Republicans: fasten your safety belts.
Because New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg — who seems to be tip-toeing into the 2008 Presidential campaign waters — could indeed pull a Ross Perot and be a deciding factor as an independent candidate…and Democrats would likely benefit. Look at this poll:
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg — who left the Republican Party last week — could have a serious impact on the 2008 presidential race, rivaling billionaire Ross Perot’s influence in 1992, a new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll suggests.
In the new poll’s three-way matchups among registered voters, Democratic frontrunner Sen. Hillary Clinton would hold a slight edge in an all-New York race with 41 percent, compared to Republican frontrunner Rudy Giuliani’s 38 percent and Bloomberg’s 17.
In a two-way matchup, Clinton and Giuliani are effectively tied, 49-48 percent, with a sampling error of 3.5 percentage points.
In a race pitting Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, against Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, and Bloomberg, Obama drew 40 percent; McCain, 34 percent; and Bloomberg, 21. Without the New York mayor, Obama would edge McCain 48-44 percent, according to the poll.
The poll showed a possible Giuliani-Obama race a statistical dead heat, with Giuliani at 48 percent and Obama at 46 percent. But Obama led Fred Thompson by a wide margin, 52 percent to 40 percent, the survey found.
So is there an authenic “market” for an independent candidate (versus a craving for one)? The poll says yes — but not as much as in 1992:
About a third of Americans — 33 percent — said they would be very or fairly likely to consider voting for an independent presidential candidate. That is considerably less than in June 1992, when 47 percent said they were likely to consider an independent. Ross Perot ended up taking 19 percent of the popular vote with an independent bid that year.
So Bloomberg could hurt the Republicans.
But what were those news stories about a guy named Ralph Nader (who would hurt the Democrats) who’s also thinking of jumping into the race?
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.