Michael Bloomberg: An Independent Presidential Candidate Can't Win in 2012
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New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said yesterday at a conference that there's no chance an independent presidential candidate could win in 2012 -- effectively batting down continued rumors that the independent mayor is planning his own presidential bid.
Speaking at an event hosted by the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg said that given the entrenched two-party system in place, an independent candidate would not be able to get a majority of the 538 Electoral College votes, Bloomberg News reports.
"Unless you get a majority, it goes to the House," Bloomberg said, explaining the rules for a split vote, as written in the Constitution. "It's going to go to the Republicans because the Republicans have just taken over the House."
Bloomberg is often held up as a possible 2012 contender, but he has repeatedly denied he will run.
A potential Bloomberg independent bid is in the news today after The Huffington Post's Howard Fineman reported late last night that Bloomberg has speculated over forming an independent ticket with MSNBC morning talk show host Joe Scarborough.
The mayor did not give a comment to the Huffington Post, but Fineman reported that he continues to monitor the possibility. An unnamed source said of Bloomberg, "If the data ever show that he could somehow get 270 electoral votes, he'll be in it in a New York minute."
Scarborough told Fineman, "We haven't discussed it directly," adding, "Have people discussed it in his sphere and in my sphere? I think so."
The MSNBC host, a former Republican congressman, gave a more forceful rejection of the idea on his talk show this morning: "Mike Bloomberg and I have not talked about this directly, or indirectly or super, super, secretive directly."
Fineman contends the political atmosphere in the coming years could create the right conditions for Bloomberg to have a legitimate shot: "The already-bitter partisan divide in Congress has to widen; the Republican Party has to become a subsidiary of the tea party; the Democrats must become a rump parliament of liberals; the tone of politics must get even nastier, Jon Stewart notwithstanding; and the economy has to remain enfeebled," he writes. "It doesn't take a political rocket scientist to see that this isn't a far-fetched scenario."
Bloomberg had a more pessimistic outlook yesterday.
"Party affiliation is so strong with enough people that the Republicans and Democrats -- no matter who their candidates were, no matter who voted -- would get enough votes that you could get every independent vote, it would still not be a majority," he said at the Wall Street Journal event.
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If we organize and get together, we could get Wall Street out of the pockets of Washington by voting for the Independent Presidential candidate, Rocky Anderson. Rocky Anderson is running for President in 2012 as the candidate of the Justice Paty. Rocky Anderson promises to reform campaign financing so that Wall Street does not control our government officials through campaign donations. Rocky Anderson is not bought and paid for by Wall Street, like most of the members of Congress and the administration.
For those of you who are brain dead and think Barack Obama is not a Wall Streeter, for your information permit me to enlighten you with the following: his biggest single contributor in 2008 was none other than Goldman Sachs. So is it any wonder that President Obama failed to re-enact the Glass-Steagall Act? Is it any wonder there was little, if any, Wall Street reform enacted during his Presidency?
The Barefoot Accountant
http://www.cpa-connecticut.com/blog/
If we organized and get together, we could get Wall Street out of the pockets of Washington by voting for the Independent Presidential candidate, Rocky Anderson. Rocky Anderson in 2012: someone who isn't bought and paid for by Wall Street!
For those of you who are brain dead and think Barack Obama is not a Wall Streeter, his biggest single contributor in 2008 was none other than Goldman Sachs.
Every vote, everywhere would be equal and counted for and directly assist the candidate for whom it was cast. Candidates would need to care about voters across the nation, not just undecided voters in a handful of swing states.
The bill would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes--that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538). When the bill comes into effect, all the electoral votes from those states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
The bill uses the power given to each state by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution to change how they award their electoral votes for president. It does not abolish the Electoral College, which would need a constitutional amendment, and could be stopped by states with as little as 3% of the U.S. population. Historically, virtually all of the major changes in the method of electing the President, including ending the requirement that only men who owned substantial property could vote and 48 current state-by-state winner-take-all laws, have come about by state legislative action.
The bill has been endorsed or voted for by 1,922 state legislators (in 50 states) who have sponsored and/or cast recorded votes in favor of the bill.
In Gallup polls since 1944, only about 20% of the public has supported the current system of awarding all of a state's electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each separate state (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided). The recent Washington Post, Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvard University poll shows 72% support for direct nationwide election of the President. Support for a national popular vote is strong in virtually every state, partisan, and demographic group surveyed in recent polls in closely divided battleground states: Colorado-- 68%, Iowa --75%, Michigan-- 73%, Missouri-- 70%, New Hampshire-- 69%, Nevada-- 72%, New Mexico-- 76%, North Carolina-- 74%, Ohio-- 70%, Pennsylvania -- 78%, Virginia -- 74%, and Wisconsin -- 71%; in smaller states (3 to 5 electoral votes): Alaska -- 70%, DC -- 76%, Delaware --75%, Maine -- 77%, Nebraska -- 74%, New Hampshire --69%, Nevada -- 72%, New Mexico -- 76%, Rhode Island -- 74%, and Vermont -- 75%; in Southern and border states: Arkansas --80%, Kentucky -- 80%, Mississippi --77%, Missouri -- 70%, North Carolina -- 74%, and Virginia -- 74%; and in other states polled: California -- 70%, Connecticut -- 74% , Massachusetts -- 73%, Minnesota -- 75%, New York -- 79%, Washington -- 77%, and West Virginia- 81%.
The National Popular Vote bill has passed 31 state legislative chambers, in 21 small, medium-small, medium, and large states, including one house in Arkansas (6), Connecticut (7), Delaware (3), The District of Columbia (3), Maine (4), Michigan (17), Nevada (5), New Mexico (5), New York (31), North Carolina (15), and Oregon (7), and both houses in California (55), Colorado (9), Hawaii (4), Illinois (21), New Jersey (15), Maryland (10), Massachusetts (12), Rhode Island (4), Vermont (3), and Washington (11). The bill has been enacted by the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Washington. These seven states possess 76 electoral votes -- 28% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.
See http://www.NationalPopularVote.com