President Bloomberg?

Suppose the Democrats nominate Sanders, and the Republicans nominate Trump or a right-winger like Cruz. That could be the perfect storm that lets a third-party candidate into the fray. I could see moderates from both parties voting for Bloomberg.

 

If you like your big gulp, you can keep your big gulp. Vote Trump.

 

That would be great...


For the GOP.

 

I just don't see Bloomberg pulling anyone from the GOP side. He's reviled as a meddling New Yorker by most conservatives, and he's sure not going to take anything from the progressive movement. He could probably pull some moderates and independents who are voting for Trump by default, but he's really playing from behind. For him to make a real impact he would really have to have a powerful personality and a resonating message, and I'm not convinced he has either. I think Trump would end up smothering him among the audience that they'd be fighting for.

I tend to think that it would end up being better for the GOP because I think he's more likely to pull moderate dems who are sick of Hillary's nonsense and won't embrace the bern.

 

I think Bloomberg could win over the center/independents but that's not enough to win POTUS. His advocacy against guns would eliminate the far right from consideration and at best he'd split the left vote with Bernie. In the end, he'd end up Perot'ing the Democratic ticket.

I'd vote for him over Sanders or Trump, in a New York minute.

 

I suspect you are right if the candidate is Trump. But what if it is Cruz? I think there are millions of moderates out there who, like me, find the idea of a Cruz presidency downright frightening. I'm not wild about Bloomberg by any stretch but I like him more than Cruz or Sanders by a mile. For what it's worth, I also like him way better than Clinton.

Dear Lord, please give us John Kasich.

P.S. What if Bloomberg chose a Republican running mate? Maybe even an LGBT environmentalist Republican decorated war veteran, lol. Try to appeal to everyone.

 

I'm probably overlooking him, but I just don't see Cruz getting a nomination. I don't think he has any support from anyone within the party, and right now he's not even reasonably close to Trump. It would require all the other nominees rallying around Cruz and I don't see that happening. If there were to be a serious anti-Trump movement in the party, I think it would be behind Rubio.

The sad thing is that they wasted so much time trying to sustain a Jeb Bush run that was never going to be accepted, they missed the opportunity to build Rubio or Kasich or someone like that. (Tells you how out of touch people inside the beltway really are that they thought anyone would embrace a third Bush.) The old guard "succession" model kills the election process, and it's going to give us Trump and Clinton in a race for lowest common denominator.

As long as he's self-loathing, you can probably get that passed.

 

Ha...Bloomberg made his fortune selling the ubiquitous terminals to all the Wall Street investment-banks.

He's also a third-party candidate defined by a wedge issue...gun control. Which means, he's really an extremist two-party system candidate. Perot, when he ran, was defined by a much less polarizing issue - the budget deficit.

This would be amazing. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE run Mikey.

Why? I'm not a Cruz fan, but frightening? Because he wants to get rid of Obamacare...something that's been a disaster even though it's only been around for a few years?

 

I think the worry about a Cruz presidency is that he has no willingness or ability to work well with the power structure or compromise on anything. His colleagues, as I hear it, hate him. As a centrist, I find his views extreme.

I think making Cruz chief executive in a government already polarized and gridlocked would be like putting sugar in the fuel of a malfunctioning diesel engine.

 

Well...not being to work with people is a problem. It may be a big one.

But not being able to work with people on what frightening issue? That's THE question. If he doesn't work with people and nothing but the most bipartisan things get done, I don't see how that's frightening. The most impactful thing he wants to do is repeal Obamacare. And that would just mean we're back to the way things were in 2012. Was that really a frightening time? What other position of his is "frightening?" He wants bakers (straight and gay) to be able to sell blank cakes to people? I can understand if you disagree with that...but frightening? Extreme? Really? He doesn't want additional gun control. You can disagree on that...but I'm guessing people posting here have lived in Texas which is a state where the gun ownership rights are more or less promoted and defended. Did you grow up/live in Texas feeling "frightened" the whole time? Really?

What's frightening to me is wholesale changes to the economy and the Constitution. E.g. a nationalized banking system, a single payer nationalized healthcare program, a completely socialized higher-education system, an effectively borderless country with free entry to anyone, a confiscation of all firearms. Those are frightening and campaign promises pushed by candidates in this race.