Could Bloomberg Upend the White House Race?
Michael Bloomberg to the rescue? In a U.S. presidential campaign already distinguished by volatility, the former mayor of New York is reportedly weighing up whether to launch a late bid as an independent.
Associates told The New York Times at the weekend that Bloomberg was alarmed by the rise of Donald Trump on the extreme right-wing of the Republican party and troubled by Hillary Clinton's lurch to the left in a bid to contain the left-leaning Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.
Bloomberg, billionaire founder of the eponymous financial news agency, has toyed with the idea of running for national office in the past, but has been dissuaded because no independent has ever won the White House.
This time the 73-year-old has set himself a deadline of early March to make a decision, pending the outcome in Iowa and New Hampshire which next month cast the first nomination votes in the 2016 presidential race.
He has retained a consultant, aides have researched past third-party bids and last month he commissioned a poll to assess his chances against Trump and Clinton, the Times reported.
A pragmatist rather than an ideologue, Bloomberg is driven by results and wedded to statistics. He was a Democrat before turning Republican in 2001 and then switched his affiliation to independent in 2007.
The 10th wealthiest man in America, he is worth $36.5 billion according to Forbes, and the Times reported that he is prepared to spend $1 billion on a possible campaign.
Close to Wall Street, a hawk on security but heavily involved in the gun control campaign and favorable to immigration reform, Bloomberg is an unusual mix for an American seeking high office.
Socially liberal, he has been a long-time supporter of equal marriage and abortion rights, issues that could cost him votes among both Democrats and Republicans.
As mayor of New York from 2002 to 2013, he pushed through a strong health agenda, banning smoking in bars, restaurants and public spaces, and forcing restaurant chains to put calorie counts on menus.
- Trump, Bernie scenario -
If he launches a campaign, the fight will be all the more arduous because he is less well known at a national level. But experts doubt he will take the risk if Clinton wins the Democratic nomination.
"He's a good friend of mine and I am going to do the best I can to make sure that I get the nomination and we'll go from there," Clinton told NBC television's "Meet the Press" on Sunday.
"The way I read what he said is that if I didn't get the nomination, he might consider it," she added. "Well I'm going to relieve him of that and get the nomination so he doesn't have to."
Trump, the frontrunner among Republicans, reacted with glee at the prospect of going up against the former mayor.
"I know Michael very well and would love to compete with him," he told CNN, pointing out their disagreements on gun control and abortion.
But the anti-Wall Street Sanders, who leads Clinton in polls in New Hampshire and is neck-and-neck with her in Iowa, said he was appalled at the idea of having two billionaire candidates in the presidential race.
"That is not what, to my view, American democracy is supposed to be about," he told ABC television.
"I think the American people do not want to see our nation move toward an oligarchy, where billionaires control the political process. I think we'll win that election," he said to CNN.
Rand Paul, the presidential candidate languishing at the bottom of Republican polls, pointed out that Bloomberg could split the Democrat vote, which would be good for the Republicans.
The last independent to run for the presidency was billionaire Ross Perrot in 1992. He won 18.9 percent of the vote and so contributed to the defeat of Republican incumbent George Bush against Bill Clinton.
He ran against Clinton once again in 1996 as a candidate from the Reform party and won eight percent of the general election vote.
