Michael Bloomberg met with Ross Perot's campaign manager

[Poiuyt]

Bloomberg Meets With Ballot Expert
SARA KUGLER | January 18, 2008 04:30 PM EST |

AUSTIN, Texas — New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg met Friday with the ballot access expert and campaign manager for H. Ross Perot's third-party presidential bid, a sign of the multibillionaire's seriousness about a possible independent run.

Bloomberg met privately with Clay Mulford, who is well-versed in third-party ballot access and served as campaign manager for Perot, according to an individual close to the mayor. Perot sought the presidency in 1992 and 1996. The lunch meeting with Mulford comes less than two months before Bloomberg would be able to start gathering signatures to get on the ballot and meet Texas' early deadline.

If Bloomberg wants a chance at winning the state's large slice of electoral votes _ 34 _ he would need to collect about 74,100 signatures by May 12, and cannot begin circulating petitions here until March 5. Not only does he have a short window to petition, the signatures need to be from Texas residents who did not vote in a party primary.

Earlier Friday, during a news conference, Bloomberg was asked about the significance of being in Texas, with its early ballot deadline. He seemed irritated with the question, having said only a moment earlier that he is "not a candidate" despite all the calls for him to run.

"I just said, I'm not a candidate _ it couldn't be clearer," he said. "Which of the words do you not understand? People have urged me to do it but I'm not a candidate."

Despite his public denials, Bloomberg has been consulting with people such as Mulford and is conducting a sophisticated analysis of voter data in all 50 states to better understand his chances as a third-party candidate. Aides have said he would delay a decision until after the major parties produce clear front-runners.



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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20080118/bloomberg-2008/

[madeline_con]

1. Good idea. Perot was so succesful. n/t

:eyes:

[MadMaddie]

3. Ha..Ha...I was thinking the same thing.

[SmellsLikeDeanSpirit]

6. 19% in '92 and 9% in '96....isn't successful for a 3rd party?

[tekisui]

7. Inauguration is success. Unless your goal is to thwart another's chance.

[skipos]

2. If it is Hillary vs. Huckabee, he has a great opportunity

to take advantage of the fact that independents do not like either of them. And he has a billion bucks to spend on it too.

[ingac70]

4. Still not enough independents to elect him....

then its "Hello President Huckabee!"

[skipos]

8. Maybe. But I think all his $$$ will be more effective than you think.

If we are dumb enough to nominate Hillary, I wash my hands of all the bullshit (Bloomberg, Nader) that comes along with it.

[ShadowLiberal]

10. He could get Dem's and Repub's dissatisfied with their party's nominee's

I've got to admit if I saw the democrat didn't seem to have a chance at winning, but Bloomberg did, then I might be tempted to vote for Bloomberg to avoid allowing a republican to take the white house again. I bet there's republicans who would be willing to vote for Bloomberg to keep a democrat out of the white house to.

[madeline_con]

5. If we had some ham we could have ham and eggs...

if we had some eggs.

[milkyway]

9. What red states could he win? A rich New York Jew who wants to take away your guns.

How could he get 34% in any repug state? All he would possibly do is siphon off some blue states from the Dems and give the election to the repugs.