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Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Oh, no, another spoiler
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Uh, oh. Another Ross Perot.
New York City’s billionaire mayor, Michael Bloomberg, who switched to the Republican Party to run for mayor in 2001, announced Tuesday that he’s leaving both parties. He’s now expected to run for President as an independent. Bloomberg, like many of the Northeastern Republicans, embraces positions on same-sex unions, abortion, taxes and gun control that would limit their appeal in most Southern and Western states.
He’s another of those rich office-seekers capable of buying attention. Bloomberg spent $85 million of his estimated $5 billion fortune to win a second term as mayor in 2005. He spent about $70 million to win the first.
In a Los Angeles speech kicking off a University of Southern California conference on ways to improve political debate, Bloomberg said partisanship is sinking Washington “into a swamp of dysfunction… We can turn around our country’s current, wrong-headed course, but only if we start basing our actions on ideas, shared values and a commitment to solve problems without regard for party.”
I started out my voting life choosing a “third way” candidate, former Georgia Gov. Ellis Arnall, in a 1966 election that pitted Democrat Lester Maddox against Republican Bo Callaway. The result was that the election was thrown into the Georgia House of Representatives and Democrats who controlled that chamber picked Maddox. That delayed for decades Georgia’s shift to competitive two-party politics.
And of course there was rich man Ross Perot, the third way independent in 1992. His 19 percent put Bill Clinton in the White House. And maybe Hillary, too.
Sorry, Mikey. Been there, done that on third way candidates. Partisan gridlock in Washington will work itself out. Voters will tilt the country in one direction or the other and politicians will follow.
On another election front: Former State Sen. Jim Whitehead of Evans, a Republican, got 43.5 percent of Tuesday’s vote in Georgia’s 10th Congressional District to replace Charlie Norwood, who died in office. The runoff is July 17. Whitehead will win. The big issue for the six Republicans was immigration; all opposed the current Senate bill. For the Democrats, it was Iraq. The two leading Republicans drew about 64 percent of the vote, in line with recent outcomes. Whitehead wins the runoff, though, because the voting majority is in the Augusta area. In the State Senate district Whitehead gave up to run for Congress, Republican Bill Jackson won outright with 63 percent of the vote.
