Billionaire And Who's Behind Bloomberg Movement

For the last few days articles have appeared in the newspapers and on the Web speculating about a Michael Bloomberg Presidential campaign as a third party candidate.

Mr Bloomberg’s wealth has been estimated at as much as $13billion. With a potential war chest of $1billion, he can afford to run at any time with little contribution from the public. Bloomberg, quit the Democratic and Republican parties when he entered politics, and is now an independent.

He has called for an end to partisanship.Which sounds good, but in my opinion will never ever happen again in American politics. His positions on issues such as immigration, gun control and trade would be appear to be the big issues of his campaign.

Not only does Mr. Bloombeg have no experience in Foreign affairs, and is little known outside of the North East. The group that is behind the campaign to get him to play the role of "spoiler"includes some interesting people. This group has been referred to as "moderates", but I think this blog will show they are anything but moderate!

To lead off the group who reporters call moderates is the notorious Gary Hart of the "Monkey Business" trip to the Bahamas with Donna Rice during his run for President.
The Miami Herald obtained photographs of Hart aboard the Monkey Business with then-29-year-old model Donna Rice, sitting in over-50 year-old Hart's lap. The photographs were subsequently published in the National Enquirer. On May 8, 1987, a week after the Donna Rice story broke, Hart dropped out of the race.

Then there is ex-Senator Danforth who as a mainline Episcopal priest, retired U.S. senator and diplomat,worships a humbler God and considers "the Christian Right's certainty a sin".He had the following to say in March of 2005.

"Legislating against gay marriage, for instance? "It's just cussedness." As he sees it, "when we see an opportunity to save our neighbors' lives through stem cell research, we believe that it is our duty to pursue that research, and to oppose legislation that would impede us from doing so".
He also said: "We think that efforts to haul references of God into the public square, into schools and courthouses, are far more apt to divide Americans than to advance faith.
Following a Lord who reached out in compassion to all human beings, we oppose amending the Constitution in a way that would humiliate homosexuals".

William Cohen is another of Bloombergs supporters. In commenting on the QDR,(Quadrenial Sefense Review).

Cohen stated that the Pentagon would retain the two regional wars scenario adopted after the end of the Cold War.However, he decided to scale back purchases of jet fighters, including the Air Force's F-22 and the Navy's F/A-18E/F, as well as Navy surface ships. The review included cutting another 61,700 active duty service members, 15,000 in the Army, 26,900 in the Air Force, 18,000 in the Navy, and 1,800 in the Marine Corps, as well as 54,000 reserve forces, mainly in the Army National Guard, and some 80,000 civilians department-wide. Cohen also decided to recommend two more rounds of base closings in 1999 and 2001. Sounds like a liberal not a moderate position to me. As a result when President Bush took over as the Commander in Chief, he inherited a weakened military.

Ex-Sentor Bob Graham, also is supporting the Mayor of New York as a Presidential candidate. He is remembered by this blogger for his Mea culpa in the Washington Post after he left the Senate in which he concluded: "From my advantaged position, I had earlier concluded that a war with Iraq would be a distraction from the successful and expeditious completion of our aims in Afghanistan. Now I had come to question whether the White House was telling the truth -- or even had an interest in knowing the truth.
On Oct. 11, I voted no on the resolution to give the president authority to go to war against Iraq. I was able to apply caveat emptier. Most of my colleagues could not."
The writer is a former Democratic senator from Florida. He was a fellow at Harvard University's Institute of Politics when he wrote the column. Perhaps his position at Harvard colored his opinion, although he based his oposition to the Iraq invasion based upon:"As to Hussein's will to use whatever weapons he might have, the estimate indicated he would not do so unless he was first attacked."Sounds like the position of all Democrats now in the race to me.