Is Bloomberg Eyeing A 2008 Third Party Race?
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is meeting with pollsters and consultants to assess his chances at winning the White House as an independent candidate. Political adviser Kevin Sheekey told Newsweek: “There is no Bloomberg campaign. But we have certainly reached out.” Sheekey adds that whether he runs “depends on who the nominees are for the two major parties, and how much cash Bloomberg is willing to spend.”
You’d have to add that to Unity08 and other third parties. The problem with third parties in America — as any political science student knows from PoliSci 101 — is that the U.S. has a “winner take all” system and the deck is stacked against third parties.
Third parties have traditionally presented ideas which are later gobbled up by the major parties. Or they have helped one side win by siphoning off votes. The only third party candidate in recent history who seemed poised to actually have a chance to win was Ross Perot but his chances vanished when he pulled out of the race. By the time he was back in, his Big Mo — and that of a third party that could conceivably win a national election — was gone. A third party means all the pundit and blog conventional wisdom must be recast, taking the impact of a strong third party into mind.
4 Responses to “Is Bloomberg Eyeing A 2008 Third Party Race?”
Not to mention that the bipartisan debate commission has managed to keep out Ross Perot and Ralph Nader from those high profile events. More maintenance of the status quo.
We seriously need a viable third party candidate. Someone that is free from the overwhelming influence of big business.
It isn’t stretching the truth an iota to say that America is held hostage by the two party system. The best cure for this would be the adoption of Instant Runoff Voting. That way we could have an electorate who wasn’t afraid to vote 3rd party for fear their votes would be wasted. To me, that solution would be more in keeping with true democratic principles than our present system.
We seriously need a viable third party candidate. Someone that is free from the overwhelming influence of big business.
You won’t get a viable third party until all campaigns are publically financed and there are caps on how much can be spent on a campaign. Because, until you get that, candidates will need big business contributions to raise the $200+ billion a Presidential campaign costs these days.
Bloomberg should run on these two conditions:
1. He pledges to adopt the National Election Reform Platform that will level the playing field for third party candidates (see http://www.independentamerica.org.
2. He supports 468 candidates for the House and Senate in 2008 to build the grassroots and momentum to actually win.
It does not matter who the other two nominees are, Mike would be the most credible and capable third party candidate in nearly one hundred years. See http://www.draftmichael.com for more.