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By John Fortier
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Posted: 06/27/07 06:50 PM [ET] |
An unpopular President Bush, a Congress with low public approval, and a billionaire ready to run as a centrist third-party alternative. Is it 2007 or 1992?
At first glance, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg looks like he has a shot to shake up the presidential election as Ross Perot did 15 years ago. But while Bloomberg is more stable and a more accomplished public servant than Perot, he would likely win far fewer votes. If against all odds he does become president as an Independent, he would find it very difficult working with a polarized Congress.
Could Bloomberg win a big chunk of votes? Unlikely. Despite all of his flaws, Perot was the most successful Independent presidential candidate in a generation. He garnered nearly 20 percent of the popular vote in 1992 and nearly 10 percent in 1996. Compare that to Ralph Nader’s almost 3 percent in 2000 and his anemic less-than-half-a-percent showing in 2004.
So why would a Bloomberg candidacy fall short of Perot’s? First, Perot in 1992 took votes from both Republicans and Democrats. Bloomberg will appeal almost exclusively to Democratic voters. He may have run for mayor as a Republican, but his profile is of a pragmatic Northeast Democrat. The difficulty for Bloomberg is that Democrats are by and large satisfied with the candidates in their primary and confident they can win in the general election. An independent candidate who might appeal to Republican discontent would be far more likely to gain support.
Second, Perot, like Bloomberg, was a businessman, but Perot was also a populist. If anyone is likely to defect from the two parties it is the populist anti-trade, anti-immigration and anti-war crowds of which Bloomberg is not a part.
And despite Perot’s strengths, he finished third. A winning third-party candidate will need close to 40 percent in a three-way race. Most independent candidates lose support because voters see third-party votes as wasted votes. Just before Election Day in 1998, independent Jesse Ventura (Minn.) polled over 25 percent, was on the rise, and ultimately won. Bloomberg would need to be close to 30 percent in the polls close to Election Day to avoid losing votes to the two major parties.
Could Bloomberg be a spoiler? Possibly, but it is unlikely. The ultimate spoiler wins states and electoral votes and throws the election to the House of Representatives. The only recent third-party candidates to win states were Dixiecrats Strom Thurmond and George Wallace, and neither won enough electors to deny the winner a majority. Such strong regional candidacies are unlikely today, as the Democratic Party is no longer divided between a conservative Southern wing and a progressive national party.
Bloomberg, however, might play the spoiler in individual states, but even here his impact is likely to be limited. If his greatest appeal is to Democrats in the Northeast, he might cause party leaders some heartburn, but most Northeast states are so one-sidedly Democratic that he is more likely to narrow the margin of victory than to throw New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts to Republicans.
Finally, if Bloomberg did become president, he would find it exceedingly hard to govern with Congress. Consider Ventura’s plight. While popular with the voters, he had few friends in the legislature and had several vetoes overridden. Even an unpopular major-party president with his party in the majority in Congress would likely have a greater base of legislative support than a popular independent.
Michael Bloomberg has made a career of proving people wrong, but a road to a successful presidency would far exceed his earlier accomplishments.
Fortier is a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. |
