Mayor Michael Bloomberg?

by Richard Kostelanetz (December 2012)

  
http://www.villagevoice.com/2010-01-05/news/bloomberg-and-thompson-the-really-odd-couple. The resulting mayoral election was from the beginning not a championship fight but a rigged match more typical of the undercard. No wonder so many possible Bloomberg fans didn’t show up.

Some libertarians have made term limits into an issue worthy of legislation, as indeed it probably is. Critical historians have also noted that, even for successful mayors, third terms are rarely as successful as their first or their second. So far, three years down in Bloomberg-3, so to speak, that last truth holds.

Bloomberg. May I further conjecture that, had Bloomberg defeated Obama, his presidency would have included surprises.

Thinking back to 2009, may I ask if anyone can think of any earlier American (or Western) election in which an incumbent nearly overkilled himself? Not even FDR in going for this third term in 1940? Will anything similar ever happen again? Or is this 2009 joke of Bloomberg nearly losing to himself unique?

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