I am fast coming to the conviction that Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of New York City, will run as an independent candidate for President in 2012 and could quite possibly win. And he very well may get my vote if he does.
It seems to me that Barack Obama is now a lame-duck President. I just don't see how he can recover his political credibility and strength. Furthermore, the stunning defeat that the Democrats suffered on Tuesday at the hands of the Republicans means that there will now be political gridlock for the next two years in Washington.
With the House of Representatives in Republican hands and the Senate in nominally Democratic hands, and with Obama seriously weakened as leader of the executive branch, very little will be accomplished in solving any of our national problems. The economy will probably only get worse, the deficits will only get bigger, the housing/foreclosure mess will not be resolved, there could be a dramatic weakening of the dollar, the wars abroad will go on, joined by other foreign crises--all in all, a very dismal time lies ahead for the nation and its citizens.
On the political side, with a weakened Obama, the Democrats are going to be increasing at-odds over what to do next. Indeed, a challenge to Obama from within the party could easily develop over the next year, though I doubt it would be successful at anything but destroying the party.
Likewise on the Republican side, as the more radical and ideological Tea Partyers contend with the more establishment, country-club types. Palin versus Rove. Along with the gridlock and paralysis, this kind of fractious intraparty warfare will have people looking outside the parties for fresh, independent faces who are not bogged down in all of that.
Michael Bloomberg is in a perfect position to run for President as an independent, it seems to me.
--First of all, he is the 17th wealthiest person in the world (according to Fortune magazine), so funding for a campaign is not an issue (and he also wouldn't be beholden to the corporate interests whose money is obscenely flooding everywhere else).
--Second, he is experienced in politics, now serving his third term as mayor of New York City (which, when you think of it, is like being President of a small country).
--Third, he has the perfect profile for an independent candidate to win: social liberal, fiscal conservative, and foreign policy moderate.
--Fourth, he would be trusted by the business community, as he himself was a successful entrepreneur and businessman.
--Fifth, even as a Jew, he publicly supported the rights of Muslims to build the 'Ground Zero' mosque, thus showing his sense of toleration and support for religious liberty and ethnic diversity.
--Six, he is a proven leader.
If Obama runs again, as I expect, and if, let's say, Sarah Palin wins the Republican Party nomination, can you imagine the Democrats and Republicans, let alone the Independents, who might flock to Bloomberg (once they got to know him)? I think it's easy to see him winning a plurality victory in enough states to put him over the electoral college finish line.
Obviously, this would be a stunning precedent. But I think the problems we face as a nation are growing to the point where this may be the only way we begin to address them: with a non-partisan, independent President, who can lead the country out of its gridlock and paralysis into a path of healing and recovery. He could be just the referee we need to not-so-gently knock some Republican and Democratic heads together in Congress to work not for themselves but for the country and for 'we-the-people'.
You heard it here first. Bloomberg in 2012.
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