In the glory days of Time Inc, an editor who didn't get a promotion he had been expecting sent Henry Luce a wire: "Why did you keep me standing on my tippy toes if you didn't intend to kiss me?"
Voters may be feeling that way about Mike Bloomberg. After a year of flirting with us, and as the possible nominees in both parties look less desirable all the time, will Gotham's Prince Charming ever make his move?
Now there are hints he could pop the question, or not, right after Super Tuesday, February 5th, when more than 20 primaries provide some idea of who the Democratic and Republican candidates will be. "If the parties nominate polarizing candidates," a leading pollster says, "then there's plenty of room"
Meanwhile, Mayor Mike has been busy traveling to China to talk about entrepreneurship and Bali to discuss climate change while observing that the next president should “go around the world, make sure that people understand that we are willing to listen--and actually listen.”
While polishing his foreign-policy credentials, Bloomberg has been working hard to remind potential voters of his environmental and other quality-of-life improvements in New York.
Along with all this, the non-candidate has been reaching out to consultants and ad people from his past campaigns for a possible run while a "Unite for Mike" web site keeps supporters abreast of all the Bloomberg buzz, including a weekend dinner with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, "amid hints that he has been trying to find a way for the Austrian-born governor to run as his vice president."
No Ross Perot, if he decides to go for it, Bloomberg will spend a billion dollars only if he sees a way to win enough electoral votes to take the prize, and enthusiasts are working on a map to show he can do it.
But like Miss Adelaide in "Guys and Dolls," we have heard these songs before. Will our bachelor billionaire ever stop playing Nathan Detroit, get down on a knee and ask us to be his?
Valentine's Day might be a good time.
Showing posts with label Ross Perot. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ross Perot. Show all posts
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Monday, December 17, 2007
Ron Paul Money Bombs
In 2004, Howard Dean was an Internet meteor flashing briefly across the political sky. Ron Paul is beginning to look like a new planet.
Yesterday his supporters broke their own record by raising $6 million to celebrate the 234th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party. Last month, on Guy Fawkes Day, they collected $4.3 million in 24 hours.
What's going on here? Howard Dean was a spontaneous expression of Americans turning against the war in Iraq. Ron Paul is an uprising against everything government does, prompting an explosion of money on the anniversaries of dumping ships' cargoes and trying to blow up legislative bodies.
Chief fundraiser for the Paul insurrection is a college dropout who subsists on junk food and has never voted but was so distressed by the Democratic Congress' failure to get US troops out of Iraq that he has put his digital know-how into backing the only Republican who wants to do it.
"I know my tax dollars are being used to kill people," Trevor Lyman says. "It makes me feel horrible."
As Ron Paul goes his eccentric libertarian way, there is no knowing what he will do with the money, aside from running commercials that may lift his Presidential candidacy into low double digits in some primaries.
What's clear is that the intensity of anger with the status quo this season is rising above Nader and Perot levels. Throwing money at Ron Paul is a more benign expression than heaving casks of tea or bombs, but where do the 21st century revolutionaries go from there?
Yesterday his supporters broke their own record by raising $6 million to celebrate the 234th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party. Last month, on Guy Fawkes Day, they collected $4.3 million in 24 hours.
What's going on here? Howard Dean was a spontaneous expression of Americans turning against the war in Iraq. Ron Paul is an uprising against everything government does, prompting an explosion of money on the anniversaries of dumping ships' cargoes and trying to blow up legislative bodies.
Chief fundraiser for the Paul insurrection is a college dropout who subsists on junk food and has never voted but was so distressed by the Democratic Congress' failure to get US troops out of Iraq that he has put his digital know-how into backing the only Republican who wants to do it.
"I know my tax dollars are being used to kill people," Trevor Lyman says. "It makes me feel horrible."
As Ron Paul goes his eccentric libertarian way, there is no knowing what he will do with the money, aside from running commercials that may lift his Presidential candidacy into low double digits in some primaries.
What's clear is that the intensity of anger with the status quo this season is rising above Nader and Perot levels. Throwing money at Ron Paul is a more benign expression than heaving casks of tea or bombs, but where do the 21st century revolutionaries go from there?
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
Ron Paul and Ross Perot
There is an eerie déjà vu to the sight of another Texan with the same initials crossing a Clinton's path to the White House as Ross Perot did in 1992.
News that Ron Paul raised more than $4million on the Internet the other day recalls Perot's surge in the polls back then, at one point running ahead of both the first George Bush and Bill Clinton.
Perot's erratic on-again off-again campaign as an Independent faltered but still drew over 19 million votes, reflecting unhappiness with the two major parties and politics as usual.
Four Presidential elections later, after Clinton and another Bush in the Oval Office, that disaffection has led to the odd sight of another maverick Texan drawing support, this time in the race for the Republican nomination.
Paul's surge reflects a mixed bag of discontent--with the plastic Republican front runners and their failure to call for getting out of Iraq, as he does; with politicians of both parties who hem, haw and hedge about issues, as he does not; with the linear nature of political discourse, which Paul's digital supporters have rejected and imaginatively left behind and, according to some, distorted.
All this makes good political theater to enliven the long, boring slog of an overheated campaign, but older observers may be put off by Paul's oversimplifications and nostalgia for an America-that-never was and troubled by his roots in the conspiracy theories of the John Birch Society.
Perot turned out to be an egotistical clown without staying power, but Ron Paul has been around for a long time and is not likely to fade away. It's time to stop finding him refreshing and take a closer look at what he is really offering.
News that Ron Paul raised more than $4million on the Internet the other day recalls Perot's surge in the polls back then, at one point running ahead of both the first George Bush and Bill Clinton.
Perot's erratic on-again off-again campaign as an Independent faltered but still drew over 19 million votes, reflecting unhappiness with the two major parties and politics as usual.
Four Presidential elections later, after Clinton and another Bush in the Oval Office, that disaffection has led to the odd sight of another maverick Texan drawing support, this time in the race for the Republican nomination.
Paul's surge reflects a mixed bag of discontent--with the plastic Republican front runners and their failure to call for getting out of Iraq, as he does; with politicians of both parties who hem, haw and hedge about issues, as he does not; with the linear nature of political discourse, which Paul's digital supporters have rejected and imaginatively left behind and, according to some, distorted.
All this makes good political theater to enliven the long, boring slog of an overheated campaign, but older observers may be put off by Paul's oversimplifications and nostalgia for an America-that-never was and troubled by his roots in the conspiracy theories of the John Birch Society.
Perot turned out to be an egotistical clown without staying power, but Ron Paul has been around for a long time and is not likely to fade away. It's time to stop finding him refreshing and take a closer look at what he is really offering.
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Bloomberg's Best Bet: Run as a Democrat
This weekend’s TV talkathon has been about New York’s Mayor leaving the Republican Party to run for President as an Independent. But as this politically dissonant year goes on, it may make more sense for Mike Bloomberg to go for the Democratic nomination.
Anyone willing to spend half a billion dollars on a campaign, as Bloomberg is, should not be eager to put a sizable portion of it into creating an organization and getting on the ballot in every state.
A lifelong Democrat, Bloomberg became a Republican for tactical reasons in 2001 to run for Mayor. Now he has changed his registration to “unaffiliated.”
For the past six years, the Mayor has been a Republican in name only. A leading Democratic political consultant said about him this week: “If you closed your eyes and you were told that someone was pro-public education, pro-choice, pro-immigration rights, pro-gun control, pro-civil rights, pro-gay rights and pro-women’s rights--you would be pretty happy if you were a Democrat.”
When that candidate has been called America’s “leading centrist” by George Will and potentially “the most efficient President” by media baron and fellow billionaire Rupert Murdoch, visions of a political realignment began to seem possible: the Democratic center freed from the stigma of “special interests” coupled with traditional pre-Bush Republicans who want to take back their party from the radical right allied with voters so disgusted with both parties that they call themselves Independent.
Two big but not insurmountable obstacles to the Democratic nomination are Hillary Clinton and the war in Iraq, and it may be their nexus that could open the door for Bloomberg.
She is still struggling to overcome her 2002 vote, seen by anti-war Democrats as a huge albatross. As Mayor of the nation’s most vulnerable city, Bloomberg has been less than ardent in supporting our involvement in Iraq and has begun to back away from it.
Two weeks ago, he told Google employees that America “is really in trouble.” “There’s the war, there is our relationships around the world,” Bloomberg said. “Our reputation has been hurt very badly in the last few years” and he criticized a “go-it-alone mentality” in an increasingly interconnected world.
Despite all the money and organization behind her, Hillary Clinton’s negatives will not disappear and, from here to November ’08, Democrats will be worrying about the Republicans’ glee at the prospect of running against her, no matter who they nominate.
Bloomberg’s lack of passion and charisma may be less than fatal to his chances for the Democratic nomination. Bill Clinton almost put the 1988 convention to sleep with his boring oratory before remaking himself as the anti-Bush four years later.
Hillary may be too late, Obama too early and John Edwards too insubstantial for ’08. Al Gore, who seems to have lost his taste for elective politics, might find Bloomberg more palatable than any of them in both substance and temperament to stand in for what he stands for.
Behind the scenes, the Mayor has kept his ties to the Democratic Leadership Council and other power centers of the party. If he doesn’t wait too long, he could get into that game and rake in all the chips.
If he can create something that passes for unity in his once-and-future party, Bloomberg would be in good shape for a head-to-head confrontation with Giuliani’s volatility, Romney’s emptiness (his Mormon faith might be more of an issue than the Mayor’s Jewish background) or Fred Thompson’s lack of experience in managing a corner grocery store, let alone the largest bureaucracy in the world.
To run as an Independent, Bloomberg would have to depend on support from the likes of Unity08, which is planning online voting to pick their candidate, not too promising for someone who wants to win not to run a feel-good campaign like Ralph Nader or Ross Perot.
There is precedent for party-switching by New York Mayors. John Lindsay was elected as a Republican in 1965, turned Democrat in 1971 and ran for President in his new party’s primaries a year later. He failed, but Bloomberg has much more going for him.
Last month, while being honored as one of Time’s 100 most influential people, the Mayor paid warm tribute to Red Auerbach, the legendary coach of the Boston Celtics, for knowing how to win with honest effort and without “trash talk.”
He was obviously thinking about more than basketball.
Anyone willing to spend half a billion dollars on a campaign, as Bloomberg is, should not be eager to put a sizable portion of it into creating an organization and getting on the ballot in every state.
A lifelong Democrat, Bloomberg became a Republican for tactical reasons in 2001 to run for Mayor. Now he has changed his registration to “unaffiliated.”
For the past six years, the Mayor has been a Republican in name only. A leading Democratic political consultant said about him this week: “If you closed your eyes and you were told that someone was pro-public education, pro-choice, pro-immigration rights, pro-gun control, pro-civil rights, pro-gay rights and pro-women’s rights--you would be pretty happy if you were a Democrat.”
When that candidate has been called America’s “leading centrist” by George Will and potentially “the most efficient President” by media baron and fellow billionaire Rupert Murdoch, visions of a political realignment began to seem possible: the Democratic center freed from the stigma of “special interests” coupled with traditional pre-Bush Republicans who want to take back their party from the radical right allied with voters so disgusted with both parties that they call themselves Independent.
Two big but not insurmountable obstacles to the Democratic nomination are Hillary Clinton and the war in Iraq, and it may be their nexus that could open the door for Bloomberg.
She is still struggling to overcome her 2002 vote, seen by anti-war Democrats as a huge albatross. As Mayor of the nation’s most vulnerable city, Bloomberg has been less than ardent in supporting our involvement in Iraq and has begun to back away from it.
Two weeks ago, he told Google employees that America “is really in trouble.” “There’s the war, there is our relationships around the world,” Bloomberg said. “Our reputation has been hurt very badly in the last few years” and he criticized a “go-it-alone mentality” in an increasingly interconnected world.
Despite all the money and organization behind her, Hillary Clinton’s negatives will not disappear and, from here to November ’08, Democrats will be worrying about the Republicans’ glee at the prospect of running against her, no matter who they nominate.
Bloomberg’s lack of passion and charisma may be less than fatal to his chances for the Democratic nomination. Bill Clinton almost put the 1988 convention to sleep with his boring oratory before remaking himself as the anti-Bush four years later.
Hillary may be too late, Obama too early and John Edwards too insubstantial for ’08. Al Gore, who seems to have lost his taste for elective politics, might find Bloomberg more palatable than any of them in both substance and temperament to stand in for what he stands for.
Behind the scenes, the Mayor has kept his ties to the Democratic Leadership Council and other power centers of the party. If he doesn’t wait too long, he could get into that game and rake in all the chips.
If he can create something that passes for unity in his once-and-future party, Bloomberg would be in good shape for a head-to-head confrontation with Giuliani’s volatility, Romney’s emptiness (his Mormon faith might be more of an issue than the Mayor’s Jewish background) or Fred Thompson’s lack of experience in managing a corner grocery store, let alone the largest bureaucracy in the world.
To run as an Independent, Bloomberg would have to depend on support from the likes of Unity08, which is planning online voting to pick their candidate, not too promising for someone who wants to win not to run a feel-good campaign like Ralph Nader or Ross Perot.
There is precedent for party-switching by New York Mayors. John Lindsay was elected as a Republican in 1965, turned Democrat in 1971 and ran for President in his new party’s primaries a year later. He failed, but Bloomberg has much more going for him.
Last month, while being honored as one of Time’s 100 most influential people, the Mayor paid warm tribute to Red Auerbach, the legendary coach of the Boston Celtics, for knowing how to win with honest effort and without “trash talk.”
He was obviously thinking about more than basketball.
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