There's been another bump in the talk of a third party run for president, mostly focused on New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg. It's pretty irritating, and it's largely led by media and political elites who talk a big game about democracy but seem to be horrified the actual process of it. Basically the people who promote "unity" or "coalition" third party presidential runs either don't understand the US electoral/political system, or they don't think it caters to their very particular desires, or both. Really, few things make me crazier than this stuff, for two reasons:
First, there are almost *never* actual policy positions proposed on these issues. Anybody know what, say, Bloomberg thinks about immigration? Choice? Guns? And let's not even get into how just a few years ago, every single talking head on my teevee told me no one could ever again be elected president without extensive foreign policy experience, but what might his views be there? It's insipid. Further, the third party possibilities proposed by the elites (as opposed to those who actually get votes, like Perot), tend to be Republicans who are . . . acting like Democrats. Bloomberg and Schwarzenegger are two prime examples: anywhere but NY and CA, these guys are Dems, and it's not like they're implementing a conservative agenda. But ultimately that means they wouldn't have any kind of national constituency. More after the jump...
The second reason it makes me crazy is a little more personal. You see, the people who support this kind of foolishness tend to be overwhelmingly like me, at least demographically speaking. In other words, the privileged: white, upper middle class, male, coastal. It's embarrassing! This is a group that largely wants everything to stay just as it is, except for maybe helping people in need a little better. To them, Edwards is a Commie and Hillary is too "polarizing," but all of the Republicans are insane. But fundamentally, they all agree with Democratic *positions*, they just don't like to be associated with the actual constituencies of the party (the great unwashed! /eye roll/). Despite being billed as some radical solution to all the "gridlock," what these people most want is for virtually nothing to change. Anyway, the whole thing is about filling air time on the 24-hour news channels, but seriously, if in 40 years I start pontificating about how we need to bypass the electorate by installing a billionaire "centrist" technocrat, somebody please kill me (or at least send me this post).
