Bloomberg could have a shot, Nader believes

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg could be the first modern independent candidate to break the stranglehold the two major parties have on the White House, two-time candidate Ralph Nader said Thursday.

Nader predicted in an interview on MSNBC’s “Hardball” that Bloomberg would join the race and would immediately start out with the support of at least 15 percent of voters.

“He’s running,” Nader told MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, but he said Bloomberg, a billionaire media magnate, probably wouldn’t announce for several months because “when you have that kind of money, you can start late.”

But even for a candidate as well-financed as Bloomberg — whose personal fortune has been estimated at more than $5 billion — ballot eligibility rules and the difficulty of qualifying for debates can make it almost impossible to gain traction, said Nader, who knows firsthand about the legal and political obstacles faced by third-party candidates.

“We’ve got a two-party elected dictatorship,” Nader said. “They’ve got the whole thing stacked in one state after another.”

Bloomberg could open up the system
At first blush, Nader said, Bloomberg looks pretty good, marrying traditional Democratic positions with hard-headed Republican-style problem-solving.

“I think he’s offering a case-by-case judgment,” Nader said. “That’s the one thing about Bloomberg I like. He doesn’t prejudge everything ideologically. He’s very problem-oriented. Post-Katrina I don’t think would have happened if he was in charge.”

But Bloomberg isn’t sensitive enough to free speech and economic justice, said Nader, who said that if no candidate emerged to address his progressive, labor-first ideals, he would jump into the race himself. He said he would make a decision “in the fall.”

The real appeal of a Bloomberg campaign, he said, was the prospect that it could forever transform American politics by smashing the major parties’ monopoly, even if he doesn’t win.

It all depends on whether Bloomberg can demonstrate enough support to force his way into the general election debates organized by a private commission, which has been loath to include independent candidates, including Nader in 2000 and 2004, he said.

“He’ll turn it into a three-way race,” Nader predicted. “He can really highlight these discriminations against third-party candidates.”

Bloomberg plays coy
Speculation that he would run reached fever pitch this week when Bloomberg, a lifelong Democrat who switched to the Republican Party to run for mayor in 2001, renounced his Republican affiliation and said he was now an independent.

Since then, Bloomberg has spent his time issuing the standard non-denial denial of interest that nearly all prospective presidential candidates rely on while they consider their options. He told NBC News’ Brian Williams that he had “no intention” of running, adding: “I’ve got a job. I just want to be a good mayor.”

But as Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., proved, saying that doesn’t mean he can’t, or won’t, change his mind.

Asked in January 2006 on NBC’s “Meet the Press” whether he would run for president in 2008, Obama replied, “I will not.” Today, he is running second on most Democratic presidential polls.

Bloomberg himself is doing nothing to discourage speculation. In a news conference Wednesday, he told reporters: “The more people that run for office, the better.”

And he is seizing every opportunity to grab a toehold on national issues.

“I feel very strongly that we are in danger of losing our lead in many parts of science and medicine and education,” he said. “I think there’s a great challenge ahead. We have international challenges; we have domestic challenges. And as I said out in California two nights ago, I don’t think that we are addressing those issues.

“I’m particularly upset that the big issues of the time keep getting pushed to the back and we focus on small things that probably only inside the Beltway are important.”

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