Comment from I.B.Lever
Time: December 31, 2007, 10:33 am

And a legacy from our past preformances ……

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcJohfS4vTQ&NR=1

Comment from Sasha
Time: December 31, 2007, 11:33 am

I am struggling not to comment on the quality of the likely third party candidate. Meanwhile tell us what you think such a candidate might stand for. (I, like Mr. Krugman, think the middle road neither possible nor desirable.)

Comment from bdr
Time: December 31, 2007, 12:19 pm

Any third party candidate whose rationale for running is that the sex today is too loud and sloppy can go fuck himself. Loudly.

Comment from Josh Hammond
Time: December 31, 2007, 1:29 pm

What’s the saying? If we continue doing what we are doing we will continue to get what we got. A third-party run like the link suggests (also the subject of my post months ago and most recently John McCreey’s) would change the dynamic, for starters. Assuming a core base of about 30 percent or so for each potty, that puts about 60 percent or so of the electorate in play for some serious candidates, not angry like Ross Perot, but someone who has been elected and has a track record.

The issue of this election has less to do with what candidates promise and more with how they would govern. The except is that the Pugs would nominate more Nazis to the Supreme Court. So a third-party candidate offers a third-way to govern: that is worth the experiment.

Krugman needs to stick to economics and stop sucking up to Hillary.

Comment from Sasha
Time: December 31, 2007, 2:12 pm

I have read every single third party argument and I can’t find a hint of reality in any of them. Your numbers aren’t remotely realistic. And what sort of platform will Mr. Bloomberg run on? I don’t get it.

Comment from jabartlett
Time: December 31, 2007, 2:25 pm

Today, the mighty Greenwald catalogs Michael Bloomberg’s affinity for the neocon project, Bush, Iraq, and the war on terror generally. We need him again why?

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald

Comment from Sasha
Time: December 31, 2007, 4:20 pm

Time for a really short president?

Comment from Josh Hammond
Time: December 31, 2007, 4:45 pm

Look, I’m not a Bloomberg fan, but I am a big, big fan of shaking up the two potty system, because as George Wallace used to say, there isn’t a dollar’s worth of difference between them. (He said a “dime” but I have adjusted it for inflation).

I’m also looking for an alternative to voting for Hillary, and I suspect that I am not the only registered Democat who is doing that.

A Democrat turned Republican turned Independent, with independent funding, as Bloomberg is, isn’t a bad option, reserving the right to change my mind upon further examination of his stand on the issues that matter to me, such as Social Security, medical research, torture, separation of powers, energy, healthcare reform, appointmentss to the Supreme Court, etc. As a practical matter, his stands on current Bush stuff speaks more to the need for the city to keep the funnel for funding open from Washington–the primary reason he was elected the first time around with the support of a lot, a lot of Democrats. My guess is that like Hillary and the others, his positions will slip and slide a little when the constituencies are broader. Keep in mind that Kerry and Romney have made it popular to be for something before you are against it, so my guess is his stand on the issues will not be THE determining factor. The election will be about other matters. Besides, since when were elections more about issues than personalities?

And I don’t think my numbers are too far off, or as you have characterized them, Sasha, without posting some of your own. Although they were a top of the head numbers, a closer recall suggests that at the outset, Republicans start with a hard core of about 30 percent, 35 percent max, in national elections. A Democrat starts with about 35, maybe 40, a number that has been slipping every four years or so. Remember that Clinton got 43 percent of the vote and George Bush got 37 percent in 1992.

The numbers come closer together as the election nears, with 10 percent of mostly Independent voters waiting until the last couple of weeks to make up their mind, a vote that is usually cast on “likeablity” rather than issues. A third-party argument, well-funded as the Bloomberg scenario suggests, could make a big difference to these holdouts. (My guess is that Ross Perot didn’t do better than his 19 percent because he was not considered “viable” and he was a little kooky for starters.)

So I will modify my comment above and suggest that at least 30 percent, not 40 percent of the vote is up for grabs. A viable candidate, with an electrifying case for a third-party election, could grab 38 or 39 percent of the vote and win the whole thing.

Finally, we know that the Republicans vote in a more disciplined way than the Democrats (i.e., 2004). The disquiet now is with the Harry Reid wing of the Democratic Party and the failure of the Democrats to deliver on their 2006 promises. I believe that the Democrats are more likely to be attracted to a third-party than the Republicans, thereby making it a close three-way race.

Now let’s turn this around and one of you make the case for the status quo, two-party system.

Comment from Sasha
Time: December 31, 2007, 6:04 pm

I will make an argument for a two party system in a hopefully thought-out post. But for now you have made an excellent argument that the only possible impact of a third party candidate is to increase the probability that a Republican will be elected president. I don’t care for that outcome.

Also how is there a dime’s worth of difference between any major party candidate and Mr. Bloomberg? He is just another corporatist, somewhere between a “liberal” republican and a DLC democrat. It seems like a distinction without a difference to me.

Comment from Josh Hammond
Time: December 31, 2007, 7:27 pm

I’m not advocating a third-party run so that a Pug can win: in fact, the last time there was a serious third-party candidate, a Democrat won–and he only won because Ross Perot ran. No Ross Perot, no Bill Clinton, no Hillary Clinton. It would be an irony if Hillary could only win if a third-party candiate ran?!

The difference between Bloomberg and the two candidates from the status quo parties is not necessarily on issues but on philosophy of governing and structure–the current, and foreseeable obstacles to getting anything substantive done in Washington.

If the Democrats loose control of the Senate, it will be reverse or revenge gridlock. Only a third-party candidate, such as Bloomberg, could get the two parties together. The cabinet would be stocked with Independents and a healthy mix of both parties, not a token Dumbo or token Pug. The tone of government would be different: that is a no small difference. I also think that Bloomberg has demonstrated that his appointments are based on competence, not patronage: this is critical for the operations of the executive branch of government and restoring credibility in government.

Of course, Joe Lieberman is making the case that ONLY John McCain can bring the parties together. McCain certainly has a better chance than Hillary, but then you have a Pug as president again, and his social agenda is not any different than Huckabee’s, Romney’s or Bush’s. And John loves to war.

Speaking of the DLC, Hillary is a card-carrying member! Only Obama represents a change in tone and style of governing on the Democratic side.

Comment from Sasha
Time: December 31, 2007, 9:29 pm

Please don’t make me defend Hillary. I know perfectly well that she and Bill dragged the party way to the right. I would certainly vote for her before, say, Huckabee but it wouldn’t be a happy choice. I do, however, have a great deal more confidence in her Supreme Court appointments.

Bloomberg can’t stock a cabinet with independents because there really aren’t any. Leiberman? Seriously. If a third party is going to be taken seriously there has to be an infrastructure.

Comment from timr
Time: January 1, 2008, 10:52 am

Other than being the NYC mayor, and known in the NE, who in the rest of the country(the good old flyover country), either knows or cares at all for a rich short east coast (?) nobody in the (rest of the country) knows anything about him, it looks to me that only the washington punditocracy, and possibly the NYT are attempting to push this. Josh, I have no idea where your numbers come from, but I really doubt that other than the NE there is no push at all for a third potty candidate. The rethugs might not be really happy with their choices, but to go to Bloomberg? Come on, the pigs are racist, only a totally whitebread candidate will satisfy them, and if Obama gets the nod, the fire and brimstone of overt racism will erupt(remember the black candidate for sen in 06-maybe Tn?- and the ad that really pushed on the fears of the white southern repigs?) well that would only be the begining. Even Hill will not stir up the repig base like Obama will, dispite what all the pig pundits are saying now, racism will be in almost every venue, wrapped in sanctimony and poor mouthing, in every way(with the MSM running behind with their tongues hanging out, eager to destroy an uppity black). A jew would be almost as bad, the only reason that joe-I ct-is being pushed as a good guy by the repigs is that he is/was a dem, if he was to suddenly return to the dem fold, then he would lose all his pig “friends”. No, Bloomberg doesn’t have a chance. I think that he would get less than 10% of the vote-kind of like what Nader did, and maybe push the election to the repigs. No matter what you might think, the country-at least the flyover part-is still pretty equally divided. Those who are dems and have been elected in the red states, I think, have less to do with that area turning dem than they do with either the repig being corrupt, or the dem being liked dispite his party. Lots of people in Texas still vote a straight party ticket, its easier and you don’t have to think or learn anything about what they(candidates) will do.I think that almost any repig will win in DeLays district in 08, and that even my rep, Ciro Rodriguez(d) district will return to being a repig district. Those 2 won only because of court rulings, and it looks like they will return to the fold in 08