Image via WikipediaMichael Bloomberg & Joe Scarborough: The Independent Odd CoupleWASHINGTON -- There's no campaign yet, and there may never be, but New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and MSNBC's morning talk-show host Joe Scarborough have begun trying to figure out whether they could be an independent presidential ticket in 2012 -- and who would be better to be on top if it happens.
They're the Odd Couple of Guys Outside the System.
The two are friends and, in both public and private, mutual admirers. They spent the day after the midterm elections complimenting each other at a Harvard symposium -- Vanity Fair was there to document it all for a spring issue -- bemoaning the same political rift they may try to exploit to win the White House.
Well-placed sources tell The Huffington Post that the mayor and the host have talked about running together, with Bloomberg in the top spot. In an interview, Scarborough, a former GOP congressman from Florida, issued a firm yet carefully-worded denial. "We haven't discussed it directly," he said, adding, "Have people discussed it in his sphere and in my sphere? I think so."
Bloomberg's chief political lieutenant, Kevin Sheekey, did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
On "Morning Joe," Scarborough has repeatedly praised the mayor and talked up the likelihood -- and the necessity -- of an independent presidential bid by someone, even if it isn't going to be Bloomberg leading it.
It can get effusive. "I don't know anybody who has seen what Bloomberg's done for this city," the host said on his morning program in October, "who would not say that he is one of the best administrators we have had in American politics in quite some time."
Bloomberg, with a net worth of $20 billion and a net self-confidence of infinity, has denied that he's running for president, but he and his advisers continue to closely monitor the possibility of his doing just that. "He's all about the data," said a close friend, "and if the data ever show that he could somehow get 270 electoral votes, he'll be in it in a New York minute."
Of course, this may all be an act of spectacular Manhattan vanity, but the sense that our politics is broken is so widespread that the breakfast talk at the Regency and the lunch talk at Michael's can't be dismissed.
While no one in Manhattan doubts that Bloomberg wants to be president, the consensus among his friends and confidants is that several things have to happen between now and next fall to move him to declare.
The already-bitter partisan divide in Congress has to widen; the Republican Party has to become a subsidiary of the tea party; the Democrats must become a rump parliament of liberals; the tone of politics must get even nastier, Jon Stewart notwithstanding; and the economy has to remain enfeebled.
It doesn't take a political rocket scientist to see that this isn't a far-fetched scenario, but timing is everything.
"My gut is that it is going to get more polarized," said former GOP Rep. Tom Davis, a Virginia moderate, Bloomberg acolyte and one of the brainiest and best strategists of his generation. "And if it does get more polarized, the situation is made for a 'fixer' -- and that's Mike."
The question would be how to win enough states outright, because no independent candidate would stand a chance against the two established parties if the contest went to overtime in the U.S. House of Representatives.
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