The competition to occupy the White House just got more interesting. The Telegraph, UK reports:
Bloomberg’s secret White House bid- A third Party candidate?
“He wants to do this, he thinks he could win it and he thinks he could be a great president,” said a source closely connected to Mr Bloomberg’s inner circle.
“Mike Bloomberg has got $500 million to spend and he is supremely confident.”
The Daily Telegraph has established that a senior aide to Mr Bloomberg has held three lunch meetings, two of them last month, with officials from the Independence Party during which there were detailed discussions of how a third-party bid could be launched…[.]
Earlier this year in an interview with Fortune magazine, Mr Bloomberg talked about his future saying “assuming I’m not living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue” – the address of the White House.
Mr Bloomberg is understood to be waiting until next February to see who will emerge as the Republican and Democratic nominees before making a final decision.”The mayor thinks the speculation is very flattering but he’s not running for president. His next career will be as a full-time philanthropist.”[.]
Stu Loeser, Mr Bloomberg’s spokesman, confirmed that meetings with the Independence Party took place but said that they were about the general issue of how a third-party presidential candidate could compete in 2008.
He added: “People read presidential motives into a lot of what he’s doing. But the speculation is good for him and it’s very good for the city. It’s an advantage that he’s more than happy to exploit.”
But a political operative who has spoken to senior Bloomberg aides said: “This is as dead serious as a heart attack. If they are not serious, then these people are the greatest actors, the best showmen I’ve ever seen.
“They are talking minutiae. They’ve done tons of research and looked into this very deeply.”
A Bloomberg run opens a whole lot of zeros for the current crop of GOP presidential wannabees. And, as the article points out, Hillary’s dreams would be diminished – competition for New York votes and money.
Will he or won’t he? And why not under the GOP banner? Mr. Bloomberg was once a Dem and is most likely disgusted at what the Grand Old Party has become. What self respecting gentleman would not distance himself from the Bush banner. I’m just asking.
What say you?
I’m in Al Gore’s camp but it does not appear that all the arm twisting is going to get him to run AND certainly not if Bloomberg declares in February ’08.
Imho, all the candidates who have so far declared are setting themselves up for election fatigue and in danger of peeking too early.
Mr. Bloomberg could be quite a challenge, perception wise out the gate so to speak, before all the dirty laundry gets washed in the public square.
could be true, but the UK Telegraph is about as accurate as the New York Sun, and run by the same crowd.
I read that “watch Bloomberg run” somewhere else about a month ago (can’t locate at the mo) and 3 months before that also heard the potential for a Bloomberg run aired on a radio program. May all be part of ‘a float a trial balloon.’
is not an extremely reliable source, imo, as it has pretty much proven itself to be the voice of the far right…neocon’s if you wish…often floating issues “over there” so that they may be picked up by the msm over here…”as reliable sources at….[fill in the blank]…
that being said, and also being a Gore camper,
l am not overly optimistic that he will enter the race, btw, but remain hopeful.
l do not see how Bloomberg’s decision would affect his decision to run. what leads you to come to that conclusion?
lTMF’sA
“l do not see how Bloomberg’s decision would affect his decision to run. what leads you to come to that conclusion?”
Nothing empirical. just a personal gut feel that a Bloomberg announce would affect Gore weighing a run. And while I would love to see Gore run, why would he want to clean up the deep stinking dung left by the guy he defeated way back in – um year 2000.
The economy will be in the pits. The recession has begun, it will not be a ‘soft landing” and we’ll still be hunkered down in Iraq. And allow me again to write, Imho Hillary’s campaign will collapse. It’s now at stall.
my gut tells me that he’s [gore] watching and waiting, assaying the field, as their fortunes rise and fall. it doesn’t cost him anything, he’s still in the unofficial netroots polls, and doing very well. tack a Nobel Peace Prize on top of his notoriety from An Inconvenient Truth and a third party challenge…my $ says he runs and wins….again.
wishful thinking? certainly.
if anything, bloomberg’s introduction, into an already crowed field, would, imnsho, be to his advantage. third parties, historically, have had very little demonstrable success except in tilting the playing field.
as to hillary….l sincerely hope she doesn’t get the nomination. l, personally, would find that a very hard pill to swallow and will not work toward that end. however, if she’s the candidate, so be it….nuff said.
my2¢
lTMF’sA
your heart is in the sweet zone.
Look, this is a guy who is worth more than the state of West Virginia. He’s a republican. He is running to make the US safe for capital gains taxes and the estate tax.
A Bloomberg run is an UNMITIGATED GOOD for the Democratic Party. He can be spun into the most plutocratical of all plutocrats. He cuts against all Repukeliscum.
It takes money. Dunno if you heard. Candidates are expected to spend over $1 billion in the ’08 Presidential campaign. (Btw, I wrote Mr. Bloomberg was once a Democrat).
Mr. Bloomberg could siphon a good chunk of votes from Independents and attract Dems and GOPs who are disgusted with their party.
See the AP-Ipsos Poll:
“People think the Democratic-led Congress is doing just as dreary a job as President Bush, following four months of bitter political standoffs that have seen little progress on Iraq and a host of domestic issues.
In another measure of popular discontent, the survey found that 71 percent say the country is on the wrong track about even with the 73 percent who said so last May, the worst level since the AP-Ipsos poll began in December 2003.
People are not impressed. A Bloomberg third party candidacy will not be another Ralph Nader run. That said, he does have some hurdles. Is the country ready?
What is scarier…a candidate that is beholden to his contributors or a candidate that has his own fortune to spend in trying to win the big office? The answer is less obvious than it appears.