There's a whole lot of press today about Bloomberg inching toward an independent run:
- THE BATTLE FOR INDEPENDENTS (By DAVID SEIFMAN in New York and DAPHNE RETTER in Washington, NY Post)
- Oklahoma University’s Boren seeks revised campaigning (By JIM MYERS Tulsa World)
- Bipartisan group to explore independent presidential bid at OU meeting (AP-Joplin Globe)
- Bloomberg Moves Closer to Running for President (By SAM ROBERTS, New York Times)
- Independents To Challenge Repubs & Dems On Unity (By Justin Gardner Donklephant)
- Independent candidacy weighed-Centrists, including Bloomberg, to discuss need for an independent presidential candidacy (AP Newsweek)
- Former Sen. Nunn wants candidates to address issues (By JIM GALLOWAY, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
- Bloomberg Inches Yet Closer To Running As Centrist Independent (By Joe Gandelman, The Moderate Voice)
- Iowa and New Hampshire? Look to Oklahoma instead. (Al Eisele, Huffington Post)
For my money, the upcoming meeting in Oklahoma is a business meeting of politicos who are concerned about the hemorrhage of voters from the parties. An electorate that's becoming independent because they feel that divisive partisanship is increasingly dangerous to the future of the country is dangerous to partisan politics. Is there a bi-partisan solution? Who knows.
So I don't think this meeting is a calculated prelude to an independent run for president by Michael Bloomberg. The independent mayor of New York is in my mind--to his credit--not enough of a politician and too much of a businessman to invest $1 billion in a losing campaign....
As Azi Paybarah noted on the Politicker, independent strategist Fred Newman thinks this is a party election: “War vs. peace. As I see it, that's what the vote's going to look like a year from now on Election Day. It's going to be war vs. peace. The Republican is going to be the war candidate. The Democrat is going to be the peace candidate. And people will vote party, in my opinion.”
Personally if I had access to a billion dollars, I'd invest it in building the independent movement at the grassroots so we could inch our way towards participatory democracy in America. The independent movement needs rich people and big names who will do what ordinary people want them to do, and not cave into grandstanders and hack third party opportunists.
