I"m ready for something other than a Donkey or an Elephant. What would be a Michael Bloomberg, 3rd party, symbol anyway? Does he need one? The bottom line is that we know all too well how the four leading candidates for the two positions fare in the public eye. Each of the four candidates left standing are just too predictable and only one (Obama) seems to have any chance at uniting the masses.
The Republicans go through the primary season letting whomever wins the majority of the votes, get the spoils. The Democrats go through the priamry season spending tens of millions of dollars only to allow all that to be offset by the Super Delegates who are back room play-makers, and political croonies that can flaunt the will of the people and do whatever they please.
The Democrats are split on demographic lines, between blacks and Latinos, old and young, upscale and downscale. The Republicans are split over attitudinal lines: conservatives vs. liberals. Huckabee caters to the fundamentalist-evangelical crowd. McCain caters to the patriotic and war-oriented. Hillary caters to the "establishment"- the down-n-dirty let"s win at any cost crowd. Obama caters to those that are tired of business as usual.
What would Bloomberg bring to the table?
Harold Ickes was all for kicking Florida and Michigan out of having any delegates (9 months ago). Now that his candidate is behind (Hilalry), he wants them in. It"s hard to find any integrity in politics. The current rules came out of the 1988 contest, in which Jesse Jackson felt his voters were underrepresented. The problem is that the contest between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama has been so close that neither has built a significant lead -- or is likely to do so in the contests still to come.
You can hear the cries now, echoing the Florida controversy of 2000. "Count every vote" will be Clinton"s cry -- the argument Al Gore"s forces made. "Don"t change the rules after the game is played" will be Obama"s cry -- the argument of the Republican lawyers. The Florida fiasco polarized the nation because the arguments that each side made were in line with its basic ideas of fairness. A brokered democratic convention is just what this nation needs. NOT!
Are we ready to do this all over again?
Obama fans will see this as an attempt to steal the nomination from the people"s choice. Clinton fans will argue that denying representation to the nation"s fourth and eighth largest states, both closely divided in the last two elections, would be political suicide. The Democrats" determination to design a system all their constituencies would consider fair threatens to produce a confrontation whose result, whatever it is, will be bitterly regarded by large and important party constituencies as profoundly unfair.
Ah the best laid plans of mice and men, donkeys and elephants, Democrats and Republicans!