pacino wrote:this has to be some kind of parody, right?

But we can't have millions of children continue to learn such lies and fallacies like the world is round and the Earth orbits the Sun! Think of the children!

pacino wrote:this has to be some kind of parody, right?

If you really had to ask that...

pacino wrote:this has to be some kind of parody, right?

Large image that might stretch some screens

Phan In Phlorida wrote:

pacino wrote:this has to be some kind of parody, right?

Large image that might stretch some screens

My screen is much larger now, thank you.

Bloomberg is no longer a Republican.

The Hillary folks choose some crap Canadian Celine Dion song as its campaign theme song.

Phan Paul wrote:crap Canadian Celine Dion song

repetitive redundancy

phdave wrote:Bloomberg is no longer a Republican.

I'm looking for a dajafi brief on what this means for NYC/NYS/Presidential/foreign policy politics over the next 12-18 months.

and I want it snappy.

I will offer my observation that his move is evidence bloomberg did not amass his fortune cadging lottery tickets.

phdave wrote:

Phan Paul wrote:crap Canadian Celine Dion song

repetitive redundancy

Couldn't agree with you more!

drsmooth wrote:

phdave wrote:Bloomberg is no longer a Republican.

I'm looking for a dajafi brief on what this means for NYC/NYS/Presidential/foreign policy politics over the next 12-18 months.

and I want it snappy.

I will offer my observation that his move is evidence bloomberg did not amass his fortune cadging lottery tickets.

short analysis: aw yeaaahhhh

slightly longer analysis (offered with the caveats that I'm very tired, still a little drunk, and stupidly happy to see that the Phils won despite/because of my total unawareness of the game as it occurred): Bloomberg clearly has been testing the waters, as the Google appearance the other day showed. He's got some very smart people working for him, and they are thisclose to dropping even the pretense that this is anything other than a full-on political insurgency, a real reach for the brass ring rather than a rich guy's self-indulgence.

What's always excited me about the prospect of a Bloomberg presidential campaign is that it would represent the boldest statement of any figure of the American establishment that our political culture has become corrupted to the point that it can't address, much less solve, our real problems. That we are well and truly screwed if the two-party (two-family?!?) duopoly is allowed to persist, and that the fourth estate has devolved from an institution that keeps the leaders honest into a sort of collective whore that takes them to the back stairs at the party for mutual masturbation, moaning "Pardon Scooter Libby--because we go to the same dry cleaner!" as it reaches climax...

Bloomberg's self-deprecating joke is that a 5'7" divorced Jewish billionaire can't win the presidency. Under the old (1896-2004) rules, this is surely true. But he might figure--and I'll admit that I hope he's right--that after the embarrassing all-gut, no brain debacle of the Bush years, the country is ready for a guy they might not want to have a beer with, but who can manage the heck out of any system you put in front of him.

Let's assume that he can surmount the usual barriers to entry for a third-party contender--ballot access, visibility, all that. With the Unity '08 thing (and he's their schlubby knight in nonpartisan armor) and his money, that's easy. What he needs, then, is surrogates--some endorsement from other Establishment figures, including political "mavericks." The ideal is that a group including, say, Bill Bradley, Alan Simpson, Bob Kerrey, Jim Webb (yes, a Democrat, but he really couldn't care less), Anthony Zinni, Lowell Weicker, Ahnuld, Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and Thomas Friedman come forward to announce that this is Our Guy--that (as Bradley said when he quit the Senate in '96) "politics is broken" and it takes an outsider to fix it.

I'm pretty pumped. Even if he doesn't win, it's worth the shot, and it would be nice to avoid the nauseating choice between Our Lady of Perpetual Triangulation and the Mittster, who look ever more likely to be the major party nominees.

romney agrees.

this just in, he doesn't anymore.

dajafi wrote:

drsmooth wrote:

phdave wrote:Bloomberg is no longer a Republican.

I'm looking for a dajafi brief on what this means for NYC/NYS/Presidential/foreign policy politics over the next 12-18 months.

and I want it snappy.

I will offer my observation that his move is evidence bloomberg did not amass his fortune cadging lottery tickets.

short analysis: aw yeaaahhhh

slightly longer analysis (offered with the caveats that I'm very tired, still a little drunk, and stupidly happy to see that the Phils won despite/because of my total unawareness of the game as it occurred): Bloomberg clearly has been testing the waters, as the Google appearance the other day showed. He's got some very smart people working for him, and they are thisclose to dropping even the pretense that this is anything other than a full-on political insurgency, a real reach for the brass ring rather than a rich guy's self-indulgence.

What's always excited me about the prospect of a Bloomberg presidential campaign is that it would represent the boldest statement of any figure of the American establishment that our political culture has become corrupted to the point that it can't address, much less solve, our real problems. That we are well and truly screwed if the two-party (two-family?!?) duopoly is allowed to persist, and that the fourth estate has devolved from an institution that keeps the leaders honest into a sort of collective whore that takes them to the back stairs at the party for mutual masturbation, moaning "Pardon Scooter Libby--because we go to the same dry cleaner!" as it reaches climax...

Bloomberg's self-deprecating joke is that a 5'7" divorced Jewish billionaire can't win the presidency. Under the old (1896-2004) rules, this is surely true. But he might figure--and I'll admit that I hope he's right--that after the embarrassing all-gut, no brain debacle of the Bush years, the country is ready for a guy they might not want to have a beer with, but who can manage the heck out of any system you put in front of him.

Let's assume that he can surmount the usual barriers to entry for a third-party contender--ballot access, visibility, all that. With the Unity '08 thing (and he's their schlubby knight in nonpartisan armor) and his money, that's easy. What he needs, then, is surrogates--some endorsement from other Establishment figures, including political "mavericks." The ideal is that a group including, say, Bill Bradley, Alan Simpson, Bob Kerrey, Jim Webb (yes, a Democrat, but he really couldn't care less), Anthony Zinni, Lowell Weicker, Ahnuld, Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and Thomas Friedman come forward to announce that this is Our Guy--that (as Bradley said when he quit the Senate in '96) "politics is broken" and it takes an outsider to fix it.

I'm pretty pumped. Even if he doesn't win, it's worth the shot, and it would be nice to avoid the nauseating choice between Our Lady of Perpetual Triangulation and the Mittster, who look ever more likely to be the major party nominees.

I'm not against Bloomberg, and I agree the system is broken and it's unlikely that any of the major party candidates are going to make any real changes.

However, as depressing as a Romney v. Hillary race is, I'd be hard pressed not to hold my nose and vote for Hillary. I won't like it, and I sure hope it doesn't come to that, but I'll do it.

Even if Bloomberg runs. The thing is, a candidate with Bloomberg's vast personal resources can still run, if he's serious, for the Democratic nomination. If he's the real deal, he could win the Dem nomination. None of his issue positions are outside the Democratic mainstream, so if he can't appeal to Democratic primary voters, I don't see how he could win a general election as a 3rd party candidate.

If you're really interested in a 3rd party (and the only reason for that would be to take a position that neither of the major parties are currently taking--neo isolationism, shrinking government, something like that) then you need to do it on a grass roots basis. The party has to prove its appeal by winning state and local elections before it can mount a legitimate campaign for the Presidency.

For now, I fail to see the distinction between Bloomberg and Perot, except that Perot's opposition to free trade was actually something that distinguished from both the Democrats and the Republicans. But in the end, you've just got a personality cult, and when that personality leaves the political stage, there's nothing left.

Phan Paul wrote:For now, I fail to see the distinction between Bloomberg and Perot, except that Perot's opposition to free trade was actually something that distinguished from both the Democrats and the Republicans. But in the end, you've just got a personality cult, and when that personality leaves the political stage, there's nothing left.

Firstly, I want to say our esteemed dajafi's precis on the bloomberg bombshell exceeded all my expectations. Great stuff! All we need now is a TomatoPie peroration on the topic (for, against, or indifferent), and we got a stew goin'.

I understand your semi-'meh' position on Bloomberg, PP. However, I would suggest he distinct from Perot in many ways, not least of which is his three-dimensionality.

Bloomberg is a real live hands-on, multi-term elected official of a political jurisdiction larger than all but a handful of US states. He has ideas, plural, and can both articulate and execute effective, broadly acceptable policies, plural. Unlike the current administardation, the guy at the top would be really running the show. Unlike the preceding administurbation, the show would have a good chance to be driven by a coherent strategy, rather than primarily by poll results. Would President Bloomberg necessarily be good for the US? No. Is it probable? I'm not a betting man, but even I would be comfortable with the odds on it.

Candidate Perot on the other hand is/was a rich, happy eccentric, smart & plain-spoken, but a political dabbler with a one-note candidacy - although, it must be noted, he did have the best musical taste of any of the Prexy candidates in that race, inasmuch as he went out to the strains of Patsy Cline's "Crazy", while President Bubba thought Fartwood Mac's Don't Stop (Thinkin' About Tomorrow) was the (highly-triangulated) bees' knees.

Nothing sez "fatass white boy" quite like Nicks-era Fleetwood Mac.

There's little use comparing Perot to Bloomberg. Perot was a one-trick pony who was mostly nuts. Charmingly so at times, but nuts nonetheless.

I don't dislike Bloomberg, but I don't understand the adulation, either. The WSJ thinks they do:

... The AP notes that Bloomberg was a "lifelong" Democrat until 2001, when he opportunistically switched parties to get a clear shot at the mayor's office. It also itemizes some of his views, and they sound as if they're lifted from the Democratic Party platform:

Throughout his five years as mayor, Bloomberg often has been at odds with his party and [President] Bush. He supports gay marriage, abortion rights, gun control and [federal funding of embryonic] stem cell research and hiked property taxes to help solve a fiscal crisis after the Sept. 11 attacks.

.... Bloomberg is the candidate of the media, ideologically as well as professionally. The positions Kugler enumerates are all very popular among journalists. And while they are also popular among Democrats, Democratic politicians do not necessarily support them, or support them sincerely.

The Dems have of late been playing down gun control, figuring that they have more to lose than to gain from a strong antigun stand. They would do the same with abortion if they thought it would profit them politically. (The list of Democrats who have gone from anti- to pro-abortion is a long one, as of course is the list of Republicans who've moved in the other direction.) John Kerry in 2004 said he opposed same-sex marriage, though everyone assumed he didn't really mean it, and he was one of only 14 senators to vote "no" on the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996.

Bloomberg, by contrast, is a conviction politician, and his convictions match those of the liberal media. ....

This may go over in New York City, where everyone is above average, but we suspect it will not travel well. Yet while Bloomberg may not get many votes, he'll get favorable enough press coverage to make John McCain jealous.

Bloomberg surely is a media darling as a candidate, and the WSJ has nailed why.

I don't mind.

I'm a conservative and I vote GOP, but I don't vote on social issues, because I agree 90% with the Democrats. So I either agree with Bloomberg on social issues (gay marriage) or don't care that I disagree (gun control, abortion). Pols never make much headway on social issues, anyhow.

I do like that Bloomberg is a good manager.

Sadly, he shares with his fellow Democrats the misbegotten notion that tax increases are good, which has never been the case in my lifetime.

I like him better than almost all the other Democrats except for Richardson, but less than almost all the Republicans except for the xenophobes.

He may be the media's dream candidate, but he has no shot. A New York Jew has no shot. Pittsburgh Democrats will reject him for his big city Jewishness as quickly as Utah Republicans will.

TomatoPie wrote:Sadly, he shares with his fellow Democrats the misbegotten notion that tax increases are good, which has never been the case in my lifetime.

I didn't realize you were only 6 years old.

TomatoPie wrote:I like him better than almost all the other Democrats except for Richardson, but less than almost all the Republicans except for the xenophobes..

you cannot be serious about the italicized portion. There simply is not a speck of reason in that assertion.

and, on reflection, a question comes to mind: who does your exception leave on the dias, other than Richardson?

anyway, Bloomberg has essentially staked a significant claim to 'owning' the keys to the next presidency.

Controlling 5% of the vote in a corporate election essentially determines the outcome. Bloomberg's applying a similar principle here. Preceding 3rd party candidates have done the same, to considerable effect, with much less credibility.

It's not really important now who you, or I, or anyone likes better among the legitimate candidates. Its whether Bloomberg likes them. As you've pointed out, Bloomberg is not Perot. He's not Nader, either.

Phan Paul wrote:The thing is, a candidate with Bloomberg's vast personal resources can still run, if he's serious, for the Democratic nomination. If he's the real deal, he could win the Dem nomination. None of his issue positions are outside the Democratic mainstream, so if he can't appeal to Democratic primary voters, I don't see how he could win a general election as a 3rd party candidate.

Bloomberg couldn't run as a Democrat for a lot of reasons, including:

1) He refuses to genuflect at the feet of core Democratic constituencies, most notably labor. Not that he's anti-union--unlike Hillary's top advisor Mark Penn--but he believes in things like merit pay for teachers and performance incentives in government contracts (as do I).

2) A short spin around the lefty blogs will show that a depressingly large number of liberals reflexively hate Bloomberg because he's very, very rich.

3) The level of partisanship within the Democratic Party--the counterforce called into being by Karl Rove's reckless and relentless push to polarize the entire country--is such that Bloomberg's recent history as a Republican, even In Name Only, would be a disqualifier.

4) Like Obama, he's trying (or would be trying, were he to run) to position himself as transcending partisanship. Unlike Obama, he has the advantage of going this route outside a party. As Stephen Colbert put it last night: "Mr. Bloomberg, if you aren't a Democrat or Republican, how am I supposed to launch partisan attacks on you?"

Phan Paul wrote:If you're really interested in a 3rd party (and the only reason for that would be to take a position that neither of the major parties are currently taking--neo isolationism, shrinking government, something like that) then you need to do it on a grass roots basis. The party has to prove its appeal by winning state and local elections before it can mount a legitimate campaign for the Presidency.

For now, I fail to see the distinction between Bloomberg and Perot, except that Perot's opposition to free trade was actually something that distinguished from both the Democrats and the Republicans. But in the end, you've just got a personality cult, and when that personality leaves the political stage, there's nothing left.

I know this is the accepted wisdom in political science circles, and I see the logic. But to me it's a little like saying, "If you're really interested in getting to the top of the Empire State Building, then you need to do it by climbing up the side." Yes, it might work in theory, but in practice it's astonishingly difficult. I don't think any of us would say that American political history isn't peopled by ambitious and clever individuals--but the only times third party movements emerged strong, they got absorbed by the Ds and/or Rs anyway. No group has ever done what you describe.

I've always maintained that, one, the bases of both major parties (especially the Republicans, but the Democrats too) would leverage their higher levels of organization and enthusiasm to pull the nominees closer to at least some positions outside the mainstream of public opinion; and two, the six months between February and August '08 would serve as a de facto Buyers' Remorse primary during which the country looks at the nominees and vomits in disgust. Bloomberg's biggest problem, honestly, might be that the speculation is 6-8 months too early for his purposes. I see the event yesterday as a determined effort to kick the can back down the road.

Because of who and what Bloomberg is, he's going to look very, very good both compared to Bush, probably the most relentlessly partisan, least intellectually curious, and worst manager we've ever had in the presidency, and to a major party menu of options that includes Hillary (whom half the country reflexively detests, and not just righties), and the Panderbot 5000 that is Mitt Romney or "TV's Fred Thompson," who pretty much defines empty suit.

But maybe I'm wrong. Since you bring up Perot, I should admit that I thought the 1992 election was his to lose, and of course he lost it by virtue of being a nutjob. Sixteen years later with another Bush and another Clinton dominating the stage, I think a more palatable version of Perot would have a shot. TomatoPie's (and Jon Stewart's) point that a New York Jew is unelectable might have some validity, but Bloomberg only would have to get to 40 percent in a bunch of states, and surrogates could help make his case.

TomatoPie wrote:
Sadly, he shares with his fellow Democrats the misbegotten notion that tax increases are good, which has never been the case in my lifetime.

So you don't believe that the "luxury tax" increases included in the 1993 budget didn't play a role in producing the deficit reduction that followed - and ultimately the balanced budgets the country enjoyed under a Democratic president. (To be clear, I am not arguing that the 1993 budget solely produced those results - a booming economy and later budgets, most reflecting compromise between the Clinton White House and Republican Congress, also played huge roles.)

Here's a question I always want to ask people who reflexively oppose tax increases - Republicans typically argue that tax increases do not increase government revenues (because people adjust their spending/investing patterns, et al) but tax cuts often do increase revenues because they stimulate the economic activity that produces tax revenue.

Okay, so if tax increases never increase revenue but tax cuts always do, what would happen if we kept cutting taxes all the way down to 0%?

There is a point, in other words, where tax cuts surely will reduce revenues. As for tax increases increasing revenue, the 1993 budget, again, offers ample proof that, if you consider increased revenues desirable, tax increases can produce them.

It would be marvelous if TP would offer his opinion why the WSJ editoriate find Prexy Candidate Bloomberg so odious - a businessman who actually is/was a success at both business and governing (unlike the fellow currently holding the office).

link to WSJ's dismissive editorial

love this closing bit:

...a candidate for the nation's highest office should have more on his agenda than competence, and should have reason to believe he'd be more than a political spoiler.

apparently they don't realize they'd probably curry favor with the guy who would own their pasty, flabby behinds (Murdoch) if they just went ahead & printed what they really feel: NO JEWS