But Rudy Giuliani notwithstanding, being mayor of New York is a huge liability — particularly for a self-styled independent seeking national office. In fact, because of his background and current job, Bloomberg’s real appeal is to East Coast elites — exactly the kind of people a successful independent candidate needs to repel rather than inspire, the better to run against the media and the establishment. Bloomberg, really, is just another John Anderson.
As seen on TV
That’s where Dobbs comes in. Like Perot and Pat Buchanan before him, Dobbs pushes the right populist buttons with the right rhetoric. Economic nationalism. Corporate greed. The government’s “war on the middle class.” Politicians who are “viciously partisan and contemptuous of their constituencies.” Though he’s often lambasted for his over-the-top rants on immigration, he’s struck a considerable chord with his recognition that the average voter’s problem with illegal immigration isn’t that it’s immigration, but that it’s illegal. It’s a law-and-order issue that both Democrats and Republicans have managed to dismiss, much to their detriment.
Dobbs also has the perfect platform from which to launch a candidacy against the establishment. If Virginia was once the mother of presidents, CNN is now the mother of populist presidential candidacies. Buchanan, of course, went straight from the studio to the campaign trail, even bragging when he announced, “No other American has spent as many hundreds of hours debating the great questions of our day on national television.”
Perot, of course, did something similar, as Larry King essentially allowed him to hijack his show in the early ’90s to help promote his prospects.
Any Dobbs effort would, of course, be a long shot; everyone knows independents don’t win (everyone, that is, but the prognosticating Mr. Dobbs). And, perhaps, a presidential run is the furthest thing from his mind. But if you were positioning yourself to run as an outsider, you’d find yourself a media forum, write books, work the lecture circuit, and bide your time. Just like Lou.
In a year when the political and media establishments are tone deaf, Dobbs, of all people, is in tune with the public mood. Even if he doesn’t run, he bears watching.
As Dobbs goes, so goes the nation.
THE FIELD
REPUBLICANS
RUDY GIULIANI
Odds: 5-3 | past week: same
MITT ROMNEY
Odds: 5-2 | 3-1
JOHN MCCAIN
Odds: 7-1 | 6-1
MIKE HUCKABEE
Odds: 9-1 | 11-1
FRED THOMPSON
Odds: 10-1 | 6-1
RON PAUL
Odds: 150-1 | 200-1
DUNCAN HUNTER
Odds: 200,000-1 | same
TOM TANCREDO
Odds: 250,000-1 | same
ALAN KEYES
Odds: 3 million-1 | same
DEMOCRATS
HILLARY CLINTON
Odds: 5-6 | past week: same
BARACK OBAMA
Odds: 5-2 | same
JOHN EDWARDS
Odds: 6-1 | same
JOE BIDEN
Odds: 100-1 | same
CHRIS DODD
Odds: 100-1 | same
BILL RICHARDSON
Odds: 200-1 | same
DENNIS KUCINICH
Odds: 100,000-1 | same
MIKE GRAVEL
Odds: 16 million-1 | same
On the Web
The Presidential Tote Board blog: http://www.thephoenix.com/toteboard/
