The Occasional Observer

Everyone seems pretty convinced Bloomberg's planning an independent run, and with good reason. He can bankroll his entire campaign. He had little reason other than a planned run to leave the GOP. And Drudge had a story up saying he's had staffers planning the campaign for the past two years. Still....

George Will made the point on This Week today that Bloomberg has said he'll only run if he has a chance to win--and hence he won't run. Will is dead right, of course. Even if Bloomberg managed to win a few states and deny an outright win to the Dem or GOP candidate, there is no possibility for him to win an electoral majority on election night. An election tossed to the House would, by definition, be tossed to the two national parties and one of their candidates. Which is why I figure he's not running to win. So why the move to (I) status?

A couple of blind guess scenarios, the first mentioned, again, on This Week:

(1) Bloomberg wants to play king maker by tossing any electoral votes he wins to the eventual winner.

(2) Bloomberg will run, but not to win. Just to alter the outcome. He will spend a half-a-billion dollars in ad money running hard to the right (on his fiscal record and business background) in order to siphon GOP votes, if he feels the ultimate Dem candidate would make a better President than the Republican. Or conversely, he could run hard to the left on his liberal social track record to siphon Dem votes if he feels the GOP candidate is worthy of support. Would someone sink $.5 Bil into a run just to mess with the system, you may ask? Do you know the typical ego of a Wall Street tycoon?

(3) Bloomberg is not planning on running at all, but is planning to be a Veep, or merely the Sugar Daddy, for someone else's 3rd party run. After Hagel's appearance on Face the Nation in May, Chuck would seem to be a prime candidate to get Bloomy's backing. Same libertarianism on social policy, same willingness to abandon loyalty to the party for priniciple/personal ambition (I'll leave that determination to you), same stated desire for spending restraint (although in practice Hagel is much better on tax and spending the policy than Bloomy has been), same "pragmatic" approach to foreign policy.