it, he’s not responsible. On the record, he tells anyone and everyone that he’s not running and he plans to enter philanthropy once term-limits force him from office in 2009.<\/p>\n

But signs keep popping up that keep interest brewing. Bloomberg brought his campaign website back online. He’s giving more speeches outside NYC — including one in New Hampshire. A month ago, the Washington Times quoted<\/a> a “long-time business adviser” to Bloomberg saying that the mayor has set aside money to “go for it.”<\/p>\n

And as of yesterday afternoon, Bloomberg ended his affiliation<\/a> with the Republican Party.<\/p>\n

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced Tuesday that he was dropping his Republican affiliation, a step that could clear the way for him to make an independent bid for the presidency.<\/p>\n

The announcement was released during a campaign-style swing through California, during which Mr. Bloomberg, 65, a billionaire businessman, used increasingly sharp language to criticize both parties in Washington as too timid to take on big problems and too locked into petty squabbling to work together.<\/p>\n

“I believe this brings my affiliation into alignment with how I have led and will continue to lead my city,” Mr. Bloomberg’s statement read. “Any successful elected executive knows that real results are more important than partisan battles, and that good ideas should take precedence over rigid adherence to any particular political ideology.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yeah, yeah, yeah, but what about his future plans? Bloomberg says nothing has changed, but a) the NYT said his top aides are “working intensely behind the scenes promoting the idea of the mayor’s candidacy”; and b) why bother leaving your political party if you’re planning to retire from politics altogether next year?<\/p>\n

This, of course, leads to the more politically relevant question: if Bloomberg does run, who benefits?
\n
\nThe conventional wisdom on a Bloomberg campaign, which I’ve largely bought into, is that it would hurt the Democratic nominee. Bloomberg was a life-long Dem until 2001, when he ran as a Republican simply because the Democratic primary field was already crowded. On most issues, he’s clearly in the Democratic mainstream (abortion rights, Iraq policy, global warming, gay rights, education), and on some issues he’s to the left<\/i> of the Democratic mainstream (gun control, regulation of trans fats).<\/p>\n

In other words, in a three-person race, the nation would have two center-left candidates and one conservative. It doesn’t sound like a winning scenario for the Dems.<\/p>\n

But a funny thing happened in April when Rasmussen conducted a poll testing this theory, and found that Bloomberg clearly took support away from the GOP candidate<\/a>, not the Dem. Hmm.<\/p>\n

A few other angles to consider:<\/p>\n

* Can Bloomberg actually win the presidency? It’s hard to see how he gets 270 electoral votes. It’s been a long while since an independent candidate even earned an electoral vote, better yet seriously competed. Spending the money to get his name on the ballot, however, would be pretty easy.<\/p>\n

* Will Giuliani go ballistic? Bloomberg’s predecessor wasn’t talking yesterday, but the NYT noted that “Giuliani is likely to view even this level of flirtation as a serious betrayal: His support for Mr. Bloomberg in 2001, after the attacks of Sept. 11, was critical to Mr. Bloomberg’s success and accounts for why he is where he is today.”<\/p>\n

* Subway series? If Hillary Clinton gets the Dem nod, Giuliani gets the GOP nod, and Bloomberg runs an independent, it’ll be the most New York-centric contest imaginable.<\/p>\n

Stay tuned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For months, something has been driving rumors about NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg running for president as an independent, but to hear Bloomberg tell it, he’s not responsible. On the record, he tells anyone and everyone that he’s not running and he plans to enter philanthropy once term-limits force him from office in 2009. But signs […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11182\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}