Will Bloomberg Swift-Boat Hillary?
The presidential candidacy of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is already a smashing success.
A mere change of registration from Republican to independent has garnered him a cornucopia of free and favorable publicity some candidates do not receive in a year of campaigning.
The mayor has replaced Fred Thompson as the most talked-about non-candidate since Mario Cuomo in 1992 and Colin Powell in 1996. Gov. Cuomo and Gen. Powell, after scouting the terrain, declined to engage. That may be good advice for the mayor. Enjoy and exploit the media frenzy you will create between now and decision day, but think long and hard before plunging in. For, after that, the fun stops, the risks of national humiliation rise, and you are fair game for hostile media and the opposition researchers.
While impossible to see how Mayor Bloomberg can win, even if he spent $2 billion, it is easy to see how he sinks Hillary Rodham Clinton. For the more popular he makes himself with his media buys, the more votes his candidacy attracts, the more certain it is that he does for the Democratic Party what Ross Perot did for the GOP in '92.
How so? First, the mayor is Jewish and is best-known and most loved among Jewish voters and denizens of the Big Apple, where he is more popular than Rudy. Both constituencies are Democratic.
Even in his 49-state triumph, Richard Nixon won only a third of the Jewish vote. In his 49-state landslide, Reagan carried even less. In 2006, by one survey, the Jewish vote went 88 percent Democratic. As for New York City, that has long been the Democrats' key to New York State.
The first effect of a Bloomberg candidacy would be to siphon off perhaps 2 million votes from Hillary in New York, putting the state in play for the Republicans. The same would be true in New Jersey and Connecticut.
Second, though the mayor is being painted as a "post-partisan" problem-solver, he is a textbook nanny-state liberal, who has outlawed smoking in neighborhood bars, wages war on trans-fats, and is anti-gun, pro-gay rights and pro-abortion.
Had Bloomberg run in the Republicans primaries, his billions would not have bought him the nomination, which is why he left the party. Indeed, if he could buy the GOP nomination, the party would leave him.
At heart, Mike Bloomberg never really belonged to the GOP. It was a marriage of convenience he dumped at the first opportunity. And no blitz of media ads is going to convince this country he is other than what he is: a cookie-cutter New York social liberal.
Another reason it is unlikely a Bloomberg candidacy will carry a single state is that he is neither charismatic like John F. Kennedy nor a conviction candidate like Barry Goldwater, and he is certainly not the combination of the two that Ronald Reagan was.
On Iraq, securing the border and halting the export of American jobs, where does he stand? Anyone know? Does he?
In 1972, George McGovern won the Democratic nomination on a platform of "Come home, America!" In 1992, Ross Perot ran on the issue of a bloated federal government that could not control itself and was exporting our jobs to Mexico. What is the issue that is to propel Bloomberg into the national consciousness and the presidency?
There is none. Lacking charisma and a capacity to move people with words, lacking an issue other than "post-partisanship," Bloomberg has one card to play—a fortune estimated at $5 billion or more.
If he runs, Mike Bloomberg will be testing the theory that, in the 21st century, you can buy the presidency of the United States.
This is a vanity campaign. But how many votes can Mike buy? If Bloomberg spent $1 billion and got 5 million votes, each would have cost him $200. How many billions would it take to buy 40 million votes—and victory in a three-way race?
Bloomberg's toying with a run is the best news the GOP has had since Sam Alito. If he gets in, the party should insist that he, and Ralph Nader if he enters, be included in the debates. If he gets in, the RNC should make sure America knows of Mike's fine record in fighting the Burger King Whopper, Winstons and Winchesters.
Help him take the liberals away from Hillary
The Bloomberg campaign does underscore what is wrong with our national politics. Bush is at 29 percent, and the Democratic Congress is at 23 percent. The largest and fastest-growing party in America is independents who have walked away from their party out of disillusionment or disgust. American democracy is no longer working. Whether on the war or on the border, the will of the people is not translated into policy.
In a working democracy, this would bring a repudiation of both failed parties. But they have gotten a lock on the presidency. If Mike Bloomberg can expose that failed duopoly, more power to him.
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Entries(RSS)
That is the only reason for Bloomberg to run -- as a spoiler. (And if he has to spoil Hillary's campaign, you could at least ALMOST consider voting for him, couldn't you?) Who outside of New York would vote for this guy? And by the way, he was a Democrat before he was a Repug. He switched parties to avoid a crowded donkey primary when he ran for mayor of NYC.
Pat mentions Perot briefly. Ol' Ross was right on the money with his predictions about NAFTA and GATT, but he, along with all the others, had pledged not to touch the Federal Reserve.
Likewise, Ron Paul is touted by many as the best choice for President, and he certainly is by far the best of a horrible, criminal, warmongering lot. He is also on record as wanting to abolish the Federal Reserve. Let me say straight out, though, that I wouldn't vote for anybody put up by either of these "two" parties; I think that anybody that does is directly contributing to the destruction of this nation as a republic.
Paul certainly is, judging by his voting record, a pretty strict constitutionalist, which is as rare as hen's teeth these days. He's not exactly squeaky clean, however. For one thing, this constitutionalist refuses to publicly demand the immediate impeachment of every single person in the Bush administration, when their crimes against this country and its constitution, as well as their war crimes and genocide abroad, are almost too numerous to list. That really makes me wonder about him, his voting record notwithstanding. It was recently revealed that he has given close to $200,000 to his daughter, said money coming from his campaign funds. I don't know about any of you, but if I were dumb enough to give money to millionaires to fund their campaigns, and I found out that they were giving that money away to their family members, I just might wise up.
Finally, why does this man continue to remain a member of a party that he apparently has nothing in common with, and that had him barred from the Iowa debate? It certainly does make you scratch your head. Maybe one of these days, these primaries will change. The notion that two puny states like Iowa or New Hampshire should have so much influence in this system is a joke.
This is all academic from my point of view. I'm not dumb enough to participate in this rigged system, run by two crime families.
To get back to the original point, even though it's hard to imagine anybody worse than Bush in the White House, a nutjob like McCain, an actor like Thompson, an enabling, dykish harridan like Hillary, an out-and-out fascist like Rudy "The Recycler," etc., all make me want to reach for the bottle. They ALL want to nuke Iran. Although I don't know Bloomberg's views on that subject, it seems to me that he doesn't differ from any of them in any essential way.
Flower Mountain is a hybrid Social Democrat/Socialist (a.k.a. “liberal:) with a touch of Cultural Marxism and simultaneously a millionaire – a phenomenon that must seem strange to Europeans, and for which the credit/blame might be laid on the sainted John of Kennedy with his tax cuts on proportional income way back in ‘62.
Pat knows a lot more about politics than I; indeed he might be as savvy as my second favorite president, the Dutch-speaking (and New Yorker) Martin van Buren. Yet I wonder about Pat’s dismissive view of Flower Mountain’s chances. My fellow Dudes and Dudettes: If you want to know how the plebs are swayed, go the Forum.
Need directions to the Forum? It ain’t between the Capitoline and the Colosseum. Only the late Neil Postman had seemed to have noticed that in 1980 we had a revolution in communication, one maybe as profound in effect as the Industrial Revolution. Four new media appeared in that year: (1) cable TV (with a hundred-fold in channels), (2) the personal computer, (3) the audio compact disc, and (4) the VCR (personal videotape). Over the next two decades these four combined with older media: photography, the telephone, picture shows (“cinema” to you Yankees), and television. They also morphed themselves – all resulting in Windows, email, the Internet (dial-up and cable), CD-Rom, the satellite dish (with a myriad of channels), High Definition monitors, big-screen TV, flat screen TV, DVDs, et cetera ad infinitum . Throw in that radio in 1989 rose from the grave more glorious (and vainglorious) than ever. And just about the only place one now can escape the flicker of a TV screen – now omnipresent in malls, bars, airports, airplanes, you name it – is the public men’s room (where I have heard radio, which seems to be replacing muzak).
Now throw in the observations of the Japanese sage Taichi Sakaiya (The Knowledge-Value Revolution ) that societies, either because of economic opportunity or necessity, either (i.) consume the material (Classical Greco-Roman, The Renaissance, the 18th and 19th Centuries up to 1870); or (ii.) societies consume information (The ancient Egyptians, Geometric and Archaic Greece, Late Antiquity (i.e. after Septimius Severus) and the Medieval world, the Baroque, and the Occident since 1870, the date Monet changed the world). And in each type, the aesthetic and communicative principal is either mimesis of the material (as in # i.) or the imaginative anti-mimesis, and maybe the slightly cluttered (as in # ii.). Compare the Doryphoros of Polykleitos (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doryphoros) with the Isenheim Altarpiece of Grünewald (http://www.wga.hu) or a stained glass window. Heck, compare black-white Dave Galloway on the Today Show in 1951 to the motley “money honey” Maria Bartiromo on the multicolored cluttered screen of Closing Bell (CNBC) of today.
Throw in that our culture is satiated with the visual (and perhaps jejune in the lingual and auditory), proving St. John Damascene a better prophet than his Byzantine iconoclastic opponents – and not a few of the Islamic, albeit the information-rich Alhambra might prove the rule. Finally throw – or heave – in the repulsive sight of a certain secular and contemporary cultural icon: a woman who has a blasphemous name, is ugly, can’t dance, can’t sing, can’t act, isn’t funny – and is nonetheless a mediated sensation. The judicious Postman: Big Brother doesn’t watch us; we watch him – and that is how we’re controlled.
Now add it all up. Would it be reasonable to conclude that a politico rich in dough, with the right packaging, and with the all the gravitas, substance, and hype of the Hindenburg might carry a few states? Monet’s lily pond comes to Flower Mountain. Again the judicious Postman, who observed how in 1992 some commentators wondered whether the Dimmykrats were wise by choosing two candidates both from the same region -- as if this still meant something in the age of TV. McGovern and Goldwater came before the Revolution of 1980. Perot – a Revolutionary of 1980 if there ever was one – lost votes by his irresolution. And Pat and myself are still antediluvian creatures of the Age of Print. 2008 might be another world.
Another observation. Let’s sink both ships. If Our Ron (Paul) doesn’t make it, let’s have our own Paleolibertarian/Paleoconservative/Populist/Theocon/Catholic Centrum/Man-on-white-horse/High-Tory-Blue/Green/Blanc /Noir party and candidates, and make it at least a 4 way race. Hey, it’s a nice idea, isn’t it?
“Will Bloomberg Swift-Boat Hillary?”
Who cares...
Why not just have Ehud Olmert run?
I just wanted to point out to Big M that Ron Paul didn't give his daughter $200,000 in one lump sum he did it over the course of many years because he was paying her to work for him. Even if it was over three years it would be a salary of under $65,000, a Mid- Level Software Developer Makes more money than that in a year.
As for Bloomberg I think he is a pompous Elitist that has been sheltered from reality too long to realize that most people in New York City aren't Manhattanites with a Several Million Dollar bank roll and a distaste for the Regular working class Joe.
Evan Almighty, your article reminds me of a recent Gaico commercical where the mediator asks the caveman if he has a comment and the caveman resopnds: "Yes, I'd like to respond to that. What???"
A Bloomberg candidacy will definitely harm the anti-conservative vote; bad news for Hillary Clinton if she's running against Thompson, who presents as a populist conservative. A 3-New-Yorker Clinton-Bloomberg-Giuliani race, with no conservative in the running, could still leave things wide open though; Bloomberg could take nearly as many votes from Giuliani as from Clinton.
Bloomberg doesn't really have to make a decision until the party candidates are pretty much decided on - say by March of '08. The dynamics of his candidacy would be much different if the democrats nominate someone besides Hillary and the republicans someone other than Giuliani. Beware what you wish for, Mr. Buchanan.
Will Bloomberg lead ... the Silent Coup!
I doubt your name is Evan Almighty.
You claim to be "1/3" Jew yourself (a Christian convert somehow, along with "god bless" and other phony language), but you bad-mouth Jews collectively at every turn here, thus your "license" is highly suspect.
As for your earlier public "confession" that you are a certified loony who is "happily married to himself (herself
))" (!...), I suppose you should be taken at your word...