The latest " Palin shouldn't be nominated because blah blah blah" meme is "If she is nominated Bloomberg will run as a third party candidate and the Republicans' will lose".
Here is the current Bloomberg Boomlet in the media/blogosphere;
Here
And especially here from the left
And also here
Honestly, how many doomsday scenario's can the left and right run about this woman ? How many times have they written her off only to see her do "100 impossible things before breakfast"? Frankly dealing with the rancid opposition from the left and (interchangeable) MSM and the scaredy cats on the right is like attacking a hydra.For every head you cut off another appears in its place.
Nevertheless, to quiet the fears of the scaredy cats and to answer the MSM here are the facts.
If we look at the 1980 election we can get an idea of what a Bloomberg third party run might look like. And how fitting that is-a true conservative candidate, Ronald Reagan,who the left laughed off and in fact actually wished to be the best candidate they could possibly have opposing them versus a weak first term sitting Democrat president overseeing a weak economy.
That election year saw an independent run by liberal Republican congressman John Anderson-so liberal that he even got the endorsement of the Doonesbury comic book character (actually of some propaganda value as Trudeau's cartoon strip is published nationwide and has a young activist audience).
It is not necessary to go into the ins and outs of the campaign-many would have seen or know of Reagan's winning closing lines in his debate with Carter "Ask yourself if you and America are better off" and Carter's generally weak performance. What is instructive is how Anderson fared and who he took the most votes from.
In the three way race Anderson took over 10% of the vote in; Connecticut/Hawaii/Maine/Massachusetts/New Hampshire/Rhode Island/Vermont/Washington/Colorado
In a race which featured Obama/Palin Bloomberg none of the above states, except possibly Colorado, might be expected to go to Palin which, according to this analysis, she could afford to lose and still win an electoral college majority.
It is possible, given the narrow margins that Reagan won the following states by ,that Anderson took just enough from Carter to give them to Reagan;
New York/Massachusetts/Arkansas/Kentucky/Mississippi/North Carolina/South Carolina/Tennessee
In 2012 it is extremely unlikely that Bloomberg would have any effect at all in the Southern states
and Palin would be unlikely to win New York and Massachusetts anyway.
Granted Bloomberg would have far more money than the cash strapped Anderson had, but no matter how much he spent (and all billionaire Ross Perot's money counted for nought in the end) the history of third party runs show they draw more or less equally from the Democrat's and Republicans-that is the understanding especially regarding Perot's runs in the first Clinton campaigns and if Perot had not run the consensus is that Bush would still have lost handily.
Even with the Republicans split between conservative and liberal candidates Reagan won in a canter
50.7% of the vote to Carter's 41% and Anderson's 6.7%.The scale of his win in the electoral college was overwhelming ,44 states for 489 electoral votes to Carter's 6 states+DC for only 49 electoral votes and none for Anderson.
When the public feel that the time is right for a change a third party run, which itself is a manifestation of that discontent, rarely affects the change mechanism. Even Teddy Roosevelt's massive third part campaign could not stop Woodrow Wilson from defeating both Roosevelt and Taft in 1912.
Conversely if the public is satisfied with the status quo a third party run will also have a negligible effect-witness Perot's second run in 1996 where he and Dole combined got less that Clinton.
The Republicans have nothing to fear from a Bloomberg third party run-rather it should be the Democrat's, who would be facing a Carter scenario, who have the most to lose.
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