The LAT has a piece on NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s phantom third party run for the White House entitled Bloomberg remains on the fence with the subtitle “New York’s mayor keeps insisting that he will not run for president. Why do so many people not believe him?”
The answer to that question is pretty easy: there is an undying love for the romantic third party run scenario and the media in particular are looking for something to write about during campaign season.
While I am wholly sympathetic to the notion that it would be desirable to have more viable parties in the US, the notion that Michael Bloomberg is going to usher in a new party era in the US, let alone be anything other than the latest in a long line of minor third party candidates, is sheer fantasy.
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January 7th, 2008 at 9:07 am
Bloomberg excites me as much as a liver and onions.
January 7th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
A larger number of viable parties, yes.
A party with a mythical convergence between the two big parties, no.
Look at who is in this conference in Oklahoma–a coterie of former elected politicians from each party, who long for the “good old days” when policy did not divide the parties (much).
Those days are gone forever, most likely. And good riddance.
Now, I still want my greater variety of policy choices, through more viable parties.
January 7th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
Yes, this fantasy about the centrist/nonpartisan/transcendent third party figure is rather old and worn out.
It isn’t like Bloomberg represents a new alternative.