The Indie Factor: Republicratic Meltdown in 2008

(I know this is better suited for PaU, but I just couldn't resist putting it here. Enjoy.)

The 2008 Presidential Election is almost, kinda, sorta here-ish, and people are starting to wonder about the configuration of the final race, after the primaries are over. Will it be Clinton vs. Giuliani? How about Obama vs. McCain? Obama vs. Thompson? Maybe Edwards vs. Giuliani? Actually, think something like Clinton vs. Giuliani vs. Bloomberg vs. Nader. The notion that only Democrats and Republicans, Republicrats, as I like to call most of them, can win a presidential election may finally be meeting its well-deserved demise.

Although this may come as a surprise to many around my age or younger, the concept of a viable independent or third-party candidate isn’t brand new. It began in 1992, with a smart businessman by the name of Ross Perot. Perot, a centrist, found himself opposed to George H W Bush, the incumbent President, as well as Bill Clinton, Governor of Arkansas at the time. He decided to run as an independent, and although he didn’t win, he gained 20% of the vote. The next time around, he wasn’t so lucky, gaining only 8%. However, the damage to the system had already been done. A recent Unity08 poll showed that 78% of Americans wish that they had choices beyond the two major parties. In 2008, it seems like we just might get some.

Now, another man stands poised to improve on Ross Perot’s accomplishments. That man is Michael Bloomberg. Bloomberg is a billionaire businessman and the Mayor of New York City. A centrist, he left the Democratic Party to join the Republicans in 2001, and he left the Republican Party to become an independent on June 19th of this year. Although he has not announced that he plans to run, many people want him to do so. In fact, in a recent CNN poll, he has obtained 17% of the vote when up against Clinton (41%) and Giuliani (38%), about double what Perot received in 1991 polls (around 8% before the debates).

Although not nearly the force Bloomberg would be, a run by Ralph Nader could also yield decent results. Nader first became famous in America in 1965, with a book attacking the auto industry. Since then, he has become the Green Party’s rising star, getting nearly 3% of the vote in the 2000 election. Although he has not decided whether or not he wanted to run, he has a decent support base and a strong dislike for Hillary Clinton, which could convince him to run simply to pull votes from her should she become the Democratic nominee. If he does run for this purpose, he could be successful in doing so: a February Fox News poll (in fact, the most recent one I could find with Nader) showed that he would get 5% of the vote when up against Giuliani (46%) and Clinton (40%).

And that isn’t even all that could pop up! Dan Carlin, host of the popular podcast Common Sense with Dan Carlin (which I highly recommend), devoted the first half of his June 23rd show to the topic of independents running for President in 2008, saying, “What might a Bloomberg candidacy prompt? If it looked like Bloomberg was getting in and Nader was getting in, might you not see a few more people jump in? There’s a lot of smart people out there that are going to realize the same thing that those two have realized: that this is the best chance to upset the apple cart in a generation.”

There are a lot of people with the desire to run who would be fun to speculate about. For example, Donald Trump lost the 2000 Reform Party (the party Perot founded in 1995) primary to Pat Buchanan, a famous paleoconservative. If the Donald decided he wanted to run in 2008, he could change the race a lot. Think about it: aren’t there people you would much rather have in Washington, DC, than the ones we have now? How about Andy Rooney? He’s a pretty smart guy, even though I disagree with his liberal politics. How about John Stossel from 20/20? I think that Stossel, a libertarian, is exactly the shock the system needs. And the speculation doesn’t need to stop there. Who’s stopping John McCain from running as an independent if he loses the primary? How about John Edwards? The whole idea of the presidential race could completely change.

However, even with all of this good news, a Republicratic victory is almost guaranteed. Although many Americans want an independent candidate, few are willing to actually cast a vote for one, especially since 2000, when Nader took 3% of the nation’s people who would have most likely voted for Gore, throwing the election to Bush. But things are changing. People have been voting for independents like Perot and Nader, and they’ll certainly vote for Bloomberg. In fact, I’d take Bloomberg over some of the true Republicans (Romney, for example). I suppose we’ll just have to wait (and wait, and wait) and see where this one goes.