Is Mayor Bloomberg planning a Nader-like spoiler in the '08 elections?

There's been a lot of speculation out there that Michael Bloomberg, mayor of NYC, may jump into the presidential race with the backing of a 3rd, bypartisan party.


On the eve of next week's New Hampshire primary, Bloomberg will meet in Oklahoma with politicians who consider themselves like-minded nonpartisans for a conference described as a warning to the Republican and Democratic candidates. The NY Times reports.

''They want the major party candidates to promise not to be partisan or they won't be happy? Come on -- it's a gesture, it's a show,'' said Maurice Carroll, who runs the polling unit at Quinnipiac University. ''It's an event to get attention and put Bloomberg front and center, where he can stay if he feels like it.''
The first stirs of Bloomberg presidential speculation came about two years ago when his political adviser, Kevin Sheekey, began floating the concept. The idea gained steam last June when the mayor left the Republican Party, became an independent and began promoting himself around the country and on his relaunched personal Web site.
If he were to get into the race, advisers have said it wouldn't happen until the Democratic and Republican nominees are known. At that point, Bloomberg's camp would assess how his message of a centrist Democrat-turned-Republican-turned-independent would play against those candidates.
Bloomberg supports gay marriage and abortion rights, has sued out-of-state gun dealers as part of his national campaign for gun control, and has not shied away from raising taxes and fees to deal with a city budget crunch.

At the gathering in Oklahoma on Jan. 7, Bloomberg will sit down with friends like Nebraska Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel, who has been mentioned as a potential Bloomberg running mate. Besides Boren, other participants include former Republican Sen. Bill Brock of Tennessee, former Defense Secretary William Cohen and former Democratic Sen. Bob Graham of Florida.
Organizers said the group planned to issue a ''set of principles'' for the declared candidates.
Graham, who ran for president in 2004, told The Associated Press that the meeting ''is not a third-party effort.'' He also said he didn't think an independent candidate could get elected.
''We have enough problems getting consensus with the two parties -- our goal is to make suggestions on how to make the current system work,'' Graham said.

Bloomberg usually plays coy when asked about the latest ''Bloomberg for president'' stirrings, but last week he made the rare move of acknowledging his interests when he was asked about a New York Post story that his advisers were reaching out to potential campaign consultants.

NY Times

Heading into 2008 with war and elections

IA-Pres (D)Dec 24 ARG
Clinton 34%, Edwards 20%, Obama 19% ...
IA-Pres (R)Dec 24 ARG
Huckabee 23%, Romney 21%, McCain 17% ...

Around the media in other news:

Heading into 2009, after the elections, we may see a switch-up at CBS with Katie Couric moving to 60 Minutes permanently, a distinguished job in itself, and Harry Smith taking the evening news time slot according to TV Newser of Media Bistro. Also mentioned is a NY Times piece about O'Reilly and Olbermann's growing audiences with their opinionated programs. Both have picked up viewers, O'Reilly and his war on Christmas and France has picked up 6% in viewers while Keith O has gained a 50% larger audience with his tirade on the Bush administration and anything (or one) connected to Fox, with his favorite target being O'Reilly.

Over at CNN following the story of Youssif's plight is good for the soul and reading his mother's thoughts was a nice way to end this holiday. This is interesting, some kids in an Arabic language class in Iowa are translating kids books into Arabic for kids in Iraq. This brief mention on NPR also mentions Arabic classes are on the rise. I wonder if the government got involved with this, only after they found themselves critically low on Arabic speaking citizens to join our country in national security issues. The Queen of England is showing how hip she is at a ripe young age of 81 and has decided to make use of YouTube with videos of her thrown, crown, and court jester (or something like that).

The Horses Mouth posts about Sludge and Lush Dimbulb's attacks on Hillary backfiring with Republican women. At Crooks and Liars they remind the many Ron Paul fanatics that he happens to be one of the Republican Candidates that does not believe in evolution. The Democratic Party wants to remind voters of the Republican failures on immigration reform and takes on their fear mongering as an election ploy. Mitt Romney is getting backlash for his MLK comment where he (apparently) distorted some facts on history relating to his father and MLK.

War profiteers continues to get attention with more details of Blackwater and their practices in billing, that have profited them billions. Their pyramid scheme is discussed at TPM. This video from the Bill Maher show talks with the author of Blackwater and gives a chilling account of the agenda behind this organization. Then you can take a look at this list of top 10 war profiteers and see where your money went. If you google 'war profiteering', you'll find many more articles on the topic. Seems the hip words today you'll find over used and abuses in political chat forums are 'fascist' and 'zionnazi'. Well Salon takes on the subject of Who's a fascist? with a comparison to Bush. USA Today reports military families are split on the Iraq war and Bush. Billy Joel wrote a song comprised of versus in letters he's received from our military in Iraq. Why he was communicating with them I don't know. That side of this story hasn't been fully explained from what I've seen in the news. But apparently according to this brief article, the song has angered some of his fans who call it un-American. My understanding is the words are directly from the soldiers, if this is so, I wonder if the angry fans understand that.