A Bloomberg Campaign
May 15th, 2007Forgive the lack of posting yesterday. I had a baseball game. In my only PA (which came about in the most flattering of ways, but I’d rather not get into that) I took the first pitch off the elbow. It was a playoff game, and we lost 13-8 after giving up ten or so unearned runs in the first two innings. That was painful. We were far better than those guys but that’s baseball sometimes.
I browsed about for news today and found this to be the most exciting news I’ve read in months.
New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg is prepared to spend an unprecedented $1 billion of his own $5.5 billion personal fortune for a third-party presidential campaign, personal friends of the mayor tell The Washington Times. “He has set aside $1 billion to go for it,” confided a long-time business adviser to the Republican mayor. “The thinking about where it will come from and do we have it is over, and the answer is yes, we can do it.”
Another personal friend and fellow Republican said in recent days that Mr. Bloomberg, who is a social liberal and fiscal conservative, has “lowered the bar” and upped the ante for a final decision on making a run. The mayor has told close associates he will make a third-party run if he thinks he can influence the national debate and has said he will spend up to $1 billion. Earlier, he told friends he would make a run only if he thought he could win a plurality in a three-way race and would spend $500 million — or less than 10 percent of his personal fortune. A $1 billion campaign budget would wipe out many of the common obstacles faced by third-party candidates seeking the White House.
I’d love it if he ran for President. I’d vote for him, considering the other options currently out there. I will say this, however: he will lose the election, certainly, but whether or not he “fails” will be determined by how much focus he puts on important issues (such as energy independence) that fall through the cracks between the two major parties.