Sunday Morning Follies

Stop me if you're surprised by this, but Broderella thinks that Michael Bloomberg is a stone-cold lock to be President, because he's been "out there" in the world and people are really really disgusted with Washington (probably because of people like HIM, but don't let him know that). He said that "the Democrats in Congress are destroying the Democratic brand, and George Bush is destroying the Republican brand. Of course, minutes later, a poll showed tht 52% of those surveyed wants to see a Democratic President in 2008, compared to 31% who favor a Republican. Doesn't sound quite "destroyed" to me.

Broder supports a Bloomberg candidacy because he considers him someone who's fiscally conservative and socially liberal, which is also how Broder considers himself. He also expects that's how the whole country feels, obviously. Other pundits imposed their views on the Bloomberg candidacy. Jake Tapper on ABC's This Week insisted that Bloomberg is "a very liberal Democrat," which is simply not true. Too few of them (Roger Simon and George Will being exceptions) think that $500 million dollars can overcome 150 years of infrastructure and entrenchment in the political parties, especially in service to someone who has no natural constituency other than people who are fed up.

And every talk show guest seemed to agree that a Bloomberg run would hurt the Democrats, despite the fact that the only polling data suggested the exact opposite.

It seems like these pundits put their views in place for the views of the country. Look, the last third-party candidate to do well was an economic populist and social conservative, Ross Perot. Bloomberg's profile is the opposite. I don't know why he's running (if he is) or who he's supposed to attract.

UPDATE: Broder's centrism mania is also in convenient written form.

UPDATE II: Let me add that the real problem in government right now is ideological rigidity which prevents compromise. The Mayor of a city doesn't have many impediments when he's essentially compromising with the majority opinion on his city council, for example. But unless the Bloomberg Party is planning on winning 60 or so Senators and 250 House members as well, you'd see the same old Washington gridlock were he President, perhaps even more so because he wouldn't have party loyalty to fall back on.