“Sometimes, when you lose, you win,” Elie Wiesel
By Dan Murphy
On December 19, 2019, former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg calls a press conference to announce his decision to run for President. Most in the media were expecting Bloomberg to enter the crowded field of democratic candidates, but Bloomberg shocks the country with his announcement.
“Today I am announcing my candidacy for President of the United States as an independent. The current field of presidential candidates are promising results that they can’t possibly deliver. Rather than explaining how they will break the fever of partisanship that is crippling Washington, they are doubling down on dysfunction.
“I made a mistake in not creating a new party to run on in 2016, and I won’t make that same mistake now. I intend to reach out to democrats, republicans, and independents to find a coalition that can help save this great democracy called the United States of America.”
Bloomberg announces that his running mate will be former Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter. He immediately writes a check for $1 Billion to his campaign and begins to build a third-party apparatus in every state. His primary issues are gun control, immigration policy, and providing a charter school education for every family and child that wants one. His overarching philosophy is one of social liberalism and fiscal conservatism.
We all know that Bloomberg took another path and failed to run in 2016 and ran as a democrat in 2020. But what if he had viewed the uncertainty in American politics as an opportunity and run for President as an Independent?
A recent Gallup Poll found 42% of Americans self-identifying as independent. https://news.gallup.com/poll/388781/political-party-preferences-shifted-greatly-during-2021.aspx
But as we get closer to every Presidential election, the media harangues independents with “don’t waste your vote” and “an independent has never been elected president,” resulting in most Independent minded voters holding their nose and choosing between the D or R.
The last independent Presidential candidate that resonated with the American people was Ross Perot, who in June 1992, was polling ahead of President GHW Bush and Bill Clinton, (Perot 37%, Bush 24%, Clinton-24% https://web.archive.org/web/20081206124349/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,975771,00.html) Since then, a generation of Americans have never experienced a viable independent candidate for President.
The first mention of a serious, independent candidate for President reemerged in 2011, when NY Times columnist Tom Friedman wrote a story titled, Make Way for the Radical Center, in which he introduced a group called Americans Elect that had collected signatures to get a third-party presidential candidate on the ballot in California and was planning the same in all 50 states.
The likely candidate to run on Americans Elect ballot was NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who had effectively led NYC for more than a decade and did so without any political drama. And Mayor Mike’s voter registration looked a lot like many of us in search of a party, changing from republican, to independent, to a democrat today. But with President Obama seeking a second term, Bloomberg passed, and Americans Elect folded without fielding a Presidential candidate in 2012.
2016 was the first Presidential election cycle that had Bloomberg seriously ready to throw his hat into the ring. Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Donald Trump were the three leading Presidential candidates, and each had high unfavorable opinions with a large portion of the electorate.
Bloomberg hired a campaign staff, created a TV ad campaign, and polled American voters through his longtime pollster Doug Schoen. Mayor Mike was ready to write the check and take the plunge, provided that his team could show him the data that proved how could win the Presidency as an “I”.
The best that Schoen’s polling could provide was neither candidate collecting 270 Electoral votes, with a large number of undecided voters. In a three-way race between Trump, Hillary, and Bloomberg, 213 Electoral College delegates were undecided, with Hillary at 175, Trump-75, and Bloomberg 75. Bloomberg polled better if Sanders and Trump were his two opponents, but not close enough to 270 Electoral votes to win the Presidency.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/03/07/us/politics/document-Bloomberg.html
Instead of seeing this uncertainty as an opportunity, Bloomberg worried that if he ran as an independent, he could hand Trump the Presidency. We all know what happened; It was Hillary and not Bloomberg, that couldn’t close the deal, and Trump was elected President.
Bloomberg made his announcement not to run in a March 2016 Op-Ed titled The Risk I Will Not Take. “Over the last several months, many Americans have urged me to run for president as an independent, and some who don’t like the current candidates have said it is my patriotic duty to do so….But when I look at the data, it’s clear to me that if I entered the race, I could not win.”
Millions of American voters were open to consider voting for an experienced independent candidate like Bloomberg for President. But they were unwilling to commit until they heard more and watched the October debates. To ask for anything more was unrealistic.
In May 2016, Schoen releases a Presidential poll that had Trump at 34%, Clinton at 33%, an unnamed Independent at 21%, with 14% undecided. Trump and Hillary were each were viewed unfavorably by 60%. Schoen added that the numbers reflected “broad and popular support among the American public for a credible independent alternative to the two major presidential candidates.”—Newsmax story—(https://www.newsmax.com/Politics/Schoen-poll-independent-president/2016/05/21/id/730026/)
Hindsight is 20/20, but 2016 seemed to be Bloomberg’s best, missed opportunity.
In 2018, Bloomberg enrolled as a democrat and spent $100 Million to elect democratic congressional candidates across the country. In January 2019, Bloomberg announced that he would not run as an independent candidate for President. “In 2020, the great likelihood is that an independent would just split the anti-Trump vote and end up re-electing the President. That’s a risk I refused to run in 2016 and we can’t afford to run it now.”
As the democratic candidates for President fumbled their way through the early 2020 primaries, Bloomberg did an about face, announcing his candidacy as a democrat, on November 24, 2019. By Feb. 2020, Bloomberg had already spent $1 Billion and was polling around 10%.
The most memorable moment in Bloomberg’s brief Presidential run in 2020 was a Feb. 19 democratic debate, where Senator Elizabeth Warren led an ambush of Bloomberg, attacking his wealth, the secretive settling of sexual harassment lawsuits decades earlier, and New York City Police Department’s stop and frisk policy while he was Mayor.
Bloomberg competed in the Super Tuesday democratic primaries where he could get on the ballot, finishing third or fourth in most contests and collecting only 61 delegates. He ended his campaign on March 4. “Three months ago, I entered the race for President to defeat Donald Trump. Today, I am leaving the race for the same reason: to defeat Donald Trump…After yesterday’s vote, it is clear that candidate is my friend and a great American, Joe Biden.”
But what if Bloomberg had driven up the middle road of American politics and ran as an Independent for President? Here’s what might have been. In December 2019, Bloomberg’s surprise announcement that he is running third party comes with a rollout of 50 state operations. His new party is called One America, and Mayor Mike immediately writes a check for $1 Billion to fund the effort.
Schoen’s polling finds similar data from 2016, with many voters’ undecided, or disenchanted with the choices. In a three-way 2020 Presidential contest, President Trump had 33%, the democrat (Biden had not been anointed yet) at 34%, and Bloomberg at 18%, with 15% undecided.
“The Presidency is yours for the taking, but you have to win them over,” said Schoen.
Bloomberg and his team begin to recruit Congressional candidates to run on the One America line. In Pennsylvania, CNN host Michael Smerconish, gives up the microphone to announce a run for US Senate; In Florida, former republican congressman David Jolly announces a run for Governor. In Texas, actor Michael McConaughy announces his run for US Senate in Texas, all on the One America line.
Incumbent U.S. Senator Angus King, from Maine, announces that he will join the One America party and serve as their first member of Congress. In California, an ant-gun coalition announces a slate of candidates that will run on the One America line for Congress. Actress Reese Witherspoon and Anne Hathaway join Bloomberg at a kickoff event in LA and announce their candidacies for US Senate with the primary goal of banning assault weapons.
Bloomberg’s stance on immigration, that our country was built on immigrants, and we need their work ethic and desire to start at the bottom and work their way up to the American Dream, has attracted the support of Latino voters, and his poll numbers rise in California, Texas, and the Southwest.
Bloomberg spends $1 Billion on a summer media blitz of ads that remind Americans of the inability of both parties to work to fix the major issues facing our country, primarily guns and immigration.
After Labor Day, Bloomberg’s polling continues above 15%, providing him a spot in the Presidential debates in October. In the three-way match up between Trump and Biden, Bloomberg asks for Americans to vote for common sense, and to vote for candidates who are willing to reach across the aisle and seek compromise. The contrast of his message, against the negative attacks and finger pointing that Biden and Trump launch against each other, resonates with millions of Americans.
Bloomberg coins a new phrase, asking “the moderate majority” of Americans to step forward and take the country back from the progressive and conservative influences that have taken over both major parties. He shows that he can still debate and touch the reasonableness in millions of Americans.
Trump calls Bloomberg, “little Mike” in the debate, but it seems petty and doesn’t resonate. Biden tries to ignore Bloomberg in the debate but that backfires, with polling after the debate showing Bloomberg’s numbers leaping to 29%., with Trump at 33%; and Biden at 35%. Most undecided voters have moved to Bloomberg, and adding in the margin of error, as of October 16, 2020, Michael Bloomberg could be elected President. He is leading in California, Maine, New Mexico, and Connecticut, and within the margin of error in Texas and Pennsylvania.
Also in October, two wealthy and influential Americans come forward to support Bloomberg for the good of the country; Mark Cuban and Warren Buffet start a Super PAC to support Bloomberg and his One America Party. Each of the 50 Unite America state parties are recruiting voters and volunteers. The process of building a real third party has begun.
In the final days before Election Day 2020, a barrage of negative ads from both parties criticizing Bloomberg give Americans the doubt they needed to return to the D’s and the R’s. Biden wins the Presidency on Nov. 3, 2020, with 279 electoral votes; Trump gets, 228, and Bloomberg 31 Electoral Votes, with 21% of the national vote. He wins the states of Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire and Rhode Island.
Trump claims that election was stolen, while Bloomberg scores the best third party showing since Teddy Roosevelt. Pleased with the comparison to TR, Bloomberg commits to continuing to lead and fund the One American Party, which now has 10 million members and quickly becomes the 3rd largest political party in the US.
This scenario is not as fictitious as one might think. All it takes is a spark to light the fire and give the American Independent voter a real option. Michael Bloomberg could have left behind that legacy if he ran in 2016 or 2020. And he can still leave that legacy behind if he listens to Doug Schoen, and his heart, and leads an independent third-party movement, based on the patriotism and public service that he truly believes in.
Elie Wiesel said it best, “Sometimes, when you lose, you win.”
