SALON

Monday, Nov 29, 2010 11:13 PM UTC

Don’t laugh (too hard) at the Bloomberg ’12 talk

The billionaire New York mayor fares terribly in a new White House poll. Why it's not safe to write him off -- yet

By

Topics: Michael Bloomberg, War Room, 2012 Elections,

Don't laugh (too hard) at the Bloomberg '12 talkMichael Bloomberg on Nov. 5.

It’s tempting to take Michael Bloomberg’s feeble showing in a new 2012 presidential poll as confirmation of Sayre’s Law, which posits that New York City mayors  come from anywhere but go nowhere. Pitted against Barack Obama and Sarah Palin in a trial heat conducted by PPP, Bloomberg nabs just 11 percent — with Obama at 44 percent and Palin at 38.

It’s certainly possible that this represents the national ceiling for the culturally liberal Upper East Side billionaire — and that Bloomberg knows it and won’t ever come close to jumping into the ’12 race. But it’s too soon to slam the door on the idea completely.

As I’ve written before, there is — generally speaking — good reason to discount talk about serious third-party presidential candidacies. There are just too many structural and financial barriers, and as Election Day approaches, the willingness of voters to “waste” their votes wanes. John Anderson’s 1980 campaign, which started with the Illinois congressman notching 24 percent in one poll and ended with him failing to crack 6 on Election Day, is a perfect illustration. (And Anderson is one of the most successful third-party White House candidates in the modern era.)

But there are two reasons to keep tabs on Bloomberg as ’12 approaches.

One is that, at least from this far out, it’s possible that an ’80/1992-like dynamic — that is, one that is unusually favorable to the emergence of a third-party candidacy — will prevail in 2012. In ’80, voters badly wanted to reject Jimmy Carter, who was presiding over a stalled economy and an endless hostage crisis, but were apprehensive about Ronald Reagan, the Republican nominee who was then widely viewed as a trigger-happy extremist. Thus, the March entrance of Anderson, a moderate Illinois Republican, was initially greeted with enthusiasm by the public. Similarly, by the spring of ’92, voters were increasingly ready to vote out George H.W. Bush, but concerns about Bill Clinton’s basic character were keeping them from flocking to the Democrat. This allowed Ross Perot to emerge as a viable third-party contender.

So if, come early ’12, the economy is still stuck in neutral and the GOP is poised to nominate a polarizing, Palin-ish nominee, there will be similar room — at least initially — for a third-party candidate. In that environment, Bloomberg might fare better than 11 percent. When Perot’s name first began circulating in late February and March of 1992, he barely cracked double-digits in national polls; but the idea of a third option quickly caught on, and by May he was leading Bush and Clinton in three-way polls. Bloomberg is more broadly known now than Perot was in early ’92, but plenty of Americans haven’t yet formed an opinion of him — so he does, at least potentially, have room to grow.

Which brings us to Reason No. 2: his money. Note that Anderson, unlike Perot, failed to build on his initial polling support. People liked the idea of his candidacy, but they soon concluded that he wasn’t viable. The trajectory of Perot’s campaign was different, though. As noted above, he was scoring nearly 40 percent of the vote in three-way polls by late spring ’92, and while his numbers ebbed as press scrutiny increased, he was still running around 25 percent by mid-July. At that point, for reasons that remain murky, he dropped out — only to reenter at the end of September, with his support back in single digits.  But he was included in all three presidential debates (and stole the show at the first one) and poured tens of millions of dollars into a series of half-hour television ads; on Election Day, he notched nearly 20 percent — which stands as the best mark for an independent since Teddy Roosevelt in 1912. Had he not unnerved voters with his bizarre exit/reentry bit, it’s possible Perot would have fared even better.

At least in theory, then, Bloomberg could pull off something similar in ’12. The climate would have to be just right (if the economy comes around, there’ll be no room at all for a third party) and the Republicans would need to cooperate by picking an unpopular nominee. Under these conditions, Bloomberg would have the means to run the kind of campaign that could establish him as a viable alternative; instead of fizzling like Anderson, he could be a player like Perot.

Granted, this scenario is a real long shot. The populist sentiment that Perot, with his folksy Texas charm and one-liners, tapped into might be off-limit to Bloomberg. And even if Bloomberg were to win entry into the debates, it might not do anything for him. Anderson actually got a one-on-one debate with Reagan in September 1980 (Carter, convinced that Anderson was destroying his reelection chances, refused to participate) and didn’t fare poorly — but his support dropped anyway. The real revelation to voters was that Reagan seemed more competent than they’d imagined.

Chances are that Bloomberg won’t end up running. And even if he does, it’s just about impossible to see him actually winning. Even under the best circumstances (for him), he’d almost certainly fall short of 270 electoral votes, throwing the election to the House, which would never support him. But if he were to run, it’s not out of the question that he’d have a significant, Perot-like impact.

Steve Kornacki

Steve Kornacki writes about politics for Salon. Reach him by email at SKornacki@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @SteveKornacki More Steve Kornacki.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 38 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: Chekhov's story mirrors Russia's own

Recommendations