as we may blog

Change we really, really wanted to believe in.

The New Yorker juxtaposes Mike Bloomberg’s presidential flirtations with a little history about third parties in US presidential elections. But, as Remnick asks, is Bloomberg really just another bee, a spoiler candidate along the lines of Nader or Perot?

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, especially, third-party candidacies usually grew organically out of some overarching moral vision. The Liberty and Free-Soil Parties stood against the evil enormity of chattel slavery; the Socialist Party of Eugene Debs and Norman Thomas embodied a suppressed yearning for social justice and greater economic equality. “When a third party’s demands become popular enough, they are appropriated by one or both of the major parties and the third party disappears,” Richard Hofstadter wrote, in “The Age of Reform.” “Third parties are like bees: once they have stung, they die.” Bloomberg is not without ideas about political and economic reform, but he professes no grand and specific national plan. Still less has he evinced any desire to sting and then die.

Wealth of Nations: Comment: The New Yorker

She is frequently portrayed endorsing Barack Obama and she apparently dislikes Hillary Clinton. Despite her vocal support of Obama that there is an “eighty percent chance” that she will end up secretly voting for John McCain in the 2008 election.

Liz Lemon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

According to two economists studying bandwagon effects in sequential voting systems like the United States’ presidential primary system, “early voters have up to 20 times the influence of late voters in the selection of candidates.” From the abstract:

Candidates experience momentum effects when their performance in early states exceeds expectations. The empirical application focuses on the responses of daily polling data to the release of voting returns in the 2004 presidential primary. We find that Kerry benefited from surprising wins in early states and took votes away from Dean, who held a strong lead prior to the beginning of the primary season. The voting weights implied by the estimated model demonstrate that early voters have up to 20 times the influence of late voters in the selection of candidates, demonstrating a significant departure from the ideal of “one person, one vote.”

A Financial Times blogger defends the use of Iowans for the task of candidate filtering:

Isn’t it irrational for late voters to delegate the decision making to Iowa and New Hampshire? On an individual level, no. My vote is very unlikely to make a difference, so while I may vote because I want to have some skin in the game, or because I feel it’s my duty, I am hardly likely to spend too much time consulting the manifestos. Let Iowans do the hard work.

(link mine)

I’d love to read the full paper. Too bad it costs $5. I’m particularly interested to see how their model explains two recent instances of momentum shift in wide open candidate fields: Bill Clinton’s very poor start in 1992 and Bush’s despicable victory in South Carolina in 2000.

The fine journalists at the Washington Times bring us news of another New York City mayor (no, not Koch) contemplating a run for president, this one as an independent candidate. I particularly enjoyed this line:

The Bloomberg team is studying the strategies of Mr. Perot, the Texas billionaire whose 1992 presidential campaign helped President Clinton to win the White House with 43 percent of the popular vote.

Look out America! If Bloomberg runs, a black man or a woman with short hair might be in the Oval Office sooner than you can say “don’t blame me, I voted for Bush.”