What are Your Thoughts on a Likely Bloomberg Third-Party Candidacy?

[demobabe]

A BUZZFLASH ANALYSIS

Not only is this the earliest primary run for the presidency, it's starting to look like perhaps the most fluid.

We got Fred Thompson, the last great actor hope of the Busheviks (and laziest U.S. Senator in recent history), about to make an end run to head the pack of GOP dwarfs and con artists (that guy must need a lot of Viagra with his bourbon to keep up with his zaftig trophy wife whom he married after divorcing his childhood sweetheart). We got the possibility that if the Dem candidates start to bunch up -- or if, on the other hand, the likely winner of the Dem primaries looks like a loser in the general election -- that Al Gore might come to the rescue and enter the race in the fall.

We got a toothless Democratic Congress with poll ratings as low as Bush's.

And now we have the likelihood that Mayor Michael Bloomberg will lead a third party candidacy, after officially leaving the Republican Party on June 19. Speculation of a Bloomberg (Northeast)-Chuck Hagel (Midwest) ticket is already caroming around the Internet like wildfire.

In short, all bets are off right now, as this is being written, as to the the two major party nominees. The most likely "known unknown" (to quote Rumsfeld) is that Bloomberg, with his multi-billion dollar fortune, will self-finance a race because he is a risk taker -- and even if he blew a billion and lost, he'd have a few billion left to pay the rent.

Full article here: http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/alerts/261

[mmonk]

1. He's a danger to both parties

from frustrated people.

[onehandle]

2. He'd lose. The Republican candidate would win. nt

[Telly Savalas]

4. I'd think he'd siphon more votes from the GOP end.

His independent candidacy should help us.

[onehandle]

7. Not according to the pollsters so far.

The GOP base Hate him. Many Fickle Dems would flock to him.

Ending in 8 more years of GOP Rule.

President Romney. President Giuliani. President Thompson.

Take your pick.

[derby378]

3. Bye-bye, Bloomers...

If neither H. Ross Perot nor Theodore Roosevelt could seal the deal with their own independent candidacies for the White House, Bloomberg isn't going to fare any better.

[soothsayer]

5. He's a non-threat.

[David__77]

6. Not too likely to draw major support.

He's got some things that will stand in the way to catching on with middle America. I don't see him drawing support in key battlegrounds in the midwest. He's got some dirt in his closet too, like his affinity with Lenora Fulani and Fred Newman. I personally have little against them, but it can be used as dirt nonetheless.

[onehandle]

8. He wouldn't need to.

97,000 Nader voters in Florida. Gore only needed 514 of them.