June 20, 2007
Bloomberg's candidacy hurts who?
Mike Bloomberg, the Nanny-in-Chief -- er, Mayor of New York City, has announced he's leaving the Republican Party. As you may (or may not recall) Bloomberg, a billionaire life-long lib, left the Democratic Party just long enough to win the mayor's office.
In his time as Hizzoner, he's advanced the typical Big-City Nanny-State agenda, including gun control and banning what his city's citizens can eat or smoke.
His anticipated independent run for the White House has political junkies scratching at their skin, trying to get at the spiders beneath, jittery and excited at the prospect of this "Republican" taking votes away from the GOP's nominee.
The Conventional Wisdom amongst the professional pols is that the Bloomberg candidacy clearly helps the Dems.
Jonah Goldberg offers this pungent assessment.
[I]t seems reasonable to ask: Would a four-foot-tall, lispy, Jewish New York billionaire liberal really siphon off a lot votes from a Republican in the South instead of a Democrat?
Again, I think it's too early to tell, but Bloomberg's nanny-statism is far, far, far closer to Hillary's point of view than it is to any of the Republican contenders, Giuliani included...
Splitting the limousine liberal vote in New York, New Jersey, Conn., California and Mass. could change the dynamics for a Republican quite favorably (depending on the Republican). Indeed, the Republican contender wouldn't need to actually win all or almost any of these states in this scenario. He could however force a Hillary or an Obama to spend time and money in areas a Democrat should have locked up.
Honestly, how Bloomberg hurts a Republican in the race escapes me. The question that does interest me is whether Bloomie really is four feet tall.
Posted by Mike Lief at June 20, 2007 09:37 AM
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