Third-party mischief
I see that two well-known figures are thinking of running as third-party candidates for President in 2008. One, Ralph Nader, is both pathetic and dangerous. The other, Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City, is more in the Ross Perot mold: skilled, wealthy, focused, and a political moderate. And even more dangerous.
Both could do serious damage to the Democratic candidate in 2008, Bloomberg far more than Nader. I don't think the 2008 election will be close enough for Nader to deliver another mortal wound to America like he did in Florida in 2000. As you may recall, in that fateful election he drew enough Democratic votes to cost Gore the state and the election, giving us eight years of George W. Bush, the Iraq War, the Supreme Court appointments, and, like auctioneers in my home state of Michigan used to say in their flyers, "other items too numerous to mention."
Nader, at 73, is a lunatic. One is tempted to call him the Harold Stassen of his day, after the Minnesotan who ran repeatedly for President in the 1950s and 1960s and became a harmless joke. Stassen, at least, didn't do any harm. Nader could have retired 20 years ago with the laurels of liberal history secure upon his head, but instead he couldn't let the attention go. He still argues there was no difference between Gore and Bush in 2000, a delusional belief even in 2000.
Bloomberg, on the other hand, has been highly successful as the founder of Bloomberg News and as Mayor of New York. He is a former Democrat who turned Republican so he could bypass the fractious Democratic primary in the nation's largest city. Many Democrats and even more Republicans would vote for him. He has a personal fortune of around $5 billion and is willing to spend what it takes, just like Perot did. Arguably, Bloomberg would be a good president--as a Democrat.
But this week he left the Republican Party and became an independent. His staff supposedly has been studying the mechanics of an independent bid for the past two years. But both he and his staff are torn over whether he should run as an independent and possibly create the only chance the Republicans have to retain the White House and prolong the Bush misery in surrogate form for four more years. He could draw enough votes to do something similar to what Perot did: destroy the first George Bush's chances for re-election in 1992. Bill Clinton won that election and ushered in 8 great years in the economy.
Bloomberg is 65 and probably knows in his heart that it's this year or never. I hope he resists that temptation for the good of America, or else runs as a Democrat. The nation cannot survive another 4 years of the Bush madness.