He won’t say so but everybody around him is dropping hints. Story here.
Why as an independent? What exactly are this guy’s politics, anyway?
If he does this, how will it affect the '08 election? Can Bloomberg win? If not, will he draw more votes away from the Pub or the Dem nominee?
Independent because he doesn’t want to play the nomination games.
I doubt he’ll run, and if he runs, he won’t win, but if he runs, he’ll definately take more votes away from the Democrat than the Republican.
I would be astonished if an Independent could win either in the US or here in the UK.
In each case you have a national party organisation, with loads of regular voters and established politicians to take cabinet posts etc.
In the UK we could quite easily have an Independent Prime Minister, if anything it would be the easiest option if we got a 3 or 4 way split.
In the USA the President is a totally separate election, and apart from the curious college of whatevers, it could happen - especially if the Republicans select Cheney, and Obama and Hillary are caught together committing unspeakable acts with a 5 year old.
First of all, Cheney isn’t running, that’s not even an option.
Second of all, running as an independant is really stupid. Suppose you’re a brilliant young politician who’s policies don’t fit well with either major party. What to do? Declare yourself an independant? No, that’s ridiculous. You pick the major party you find most congenial, and you work to remake that party into the party you wish it were. In America party affiliation means almost nothing from a policy point of view. In most parliamentary countries party members are obligated to vote with their party or risk being ejected. But not in the US, there are plenty of conservative Democrats and a few liberal Republicans, as well as many who generally vote the way the party votes but have a few key issues where they vote against.
So what exactly does Bloomberg gain from running as an independant rather than a Democrat or Republican? I guess the reasoning is that he wouldn’t want to run as a Republican, but he was elected Mayor of New York as a Republican. But note why he ran as a Republican…because it enabled him to use the already existing (albeit weak) New York Republican party apparatus. So running for President as a Democrat would be a tad awkward. So any presidential run by Bloomberg would therefore have to be as an independent to sidestep these issues. Which is why his candidacy will go nowhere.
Bottom line, if a candidate is so popular that they could win as an independant candidate, they should almost certainly be able to win the nomination of one party or the other. If they can’t win a major party nomination then why do they fantasize they could win the general election?
It sometimes happens that independents important state offices…Bernie Sanders in VT, Joe Lieberman in MA, Wally Hickel in AK, Jesse Ventura in MN. Not not often, and the last “independent” candidate elected President was Abraham Lincoln of the newly formed antislavery Republican party. And there is currently no issue like slavery that demands the formation of a new party. So if you’re that hoped-for moderate savior who’s fine with gays but still wants a balanced budget, running as an independant is crazy. You’re 100 times better off winning over one of the existing parties and using their already existing organizations because, let’s face it, the party apparatuses aren’t interested in ideology but rather winning elections, and they will gladly work for a person of any ideology if that person can win the election.
That’s not Bloomberg, though. He’s not young (age 65), very unlikely to influence the party he’s in, and he’s extraordinarily wealthy, which makes him a little less dependent on the party structure.
Bloomberg is well-liked in New York, not that I think he’ll ever be President. You’re correct that the Democrats wouldn’t nominate him, and that he would never win over the Republicans no matter how popular he is here. So he doesn’t have a choice, if he insists he could run and win.
But thing is, the same things that make Democratic primary voters unlikely to choose him, and Republican primary voters unlikely to choose him, are still going to exist in the general election. If he can’t overcome those problems in the primary elections, how can he expect to overcome them in the general?
Of course, the only reason Bloomberg is being touted as an independent candidate is because he could never be nominated by either party for various reasons. Which I take as proof that his chances of winning the general election are nil. If he were such an exciting candidate, one of the parties would be willing to overlook his heretical positions. But he isn’t, so they aren’t.
Does anybody know anything about Bloomberg’s politics?
Ross Perot might have been crazy, but you knew exactly what he stood for.
Realistically, he can’t. But I don’t think he would do better to go through one of the parties. I mean, we know that wouldn’t work, so how could he do worse running as an independent? I guess he thinks he can start off by appealing to independent voters and build from there.
I live in NYC. There has been very little noise on the street about a possible run. Furthermore, while I can discuss at greater length what his politics are in the city, this does not translate to his opinions on state and federal issues.
Nitpick: Joe Lieberman is the Junior senator from CT.