A Fool’s Errand. Why any third party run is doomed for 2016

Now that it appears that Donald Trump will run the table on Super Tuesday (the exception being Texas where Ted Cruz still holds a decent point lead), there are murmurs that former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg will mount an independent race of his own. Bloomberg, who flirted at such an independent effort in 2008 and 2012, is once again thinking about such an effort.

In a Los Angeles Times op-ed by Bruce Ackerman published Friday February 25^th, he suggests that a Bloomberg run might cause a constitutional crisis and throw the election to the House.

This is absolute nonsense.

In fact, the last couple of third party campaigns (John Anderson in 1980 with 6.61% of the popular vote, Ross Perot in 1992  with 18.91%, and Perot again in 1996 with 8.40%) all have one thing in common—they won a total of 0 electoral votes.

No constitutional crisis here.

As Al Gore can ruefully confirm, our presidential elections are actually comprised of 51 separate races for the White House—50 states and the District of Columbia. In order any race to be thrown into the House, Michael Bloomberg has to win somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 to 70 electoral votes. In his case, there is no clear path to winning any state.

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Bloomberg won three elections as Mayor of New York before being termed out at the end of 2013. By all accounts, it was a successful endeavor and if New York City lacked term limitations, it’s quite possible he would be there today. However we forget the amount of personal money that he spent on his own behalf.  According to The New York Times, Bloomberg spent $74 Million of his own funds in 2001, $85 Million in 2005, and an eye popping $102 million in his final race in 2009. While this might be pocket change to a guy worth $33 billion, it does suggest that without his deep pockets, he would have been a hothouse flower of New York politics. With the exception of his 2005 win, he barely eked out victories in both 2001 and 2009, running against some weak competition.

Now that Republican donors and power brokers are engaging in a “modified limited freak-out” (an homage to John Ehrlichman’s comments during Watergate) the potential of a “Bloomberg Spring” is appealing to many. Is there something here or are people whistling past the graveyard?  In my last post, I talked about how mega-donors may opt to run for high political office themselves as opposed to doling their money out the independent super-pacs of those mortals running for the White House. I believe that somebody will emerge from the Republican mega-donor community to run on their own in the 2020 primaries.

However, running for president takes three main ingredients: money, organization, and a raison d’etre—a rationale throwing one’s hat into the ring. George Wallace was about stopping Civil Rights and Ross Perot was about debt and deficit reduction but what is Bloomberg’s rationale?  Michael Bloomberg certainly has the money, but an organization and his lack of a rationale remain insurmountable obstacles.

The last third party campaign that could have created a constitutional moment was George Wallace’s 1968 run for the White House. Why? 

How Donald Trump’s DIY self-funded candidacy in a post-Citizen United world will encourage other billionaires in 2020 and beyond.

With his solid wins in Nevada, South Carolina, and New Hampshire, Donald Trump is now the uncontested front runner for the Republican nomination. If anybody would have predicted this a year ago, they would have institutionalized or laughed out of the Republican Party. No serious pundit ever thought that Trump, who descended down an escalator in front of paid applause for his campaign announcement, would be within an arm’s reach of any nomination. This was supposed to be Jeb Bush’s year but as we watch the civil war between the Republican voter and donor base, we are seeing a total unraveling of what was once Ronald Reagan’s Grand Old Party.

The Nevada results should serve as a wakeup call for both John Kasich and Ben Carson, who are both lagging badly. The air is almost out of the Carson balloon as he founders downward. As for Kasich, any hope for a post-New Hampshire bounce has long faded. Both candidacies are at a point where each family gathers around the hospital bed and waits for nature to take its course.

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That leaves Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz.  So long as both remain in the race, Trump will continue to win decisively. Rubio seems to be inheriting the remnants of the GOP establishment while the movement conservatives are flocking toward Cruz. Neither shows any desire to step aside for party unity. Perhaps Donald Trump understood the primary calendar better than anybody because he framed it as a long reality show, something which low-information voters could intuitively understand.

You have to go back as far as 1940 to see something this unthinkable in Republican presidential politics and people forget just how crazy that Philadelphia convention became.  Why?

The Legacy of Harper Lee/Why “To Kill a Mockingbird” was beautiful fiction but “Go Set a Watchman” was more honest.

Last week’s death of Harper Lee reignited the controversy about legacy of her brilliant first novel “To Kill a Mockingbird,” against the backdrop of “Go Set a Watchman,” a primordial version of her classic, but written in the contemporary moment of the late 1950’s.

While To Kill a Mockingbird (TKAMB) remains a rare gem of American literature, both hailed by critics with consistent strong sales to the present day, “Go Set a Watchman,” even for all of its flaws, represents a more honest portrayal of small town mores when it came to race and class.

TKAMB is found in the bookshelf of every high school student, probably next to an equally dog-eared copy of its Cliff Notes.  It won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1961 and was fast-tracked into an equally classic movie a year later which starred Gregory Peck.  The lyrical quality offered a worldview seen through the eyes of young Scout, the daughter of the widowed Atticus as he was assigned the unwinnable case of the defense of Tom Robinson. The film version contained so many classic scenes that the book and the movie were fused into one unit that it would be heresy for anybody but Gregory Peck’s baritone as Atticus Finch to offer a moral lesson about life in small town Depression era Maycomb, Alabama.

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Then Harper Lee disappeared into the woodwork, not as a recluse, but was seen often throughout Monroeville and Manhattan. Her one book defined a generation and her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama celebrated her success in the same way Carmel, California embraced John Steinbeck. There were no interviews after 1964, only rumors that she might be quietly writing for posthumous publication. Worse, there were unfortunate comments from Truman Capote (who served as the basis as Dill) who suggested that he was the true author of TKAMB and Harper Lee’s silence only gave these rumors a life of their own. However after penning a classic, perhaps Harper Lee felt that no follow up could do it justice.

As successive illnesses robbed Harper Lee of her skills and as questions arose about the status of literary estate, it was announced that a whole new novel about life in Maycomb was discovered. “Go Set a Watchman” was released last summer with a literary build up not seen in a generation. Then the critics pounded it mercilessly.  Unlike TKAMB, which was heavily edited by Tay Hohoff, “Go Set a Watchman” only received a light edit and was released into the marketplace without the care and nurturing that normally comes with that kind of literary event.

So what happened?

Life after Scalia/Presidential Politics and the Supreme Court nomination process

It is astounding to recall that when Antonin Scalia testified before the Senate Judiciary committee for his Supreme Court nomination, he was flanked by New York’s Mario Cuomo and Al D’Amato.  While he was approved by the Senate 98-0, I’m sure a number of Democrats like Edward Kennedy and Joe Biden came down with a serious a case buyer’s remorse. As Scalia’s death gave rise to Sunday night’s speculation, it appears that Padmanabhan Srikanth “Sri” Srinivasan, who currently serves as a  United States Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, has the inside track.

“Sri” Srinivasan should be an ideal bipartisan choice with wide appeal.  He would be the first South Asian on the Court.  He comes with a great immigrant story, attended Stanford for his undergrad and law school education, and clerked with Sandra Day O’Connor.  After spending time in private practice, he put in five years at The Solicitor General’s office during George W. Bush’s Administration.   He has argued two dozen cases before the Supreme Court at an age when most of his peers are clawing their way into middle management.  It should be a slam dunk right?

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The Court, especially the nomination process, has become intensely politicized in the last generation and everybody running for the Republican nomination is clamoring for a delay until the next President is inaugurated. Ted Cruz as well as the Senate leadership has already threatened to shut down the Senate and filibuster any Srinivasan nomination.  It’s only a matter of time before murmurings from the Deep Right Fringe question his ability to serve on the Supreme Court because of his foreign birth, even though he was unanimously confirmed by the Senate for his current position on the Court of Appeals.

However, Judge Srinivasan is not a political lightweight who will badly stumble like Harriet Miers did with her nomination a decade ago.  If anything he might even get some liberal heat because of his conservative clients like former Enron CFO Jeffrey Skilling, whose Supreme Court appeal was argued by Srinivasan

So what should Barack Obama do?

Post-Iowa and New Hampshire/Look for the Return of the Adults.

The Iowa Caucus and the New Hampshire Primary have a special place in the American political psyche.

They have a carnival-like atmosphere that can boost a small market candidate from a statistical unknown into something larger and some have emerged from the pack to run away with the nomination process. However, there is a difference between myths of the past and he realities of the present.

Adult Supervision. With that in mind, look for the “Adults” to retake control of the nomination process over the next month. Those are the political “Ides of March.”

Who are these “Adults?”  They represent senior political operatives and officeholders who,  in a post-Citizens United world, drive the fundraising which underwrites these sprawling national campaigns.

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Ted Cruz and Donald Trump split Iowa and New Hampshire respectively for the Republicans. Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders split Iowa and New Hampshire for the Democrats. However, the tenor of the nomination race will dramatically change in the next few weeks.

If Iowa and New Hampshire offered voters a long courtship, the upcoming “Super Tuesday” (March 1) and “Super Saturday” (March 5) will look more like speed dating with Nevada and South Carolina acting as a final tune up.

“Super Tuesday” and “Super Saturday” are places where campaigns go to die and candidates who are “playing way above their heads” get a crashing dose of reality.

Candidates who put all of their eggs into Iowa and New Hampshire soon realize a strong regional finish means nothing in Louisiana or Texas.  A winning political organization will not create itself over night and they will quietly remove themselves from the playing field.

On “Super Tuesday” March 1^st, Alabama Arkansas American Samoa, Colorado, Georgia Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, and Virginia go to the polls.  Somewhere in some far away living room, Democrats Aboard will caucus too.  On “Super Saturday” March 5th, Louisiana, Nebraska, Kansas, and Maine will make their decision.

Why does this matter?