Buying a White House run?
A pungent contribution to the campaign fun from Mark Salter of the team. He told the AP: " once promised not to self-fund his campaign, and ever since has been busy robbing his kids' inheritance to do just that. If hypocrisy were an Olympic sport, Mitt Romney would be a multiple gold medal winner."
Which is worse, I wonder: funding your campaign with your own hard-earned dough or getting others - each possessing his or her own agenda - to put their cash your way?
Americans respect the rights of individuals to spend their money as they see fit and plenty of independent-minded Americans might still rally behind a run next year; but should someone be able to buy their way into the running? Should there be a ban on the amount of your own money you can use (or borrow) to get a seat at the table? Might President Bloomberg be just the fellow to do this?
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Why did Mitt Romney promise to not self-fund his campaign?
As you said, it's his hard earned dough and surely it's better to use your own cash than to use others and be accused of appeasing "special interest groups" every time you announce a new policy idea.
Of course, the problem with running for president is that you need to publicise yourself and that costs money. All the candidates are well off but I don't see anything wrong with Bloomberg self-funding his own campaign. At least he can't be accused of having "special interests".
Money - tis the burden of democracy.
Welcome to American politics Mr. Webb. Nobody can buy their way into the White House, uninformed popular wisdom to the contrary. There was nobody who wanted to be President of the United States more than Nelson Rockerfeller. He was one of the richest men in the world. But at the Republican convention in the summer of 1964, the Conservative forces of Barry Goldwater ate him alive. Being that wealthy can be a double edged sword, the notion that he was not a man of the people, that noblesse doesn't necessarily oblige (fat Teddy and his clan notwithstanding) and that big money from the Northeast is resented even by many in the Republican Party are just facts of American politics. Rockerfeller did get to be Vice President but not by being elected. When Richard Nixon resigned in 1974 and Gerry Ford, his VP succeeded him, he nominated and the Congress approved the appointment of Nelson Rockerfeller to be his own VP. It's an interesting footnote that Ford only got to be Vice President because Spiro Agnew who was Nixon's running mate came under a cloud of suspicion for criminal activity and was forced to resign.
Bloomberg is obviously a very intelligent and wealthy man but he will have to do a lot more than put up money to get nominated and elected and time is quickly running out for newcomers to enter the race. Besides, respected sources close to Bloomberg reported on the Leon Charney Report broadcast just yesterday that Bloomberg is not considering running right now. I'd say this looks like his final decision, at least for 2008.
We used to be taught that "anyone in the states could grow up to be president"...but now it's "anyone with a trust fund and wealthy friends and/or a willingness to sell one's self to the corporate highest bidder".
Locally, a measure to put extra taxes on cigarettes to fund health care for children lost (about 60% to 40%) when a couple of tobacco companies spent twelve million ($12,000,000!) to fight the measure.
With an electorate who seems to get most of their information from TV commercials, you bet elections - local and national - are bought and paid for.
Exhibit B after Nelson Rockefeller: Steve Forbes, another mega-rich Presidential contender who found that the use of money has its limits. I actually have more respect for rich people who openly promote themselves as individual politicians and attempt to woo public support for their ideas than I do for rich people like George Soros who try to buy whole parties.
I see no problem with a candidate using his own money to run. The "robbing his kids' inheritance to do just that. If hypocrisy were an Olympic sport, Mitt Romney would be a multiple gold medal winner" comment is a bit much.
I actually believe that him using is own money is more honorable, it's the whole "putting your money where your mouth is" concept.
I do not think that Bloomberg has a chance of winning. The guy changes political parties more often than I change purses.
Having the most money or even the most in donations does not equal guaranteed presidency. Having the best media team does. Having money means nothing unless you do something with it.
@5: I would love to see Bloomberg run, but I think he has taken himself out of the race.
That's a shame. He's intelligent, a brilliant manager, and he doesn't BS.
What a novel idea for a president of the US.
Why not a Libertarian President such as George Phillies?
@6
I have no ideological issues with Bloomberg. I just believe that the party changing would make average Americans view him as a flip-flopper
Of course the White House is for sale!
Where have you been?
I can hardly believe nobody mentioned H. Ross Perot, one of the most colorful men to make a bid for the White House in years. Born in 1930 to a cotton picker in Texas, this self made multi billionaire ran as an independent (in his Reform Party), spending over 65 million dollars of his own money on his 1992 campaign effort. His 1996 effort fizzled. Had he not dropped out in 1992 only to re-enter the race later who knows what would have happened, he might have won. Even so, he still got well over 19 million votes, 18.9% of the popular vote. The whole story of this fascinating man is here;
How quick they are to forget.
Just because it's never happened before
doesn't mean someone wouldn't try again.
If the 'ordinary' candidates happen to
be NYer's Hillary Clinton & Rudy Giuliani,
respectively a woman & a thrice-married
cross-dressing Catholic, why shouldn't a
billionaire Jew run as an independent (&
NYer #3). He'd stand a pretty decent chance
of winning & he could buy himself a ticket.
I'm pretty sure I'd vote for him.
In some ways, it is money but in others, whom comes over best in the media. Face it folks, Abraham Lincoln would not have been elected in todays system.
I saw that there are people trying to get CNN broadcaster Lou Dobbs to run. Mr. Dobbs is intelligent and has written a couple of books now, one about the plight of the middle class and another about our candidates.
This should have been the most exciting election in our lifetimes. Instead, it may fizzle like a dying bottle rocket on July 4th.
Washington (D.C. Times
Bloomberg=Beichman
July 18, 2006
By Arnold Beichman
Can a billion dollars kill the jinx of the New York mayoralty?
Mayor Michael Bloomberg has half=heartedly denied he鈥檚 running for a presidential nomination. 鈥淎bsolutely not,鈥 he is quoted as saying and then added, according to the New Republic, 鈥淎nd anybody who鈥檚 running will say exactly that,鈥
But if Bloomberg does go for a White House lease, he faces a formidable obstacle: the history of New York Mayors is that when they exit City Hall that鈥檚 the end of their upward political careers. And that includes Rudy Giuliani==so far. New York City鈥檚 term limits law barred him for running for a third term.
Fiorello H. La Guardia, John V. Lindsay, David Dinkins, Vincent Impelliteri, Joseph McKee, John P. O鈥橞rien, Edward Koch, Jimmy Walker, William O鈥橠wyer, Robert F. Wagner Jr., John F. Hylan, Abe Beame== these were New York mayors whose political careers ended the day they left City Hall.
La Guardia鈥檚 political career demonstrates that City Hall is the poison pill of American politics. A maverick Republican Congressman, La Guardia supported President Roosevelt and destroyed Tammany Hall. La Guardia was a dyed=in=the= wool New Dealer. He won three mayoral elections, was a wit, charismatic, scandal=free. He led a clean personal life. He was also a brilliant showman. When New York鈥檚 newspapers went on strike, he went on the air and read the syndicated Sunday comics to the bereft kiddies. Had he remained in Congress who knows what higher office might have been his?
So what about Giuliani who, politically, followed the La Guardia tradition? In 1994 the Republican Giuliani supported the incumbent liberal Democrat, Governor Mario Cuomo, over his fellow-Republican George Pataki? Unfortunately for Giuliani. Pataki beat Cuomo.
Until this day, New York鈥檚 City Hall has been the tomb of the politically ambitious. That isn鈥檛 true of mayors of other big cities. Buffalo Mayor Grover Cleveland became President Cleveland in 1885. Hubert Humphrey went from mayor of Minneapolis to senator from Minnesota, vice=president under Lyndon John and was an unsuccessful presidential candidate against Richard M. Nixon in 1968. Senator Richard Lugar was mayor of Indianapolis, a small city with no real urban problems. Today he is a major national policy=maker. Pete Wilson went from San Diego mayor to U.S. Senator and then governor of California.
Theodore Roosevelt, age 28, was a lucky man. In November 1886, he lost the race for mayor of New York. If history is any judge, had he won the race for mayor he would have remained the unknown that most N.Y. mayors have been.
David Garth, Giuliani鈥檚 onetime campaign manager, was recently quoted as hoping that Giuliani 鈥渕ight be the one to break the clich茅 that mayors from New York never make it to higher office.鈥
Right now, it doesn鈥檛 look like Giuliani will make it to higher office. Will Bloomberg, the billionaire= businessman=turned=politician, break the clich茅?
==end=
Arnold Beichman, a Washington Times columnist and a Hoover Institution research fellow, is a longtime follower of the New York political scene.