Rumors are growing stronger that New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg really will run for president in 2008 as an independent . The New York Sun had fun with Hizzoner in an article on the economy yesterday, but political observers (a vaguely denominated group akin to "high ranking officials" and "well-connected sources") also are chewing on more specific stories about a possible sign-up of David Gergen, former political advisor to presidents Republican and Clintonian. Mayor Bloomberg, a Wall Street multi-billionaire, further is said to have earmarked $500 million of his own money for the cause. That is enough to buy whatever money can buy in politics, though that’s not everything. Regardless, the Bloomberg cash alone must give the GOP and Democrats pause.
The vehicle for the Bloomberg campaign supposedly will be something called the "Unity Party”. Mayor Bloomberg, under the rumored scenario, would be "unified" further with a vice presidential candidate from another part of the country. Perhaps a cranky, rural Southern Democrat conservative would be recruited to balance the Mayor's high spirited and very liberal and nominal Republicanism.
The John Anderson independent ticket in 1980 started out strong, but died away, and Ross Perot's independent populism succeeded mainly in taking votes from G. H. W. Bush, thereby electing Bill Clinton president in 1992. Ralph Nader indirectly helped elect G. W. Bush in 2000.
Bloomberg is no echo of Anderson, Perot or Nader. His particular peculiarities are all his own. The Unity Party would advance strong business management, high spending, liberal social issues and and an eclectic mix of foreign policy stands. It is hard to see how he might effect the Republican/Democratic contest, and that uncertainty would make a Bloomberg candidacy the potential wild card of 2008. It is even harder to see how Mr. Bloomberg, even with a 500 million dollar war chest, could win more than five percent of the vote. He is said to outpoll Rudy Giuliani in New York, but so what? As Manhattan goes, so goes....Queens? You can’t build a national campaign on an urban Eastern persona alone. Giuliani, for example, has the terrorism and homeland security issue that made him a household word in the hinterlands.
The prospective Bloomberg campaign, meanwhile, should make political reformers blush. This is what campaign finance “reform” has done for us. Ordinary citizens can only give a couple of thousand dollars to their favorite candidate, no matter how committed they may be to him (or her). But a billionaire can announce himself and be taken seriously because the law does not limit what he can spend on his own campaign. Michael Bloomberg apparently is a good mayor of New York. But there is no way he would be a presidential candidate if he didn’t fund fund the race himself. The word “oligarchy” rings truer than “democracy” in such cases.