As a devout skeptic of both Michael Bloomberg’s presidential ambitions and Sarah Palin’s putative “front-runner” status in the 2012 Republican campaign, I’m naturally completely unconvinced by John Heilemann’s entertainingly bizarre scenario in which Bloomberg runs as an independent in 2012, peels off enough votes and states from Obama to hang the electoral college, and ultimately delivers the White House to Palin. But I’ll confine myself to just one objection. To make his scenario work, Heilemann envisions Bloomberg winning states like New Jersey, New York and Connecticut, behind a combination of moderate Republicans, centrist Democrats and “progressives disappointed with Obama.” In a vacuum, these might be plausible constituencies for Hizzoner — but not in an election where Sarah Palin is the Republican nominee! How many northeastern progressives (or Lincoln Chafee Republicans, for that matter) would contemplate casting a vote for a third-party candidate knowing that it might deliver the White House to the woman they fear and loathe above all others? Not many, I’d say. Nothing would be guaranteed to rally the Obama coalition quite like the specter of a Palin presidency: For months before the election, the drumbeat that “a vote for Bloomberg is a vote for Palin” would be well-nigh deafening, and I’m pretty sure that even a weakened Obama wouldn’t have that much trouble holding serve in that scenario, relegating Bloomberg to exactly the kind of John Anderson-esque performance that would be his most likely fate in any case.
To have any chance of being a major factor in the 2012 race, Bloomberg would need the Republicans to nominate a candidate who makes a large swathe of voters uneasy but doesn’t actively terrify anybody. Mike Huckabee, I think, fits this bill far better than Palin. Some socially-liberal and big-money Republicans would be uncomfortable if he were the G.O.P. nominee, creating an opportunity for Bloomberg to make inroads on the center-right. But at the same time, Huckabee’s charms and savvy make him unthreatening enough that he wouldn’t send progressives and the center-left into anything like the “rally ’round Obama” panic that a Palin nomination would generate. It’s still a pretty implausible scenario, but one could at least imagine some disillusioned Democrats justifying voting for Bloomberg over Obama while telling themselves that a Huckabee presidency wouldn’t be all that bad. I have a much, much harder time, though, imagining the same voter feeling comfortable taking a chance on Bloomberg if it meant that Sarah Palin might end up in the White House.