The Occasional Observer

If you find it surprising that, amidst the campaign din in Iowa reaching fever pitch, I've been laying back on the posting, allow me to explain. Everything that has happened over the past couple of weeks, and is happening now, is merely an amplification of storylines that I've been discussing for a year now. While the Bhutto assassination has major repercussions on the international stage, the reactions from the candidates and the way those reactions have been framed by the MSM have been a big yawner. From McCain's, "see, you need me"; to Mitt's "a CEO and governor make important decisions too, and foreign policy is no different than any other decision making process"; to Edwards's "Run, Forest, Run!"; there's not much new here.

That said, Broder has a story up in the WaPo today that could be a race-changer. I say it's semi-new because the possibility of a Bloomberg independent bid is old news. The coalition of names he's assembling for this "moderates convention" is new news and big news.

We knew of the Bloomberg-Hagel connection from last summer, when Chuck teased us with the phrase, "who'd have thought it--a Nebraska country-boy and a New York city-boy?", if I may paraphrase from memory. But the list of names continues to expand: Sam Nunn, probably the most electable of the group, from a Presidential perspective. Chuck Robb, Gary Hart, John Danforth, and Christie Todd Whitman are pretty big names as well. Where are the Concord coalition folks? You'd almost expect to see Warren Rudman and Bob Kerrey in on this effort as well (oh yeah, Bob sold out his convictions to shill for the Shrill).

Needless to say, these experienced old hands are playing their cards just right. They're not assembling to start a 3rd party bid, they say. Rather, they want to help the parties get "refocused":

"...if we don't see a refocusing of the campaign on a bipartisan approach, I would feel I would want to encourage an independent candidacy."

As I said, there are some big names in this group, and Bloomberg may have smartly determined he'd get a better ROI for his campaign dollar funding a Nunn-Hagel or Hagel-Robb ticket than he would running himself.

From the POV of the GOP, this creates a ton of new possibilities. We can assume that McCain is the only likely GOP candidate who would meet the "bipartisan approach" metric (think G14) these moderates are looking for. Any other candidate would probably cause them to blanch (Rudy is too "take-it-or-leave-it"; Mitt, Fred, and Huck too caught up in "divisive" socially conservative policy).

The bigger question is, who does the 3rd party candidacy help, and who does it hurt? After the '92 election, Republicans have such a bad taste in their mouths for a 3rd party candidacy that many assume it helps the Dems. Kavon Nikrad has argued voicferously that a Bloomberg candidacy would help the GOP, as he is a liberal on virtually every level (other than the fact that people have preconceived notions about how to define a billionaire's ideology).

Nunn and Hagel change the calculation entirely. If Bloomberg's real goal is to defeat the GOP (as I speculated over the summer), and he's willing to invest $100 million or so in that effort, bankrolling either of those two would virtually ensure it. Nunn would split away plenty of culturally conservative Southerners from the GOP, states that the Republican party can't lose and still win the election. Hagel's a die hard pro-lifer, and despite his libertarian domestic agenda and multi-lateralist foreign policy approach, he would also siphon off plenty of GOP votes. Keep in mind his ACU rating is in the same area as the John McCains and Fred Thompsons of the world.

Where's this all heading? For my peace of mind, nowhere good. After years of frustration that the GOP selected a mediocrity for President, I swore I'd support excellence over rigid ideological purity. That led me to Romney (where I got both, thanks to his idelogical contortions). Based on resume and history, I still think Mitt will make the best President of any candidate on the GOP side. In my heart, though, Huckabee and his agenda is the most inspiring to me. But I have to grudgingly admit that my mind is telling me that McCain is becoming the best option for winning the general election. He stands the best chance of uniting the party, and still drawing enough independent voters to win. The head-to-head polling at RCP certainly bolsters that premise. And while I was skeptical of that polling 3 months ago, I think it's starting to become valid now. There's a been a lot of MSM coverage and the public's perception of these candidates is starting to harden.

So, I keep wondering, could I pull the lever for the guy who I think is the best positioned to win in the general, versus the guy who I think is the most capable for the job, or the guy who says the most things I agree with (and still stands a chance of winning the nomination)?

Luckily, voters in IA, NH, SC and FL will have to do the hard work first. Before I'm put to the test, they get to fashion the landscape. Thank goodness.