Chuck Todd thinks we will see a major third-party/independent presidential campaign if Rick Perry is the Republican nominee.
Said Todd: “If Perry’s the nominee, I think there’s going to be be a serious effort of some sort of moderate Republican linking up with a conservative Democrat of trying to run in some sort of like, ‘let’s throw all the bums out — let’s crash the party,’ you know, a la Perot.”
He added: “I just continue to believe that’s what’s coming.”
Of course, there are only a few people wealthy and crazy enough to finance a campaign to get on the ballot in all fifty states. It’s possible that someone who is relatively unknown could decide to blow a huge chunk of their fortune on a quixotic quest for the White House. It happened in 1992 and 1996, and it benefited the Democrat both times.
The most obvious candidate for such a mission is Mayor Bloomberg of New York City. But he doesn’t fit Todd’s profile. I could see someone like Joe Lieberman, who is retiring from the Senate, teaming up with similarly hawkish Republican, but that wouldn’t quite be what Todd’s envisioning, either. And, in any case, mere politicians wouldn’t be able to raise the money needed to get ballot access.
If a ticket did emerge that succeeded in getting on the ballot all across the country, and the candidates were a moderate Republican and a Blue Dog Democrat, it would really hurt the Republicans’ chances. Obama would probably be favored to win in Georgia and maybe even Mississippi, as the white vote would be split three ways, while the black vote would remain mostly unified behind the president.
I don’t see Todd’s prediction coming true, but I do think Perry is unacceptable to a big part of the Republican Establishment, which is what Todd is picking up on and reacting to. A lot of Republicans would prefer a second-term for Obama than the prospect of two-terms from Perry. For some, that’s because they’re focused on 2016, and don’t want to deal with a Republican incumbent that they don’t support. For others, it’s because they’re totally uncomfortable with Perry’s wacky anti-science and weird religious views.
There ought to be more room in the middle for a third candidate, but, Republican rhetoric aside, the president does a good job of reflecting the values of most people in the middle. The Bloomberg Poll that came out today shows that the president’s actual policies poll very well, even if people aren’t too optimistic about them. With very few exceptions, the people prefer the administration’s proposals to the Republicans’. They also like the president better than any other political leader in the country, and by a substantial margin. To me, that indicates that Obama has successfully occupied the middle, leaving little space for the kind of third party challenge that Todd is predicting.
Now, I believe H. Ross Perot ran for president for one reason. He was so pissed at Poppy Bush over the Vietnam POW/MIA issue that he wanted to make sure he lost the presidency. If someone on the right hates Perry as much as Perot hated Poppy, then maybe we’ll see a repeat performance.
