Jesse Ventura says he might run if Bernie Sanders doesn’t get the nomination:
I used to love Ventura when he was governor of Minnesota but was shocked when he became this conspiracy theorist. He doesn’t SEEM to be senile, but at some point he obviously got a bit unhinged. Still, I’d support him over Trump or Clinton.
My potted geranium is considering a 4th party run. He (she? it?) is thrilled to hear that someone named adaher will vote for him/her/it over Hillary Clinton
(Sorry if this sounds like a threadshit. You’ve had many cogent, well-informed, helpful posts lately, adaher – I’ve learned from you, seriously. But this isn’t one of them.)
Well, let’s look at the lineup of possibles:
Jesse Ventura
Donald Trump
Ben Carson
Jim Webb
Michael Bloomberg
I don’t think there have ever been so many legitimate officeholders and/or prominent people threatening to run as independents.
Yes, but this “considering” is predicated on the same error that so many of us have been making, on all parts of the spectrum: that Trump can’t really be a viable candidate – he’s just a clown! Few will vote for him when push comes to shove in November! This is compounded by a similar error that a fewer number of us (but still a lot of us) are making: that few people really like Hillary! She’s cold and scandal-tinged and too corporatist and hawkish for the lefties while the righties would walk over hot coals to vote against her!
If anyone could do it, it would be Bloomberg. He has the track record and the money.
When I got up this morning and saw the results - the GOP in full civil war; Bernie still able to stick with it - that was my first thought: “This is a perfect set up for an independent run if someone can spend a TON of money to ramp up their brand recognition.”
And Bloomberg indicated he could decide as late as this month. We’ll see.
Had Jesse not turned into a CT wacko he’d have been a plausible Trump-Lite style candidate. Just another celebrity trying to cash in on the rejectionist movement.
Once he joined the CT brigade he moved himself even farther into unelectable territory than many folks perceive Trump to be.
So: Chasing the same voters as Trump, less electable than Trump, less well known than Trump, 6 months later than Trump.
Sounds like a way to boost traffic and paid advertising returns at his personal website and little more.
OTOH …
Here’s once scenario where it sorta makes sense … The GOP “establishment” (scare quotes because I’m not sure it exactly exists anymore) decides the best way out of their current existential dilemma is to find a Trump-Lite candidate that A) appeals to the rejectionist wing; and B) they can control; and C) remains plausible to mainstream R voters.
So they draft somebody non-mainstream for that job. If they did this, they just picked a different kind of loser in Ventura.
But I think it’s not impossible for there to be such a person who fits A, B, & C above. In their dreams it would have been Cruz. But the evidence is in that Cruz ain’t it; he’s got a lot of A, no B, and not much C. The lack of B is the real problem here from their POV.