President. Bloomberg??

Scott Adams, creator of the Dilbert cartoon and blogger extraordinaire, suggested 2 days ago that NY Mayor Michael Bloomberg would be a good candidate for President. Today, I find a piece on Yahoo indicating that His Honor is openly considering it. Moderate Republican Senator Chuck Hagel (R. Neb.) met with Bloomberg in NY recently. The two seemed to hit it off.

"Hagel openly hinted about joining the mayor on a high-octane, third-party ticket that could reshape the political landscape and jolt the traditional U.S. two-party system.

'It's a great country to think about -- a New York boy and a Nebraska boy to be teamed up leading this nation,' Hagel said earlier this week on CBS."

Given the dearth of viable choices on either side, this pairing looks interesting. This is something more than just a Naderesque tilt at national windmills. Bloomberg has the money to mount a national campaign on his own, without accepting a dime from anybody. The guy is worth a billion bucks, that would buy a lot of TV time.. Keep an eye on this one. It could really mess with the heads of the party front runners.

Another interesting development in presidential politics was a little noticed bill that pass the NC Senate last week. The bill would require the state's electors to cast all the state's electoral votes for the candidate who received the majority of the popular vote nationwide, short-circuiting the now outdated constitutional purpose of the Electoral College. This is part of a national campaign to change the face of presidential elections, to force candidates to campaign nationally rather than limiting their appearances and positions based on a political formula for capturing votes in the Electoral College.
If this process had been in place in 2000, the Supreme Court would not have decided the election, the voters would have. This sounds like an idea whose time has come. Lets hope so.