David Mixner Speculates: President Bloomberg?

On his blog David Mixner speculates on a third party run by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg in 2012. It may sound crazy at first blush, but Bloomberg could literally finance 100% of his own campaign and there seems to be more than enough dissatisfaction with the GOP and the Democrats that ANYONE who showed a combination of backbone and sanity might have a shot at winning. I for one am over BOTH of the major parties. A run by Bloomberg would certainly throw a whole new factor into the equation and the Liar-in-Chief might be the one bitten the hardest in the ass (and deservedly so) by a Bloomberg candidacy. David quotes from Bob Shrum's column for "The Week" in which Shrum writes of a potential Mayor Michael Bloomberg candidacy as an independent candidate. Here are highlights from Mixner's post:
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Most political experts and seasoned reporters have failed to grasp the disillusionment with both parties and the desperate desire for a "Third Way." Shrum, a committed Democrat, brilliantly outlines how Mayor Bloomberg, with the right set of circumstances, could end up sitting in the Oval Office. In his article "Bloomberg's Road To The White House", Shrum writes: The quiet, consequential, and largely uncovered story of this campaign is this: An independent challenge for the presidency in 2012 is both probable and viable.
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None of this will be a headline on Election Night 2010, but it could be a harbinger of Election 2012. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has the resources and the increasingly evident ambition to run for president as an independent. The White House knows it — and the incumbent president has been personally courting the mayor with calculated but not necessarily availing care. Meanwhile Doug Schoen, Bloomberg's pollster (and Bill Clinton's in 1996), has written a book titled Declaring Independence, in which he bluntly declares "the beginning of the end of the two-party system." It's clear who he thinks can finish the job.
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Bloomberg could position himself as uniquely equipped to fix a sluggish recovery or respond to a double-dip recession.
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This is the one scenario — and not an unlikely one — in which Bloomberg could actually get elected president. In a three-way race, he could carry states that would otherwise reject him. Despite, for example, his adamant support for gun control, he could win a Pennsylvania, and Ohio, even a Montana with 35 percent or 37 percent of the vote. The Perot campaign had a plausible path to 270 electoral votes until the candidate, stingy and arrogant, vacillated, withdrew, and re-entered. We've seen enough of Bloomberg in the arena to know that if he runs for president, he won't cut and run. He can appeal to business, to suburban Republicans, and even to core Democratic constituencies. One of the country's most influential gay leaders estimates that if Bloomberg is on the ballot, Obama might be left with only 30 percent of the LGBT vote.
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The president will do all he can to avert this scenario — to pump up the economy despite the intransigent GOP, to push off the Republican far right, and to keep Bloomberg far away from the 2012 campaign. But the mayor's already on the practice field. And while politics ain't beanbag, it is bucks — and Bloomberg has at least 16 billion of them. He could spend a billion and not miss it; he'd make more than that in the same year. What does he have to lose? If the independents and insurgents of 2010 are any guide, he just might win.