Michael Bloomberg's decision to leave the Republican Party, to which he never properly belonged and only used as a political rest stop, was a masterstroke of timing. The decision not only engaged the chattering class and commanded the cable outlets, but made the network news. If Bloomberg is serious about running, the toe he just stuck in the water set off a considerable wave. He won't really decide whether to run until Tsunami Tuesday, when we'll probably have both a Democratic and Republican nominee; but moving this early creates a media and political environment in which he can test a potential candidacy. You can bet that within a week or two we will see general election polls with 3-way match-ups to gauge the Bloomberg effect. And he won't even have to pay for them.
Speaking of money, that's one consideration that doesn't matter. As I've observed before, Bloomberg could spend 500 million -- or even a billion -- dollars of his own money to self finance a campaign and he'd probably end up with a larger net worth at the end of 2008 than at the beginning. Dollars aren't the numbers that will effect his ultimate decision. He's a legendary businessman and he will want a business plan that shows he has some chance to win the presidency, not just run for it. It's extremely unlikely that he could carry the House of Representatives if the election had to be decided there because no candidate carried a majority of the Electoral College. But is it possible that he could do that? The conventional wisdom says no.
My guess is that Bloomberg will do a tough analysis of whether he could carry enough targeted states where he could win with 37, 38, 39 percent of the vote -- even states like Ohio and West Virginia, where he could never prevail in a two-way race because of his position on gun control.
The question for him may not be whether the odds are in his favor -- they're not -- but whether he has some reasonable prospect of reaching the White House. That depends too on how satisfied or dissatisfied voters are with the major party choices. 2008 will be a year of change, and if both the Democrat and Republican look like establishment choices, Bloomberg could be the clear tribune of change.
Bloomberg should ask himself two other questions.
First, he has a patina of nonpartisanship, which actually glosses over a series of progressive stances. For example, in a fiscal crisis, one of his most notable acts as mayor was to raise taxes to avert deep cuts in social spending. He can run as the candidate of competence, and the voters certainly want that after Bush. But they want more. What would he do about health care? Does he have a plan for Iraq; he sounded a bit at sea on the issue as he traversed California on his first non-campaign foray.
The second and related question is: If Bloomberg runs and doesn't win, who does he hurt? He certainly doesn't want to help Giuliani mount the inaugural platform on January 20, 2009. He probably doesn't have to worry about that, since the Republicans are likely to nominate a pro-choice candidate the same year the Democrats offer a presidential nominee who opposes abortion rights. But as he and his advisors crunch the numbers, he may learn that he's likely to drain votes from almost any Democrat, without gaining enough of them to win himself. Does the pro-choice, socially liberal Bloomberg really want to be responsible for electing another Supreme Court-packing, gay-bashing, gun-loving, domestic-program-slashing President? One hears that he really likes John McCain, but does he like his policies? And what does he think of the Straight Talk Express talking a sharp right turn on every issue except immigration?
So if Bloomberg's serious about running, there's a lot on the line -- not just for him, but for the country.