Other Crap

Registered voters would give Bloomberg 12% as Independent for President

I'm not easy to surprise, and that surprised me. That's a big number.

Another surprise is that he is a PURE centrist, taking votes about equally from both parties. In a Hillary/Rudy matchup, Clinton wins 50-46 without Bloomberg, but she also wins 45-39-12 with Bloomberg in the mix. Bloomberg gets five of his twelve from Hillary and seven from Rudy.

It would be interesting to see how the mix would look in a four-way race with Ron Paul running as a Libertarian, but Gallup doesn't include those results. Paul was not a strong candidate when he ran as a Libertarian in 1988, but this is a different world. He now has established some national recognition and has a strong internet cabal in his corner. I suppose Paul's advanced age would hurt him in a general Presidential election. He's a year older than John McCain, and two years older than The Gipper when he was elected to his first term.

Of course, Ron Paul's strongest liability as a politician is that he's basically a decent human being with some personal integrity, which essentially disqualifies him from holding any of the nation's highest offices. (David Souter is an exception, but Paul's profession rules him out for the Supreme Court.)