Is a centrist Bloomberg-Nunn ticket in the works?

[Spoke]

From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Former Sen. Nunn wants candidates to address issues.

…Nunn and former Senate colleague David Boren of Oklahoma, both Democrats, have summoned at least 17 well-known, middle-of-the-road political figures from both parties — including New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a possible independent presidential candidate — to a one-day meeting next week to take the first steps toward a consensus agenda.

In a Sunday interview in Atlanta, Nunn also said he and former Secretary of Defense William Cohen, a Republican, planned to launch in January a series of detailed “truth-telling” seminars, made available through the Internet, on tough national issues that haven’t yet found a place in candidate debates — such as the federal debt, national service and the lack of a comprehensive energy policy.

…The former Georgia senator, now 69, first acknowledged this summer that he was considering an independent run for the presidency. He said Sunday that possibility remains “highly improbable.”

“The only one that can mount that kind of campaign without a whole lot of consensus-building is Bloomberg, because he’s got the money. Until Bloomberg makes his decision, nobody’s going to get in,” Nunn said.

But unlike in August, Nunn did not rule out consideration of a vice presidential bid.

“I’ve never been interested in running for president for the sake of running for president,” he said. “Or being vice president for the sake of being vice president. Only if I’m intellectually stimulated and believe I can take four or five major things and try to get them accomplished for the country — that would stimulate me.”

It has been speculated for some time that Bloomberg and/or Nunn might run for president on the Unity’08 ticket. (And there have been a couple of threads on the topic on these boards.) The linked article suggests to me that a Bloomberg-Nunn ticket may be in the works. Nunn has changed his tune on whether he would accept a VP slot – he appears to be opening that door now.

For debate:

Is this ticket likely to happen?
Can it poll well enough to get a spot in the debates?
Can it win any states?
Can it swing the outcome in any states or in the election as a whole?
Would this ticket force the other parties to the center? Or would it have the opposite effect: making an appeal to the motivated base the best path to victory for the major parties? (I.e., the Democrats pull further to the left and the Republicans further to the right.)

My thoughts:

Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. I think this ticket is going to happen.

Whether it can poll well enough to get a spot in the debates may depend on which candidates the major paties nominate. If it’s, say, Hillary vs. Romney, I can imagine a Bloomberg-Nunn ticket polling quite well in these parts.

If it’s Huckabee vs. Edwards, I can imagine Bloomberg-Nunn polling quite well in the North and West.

I’ll stop there for now, and maybe add more thoughts later.

[Marley23]

Bloomberg is pretty popular in New York City, and I know he’s very rich, but are people really going to support him for President? It’s a little hard to imagine, for me.

Could the ticket happen? I don’t see why not, if Nunn really is okay with being a candidate for VP. Can it get 15 percent in the polls and get into a debate? Again, I have trouble imagining that. Bloomberg isn’t particularly interesting as a candidate, and while NYC is being well run, he’s been spending his energy lately on stuff like trying to ban trans fats (completely useless) and expanding the smoking ban (which I appreciate even if I’m not sure it’s right). What’s he done that is going to play well nationally?

[Spoke]

@Marley23

What’s he done that is going to play well nationally?

It’s not so much what he’s done as mayor as the eternal appeal of electing a “businessman” who will run the country in a businesslike manner. Recall that this was part of Perot’s appeal, and part of W’s appeal in 2000. (Didn’t work out so well in the latter case, but then there was never any evidence that Bush was much of a businessman to begin with. Moreover, Bloomberg would be operating from the presumably advantageous position of being a non-partisan president.)

Presumably, the purpose of the meeting Nunn has called is to cobble together a “platform” which will give Bloomberg some credible talking points.

There’s an article by Bloomberg in the current issue of Newseek on things the US must do to remain competitive in the global economy (with a particular view toward China): A Race We Can All Win:

The challenge that we face is not preventing China from catching up with where we are today, but preventing ourselves from slowing down. That means overcoming the political inertia that has stopped us from investing in the 21st-century infrastructure that we need—not just high- speed rail lines but bigger ports, more mass-transit systems, more clean-energy capacity and more extensive broadband systems.

It also means overcoming widespread inertia in our efforts to improve the affordability of health care and the quality of education. In New York, we’re proving that raising standards and holding schools and students accountable for results can lead to dramatic improvements in student achievement. America has the most advanced, cutting-edge universities in the world, driving innovation in every field. But to maintain that edge, we need a public-school system that is just as good, and that prepares our students to succeed in the new economy.

It seems to me that these talking points may have some play with the electorate, particularly if the candidates put forward by the Dems and Reps are unappealing.

[What_Exit]

I don’t think it will happen, but I would campaign for and vote for Bloomberg in a heart beat. He is almost my ideal candidate. He is a brilliant, largely self-made man who is very green and about as centrist as anyone in this country. He has done a great job running NYC as mayor and I like his ideas and agree with most of them. He is apparently beholden to no one and does not seem to have the skeletons in his closet that so many professional politicians do.

I would love to see him win. The other question of course is if he does run, could he somehow win? Or would he just swing the election? Who would he hurt more? The Dem or the Republican?

The Neo-Cons won’t go near him, a non-religious Jew that is Pro-Choice and socially non-conservative. The Wall Street types might flock to him though if the alternative is Romney or Huck. On the other hand, if HRC is the Dem, I could see a lot of Independents and moderates that would begrudgingly pick her over Romney or Huck voting for Bloomberg. I think most Greens* will end up voting for Bloomberg, he has the best record of any of the candidates.

How would Bloomberg do vs. Rudy? I think most of NYC loves Bloomberg more than Rudy, but Jersey and Connecticut love Rudy. Across the country, Rudy is the hero of 9/11, Bloomberg is a Billionaire Mayor of NYC.

Jim

• I acknowledge this will only swing 1-3% of the vote nationwide.

[Little_Nemo]

The only way I can see there being a viable third party/independent presidential candidate is if there’s some big issue that a lot of voters are on one side of and both the Democratic and Republican candidates are on the other side of. The only issue like this I can see currently on the landscape is Iraq - if both of the main party candidates run on some version of “stay the course” there might be an opening for a “let’s bring the troops home now” candidate.

But I think it’s very unlikely. Bloomberg has not placed himself at the head of any peace movement and would have a difficult time doing so now. If the war becomes that unpopular, the Democratic candidate (and maybe the Republican one as well) will be in a better place to co-opt the peace movement than Bloomberg would.

[RTFirefly]

The only problem that Unity '08 is a solution to is to provide Old Broder with enough political porn that’ll still get him hard.

Take Nunn’s list of problems we need to deal with: “the federal debt, national service and the lack of a comprehensive energy policy.” How about global warming, Iraq, lack of universal health care and a rather tattered social safety net.

Sorry, Sam, but while national service is a nice idea, it’s not a pressing concern. And frankly, you’d have had more cred if you’d thought to address the Federal debt in the previous election cycle. Not to mention, it’s been clear for some time that from 1980 to the present, the Dems have been the party of fiscal responsibility. You want a budget that’s less out of whack, vote Dem.

Ditto energy policy. A carbon tax, or an equivalent cap-and-trade credit auction, will impose costs on carbon-based energy sources such as coal and oil, and the market can sort out the relative advantages and disadvantages of nuclear, wind, solar, etc. The Dems are for this sort of thing, and the GOP’s against it.

From the Bloomberg quote in spoke-'s post, I’ll note that infrastructure investment requires taxes to pay for it. The Dems would let most of the Bush tax cuts expire, but the GOP would keep them. Vote Dem. Affordability of health care? All three major Dem candidates have plans to make it universal (Clinton, Edwards) or nearly so (Obama). None of the GOP candidates do. Vote Dem. Improving our public school system? It’s hardly as bad as its rap: our tech boom of the 1990s was fueled by geeks educated in the schools that A Nation At Risk excoriated in 1983. NCLB seems to be what he’s looking for anyway, and it’s already the law. Edwards has offered a detailed critique or, and plan for fixing/improving NCLB; don’t know what the others have done, but I’ll bet the Dem contenders, as a group, have thought a lot more about it than the GOP contenders. Vote Dem.

IOW, AFAICT, Unity '08 is a Democratic Party for people who insist on pretending that (a) both major parties are equally part of the problem, despite all evidence, and (b) the Democratic Party hasn’t changed in 20 years.

Clinton’s Sistah Souljah moment worked. The party is no longer the captive of dozens of interest groups. Even the supposedly radical lefty netroots are less about changing the party’s agenda, than getting it to fight for the stuff it already claims to believe in to begin with.

Sounds like what Nunn and Bloomberg really support is a more effective Democratic Party. They’d find a comfortable home in the lefty netroots.

[UltraVires]

Centrist?

Why is it that when a Dem is right of his party’s norm he is “conservative”. When a GOP member is left of his party’s norm he is “centrist”?

Where are the “liberal” Republicans?

IMHO, Bloomberg is a liberal who was only a Republican because he likes the GOP tax policy to keep his millions. Scoundrel is what he is…

[RTFirefly]

@jtgain

IMHO, Bloomberg is a liberal who was only a Republican because he likes the GOP tax policy to keep his millions. Scoundrel is what he is…

He wasn’t that liberal:

Bloomberg’s speech at the 2004 Republican National Convention:

I want to thank President Bush for supporting New York City and changing the homeland security funding formula and for leading the global war on terrorism.

(APPLAUSE)

The president deserves our support.

(APPLAUSE)

We are here to support him.

(APPLAUSE)

And I am here to support him.

(APPLAUSE)

NYT, January 29, 2004:

We are going to get George W. Bush re-elected as president of the United States! We are going to carry New York City and New York State. Everybody thinks I'm crazy, but I think we can do it.

Plenty more like it at the link. Glenn Greenwald’s all over this one.

[ElvisL1ves]

@jtgain

IMHO, Bloomberg is a liberal who was only a Republican because he likes the GOP tax policy to keep his millions. Scoundrel is what he is…

He’s a former Democrat who raised a flag of convenience just to get a bye into the general election. A fairly common tactic in the Northeast, actually.

Oh, yeah, parallelism … *Opportunist * is what he is …

[elucidator]

Its the money Republicans, clutching their pearls and swooning about that crazy little cracker Huck. Its a signal from the people who think they are the Republican Party “leadership” that the viper they’ve nourished at their bosom has best behave, this instant! None of this wild eyed rural populism, thank you very much, must protect the purity of the Party from radicals.

And is it just me or does Huckleberry look a lot like Huey Long? Except for much better suits.

[Beware_of_Doug]

If Bloomberg and Nunn made a run, they could do worse than to hire Geoffrey Nunberg as their campaign manager/press secretary. Bloomberg x Nunn = Nunberg.

[Spoke]

Ryan Seacrest gets the scoop (Ryan Seacrest?):

Seacrest, who more often finds himself in a tete-a-tete with Simon Cowell rather than the leader of Gotham, began the inquiry by commenting to Bloomberg’s daughters, “I want your dad to answer this honestly. Will you run for president?”

Without hesitation, Bloomberg responded, “No, I will not run for president, but I will speak out to try to get people to really focus on the issues and to get rid of partisanship and special interests.”

I suppose he could be persuaded to change his mind…

[Key_Lime_Guy]

There was speculation on NPR yesterday that Lou Dobbs might be at the top of a Centrist-party ticket.

[John_Mace]

@Key Lime Guy

There was speculation on NPR yesterday that Lou Dobbs might be at the top of a Centrist-party ticket.

They misspelled “Populist”.

[BrainGlutton]

@John Mace

They misspelled “Populist”.

There is already a nativist-populist party – Pat Buchanan’s America First Party. Whether Dobbs would feel comfortable in it I don’t know.