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Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Another three-way race?
NY City mayor Michael Bloomberg, a lifelong Democrat who became a Republican to run for mayor (if I recall, mainly because he felt he couldn't win the Democratic primary) has now dumped the GOP label and declared himself "unaffiliated" which of course leads some to think he is eyeing a presidential run. The linked article quotes some people speculating that his entry into the race would help Republicans and others saying it would help Democrats. Who's right? Hell if I know, but it sure makes things a lot more complicated. The best quote I've heard (prior to the announcement) wondered what it would mean to have a "sane Ross Perot" in the race. My gut reaction is to think he would hurt Democrats partly because I am always a pessimist about these things and partly because it seems to me the states where he would play best are ones that Democrats would traditionally win. And of all the Democrats I think it is worst news for Hillary since I think in a general election she will get more "hold your nose" votes than say Obama or Edwards, and would be likely to lose more of them to Bloomberg.
Of course it is far from clear that he is running. He might be doing it just because he isn't really a Republican (which is sort of true) or to keep himself in the limelight and thus retain a little more pull in the last years of his time as mayor. He might even be setting himself to run for a different office. If Hillary is elected president there's a NY senate seat to fill (tho Bloomberg seems much more of an executive type than a legislator) or maybe even as a VP for the Democrats. But that, too, seems unlikely as I doubt he cares much to be the number two guy in anything. And of course he could never be Hillary's VP anyway since members of the Electoral College can't vote for a Pres and a VP who are both from their home state. Really. It's buried in there in Article II somewhere.
Labels: politics
3 Comments:
And of course he could never be Hillary's VP anyway since members of the Electoral College can't vote for a Pres and a VP who are both from their home state. Really. It's buried in there in Article II somewhere.
Kind of. In Article 2, each elector got 2 votes, and one of those had to be for a candidate from a state other than the elector's own state. The 12th Amendment changed that to this:
The Electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves;
I guess that would only affect the New York electors, but imagine if, in the last two elections, had the winning pair had to give up that many vice-president electoral college votes. I'm too lazy to look up the numbers, but it seems likely that we'd have had Bush/Lieberman and Bush/Edwards.
By 
Joseph Thvedt, at
8:57 AM
Exactly. I don't think the Dems would run the risk of losing all the VP votes from a state as large as NY.
Sad to say but I'm not sure Bush/Leiberman would be all that different from what we have now. Bush/Edwards would at least give us a little breathing room in breaking ties in the Senate. (In fairness Lieberman would not have been as bad as Cheney but he seems to get closer with every passing day. What the hell was up with the vote against the no confidence measure?)
There's a posting on Drudge that Ralph Nader might be considering a run. Now, if Bloomberg and Nader were both in the race, it might get really interesting. The left wing wingnuts would vote for Nader because they would rather be pure than effective, the right wing wingnuts would vote for the Republican nominee because they don't know any better, and the rest of us would have a choice between teh Democratic nominee and Bloomberg. In such a race, my money would be on Bloomberg because most of the middle are fed up with the parties.
btw, there is a blog out there somewhere by someone else calling themselves "therealrepublican." As Jambo knows, I alone am the real Republican.
By 
, at
10:14 AM
