Who Wants to Vote for a Millionaire?

What is it with America and its love affair with millionaires? Donald Trump is far more successful as a public personality than he has any right to be. Ross Perot had to do nothing more than express an interest in running for president to immediately become a credible candidate. We feign to dislike Bill Gates, but we keep running back to his product every time he offers the smallest update (although we complain about it). The only millionaire I can think of who we hate outright is Paris Hilton, but I think we'll ultimately come around (and even if we do hate her, that fact seems to do nothing more than fuel our fascination with her). And now there's Michael Bloomberg. He didn't even go as far as Ross Perot, actually talking about the presidency to rocket toward the top of the heap. All he did was acknowledge that he was leaving the Republican party. The punditocracy immediately accepted him as a viable third-party candidate.

Bloomberg seems to be walking away from the Republicans for no particular reason: "I believe this brings my affiliation into alignment with how I have led and will continue to lead my city." It always seemed to me that there was never much that was Republican about him in the first place. He'd been a Democrat until he announced his campaign for mayor of New York City in 2001, and it was fairly apparent that he did that for little more reason than to assume the mantle of Giuliani post-September 11. Giuliani responded with his support, and the rest is history.

The New York Times reports that, despite Bloomberg's denials of having any interest in a presidential run, his staff has been exploring the details of such a campaign for two years. Perhaps he chose this time because he senses there will soon be room in the campaign for a New York mayor. Giuliani's campaign seems to be imploding. His South Carolina campaign chairman has been indicted on cocaine charges. I'm sure they can spin that into family values in some way or another, but that does call his judgment into question, if nothing else. More damaging is his decision to join and then drop out of the Iraq Study Group. Sure, he's got his lame excuses all lined up, but such an issue gets very basic--his country called on Giuliani during a time of need, and he decided that he had other priorities. (It's an obvious point to make, but I'm afraid that I simply can't resist it: Replace Iraq Study Group with Vietnam, and he fits right in with this administration.) From the looks of things, there will soon be a hole in the field that's almost exactly the size of a New York mayor. Welcome to the campaign, Mayor Bloomberg.