To coolio, ny ny: Ron Paul is a good man, but not the "Breath of Fresh Air" I was referring to. He espouses much of the Republican Party rhetoric that has pervaded our government for the past seven years and has predominated his representation since he "entered politics" in 1971.

To Evan of Boca Raton, FL: Mayor Bloomberg may not be my mayor, but he has my attention. Although I am from New York, I moved to North Carolina 18 months ago. If Mr. Bloomberg chooses to seek National office ~ he has to appeal to the National constituency. This appears to be the case as the responses, in the CNN Political Ticker, are primarily from non-New Yorkers and appears to be largely favorable.

NonPartisan Independent candidates
HUNDREDS OF THEM!!
CA Assembly, CA Senate, US Representative and even President candidate(s)

On May 14, 2007 California Attorney General website listed the Initiative Measure to achieve this goal.
http://ag.ca.gov/initiatives/activeindex.php?active=A Select: # 07-0019

SECTION 1. Title This Initiative Measure shall be known and may be cited as the:
“California NonPartisan Candidate Qualification Act”
SECTION 2. Findings
The people of the state of California do hereby declare their no confidence frustration with (1) partisan political malfeasance and (2) duopoly polarized partisan political party failure to produce desirable visionary candidates of viable eclectic-pragmatic leadership competence.
SECTION 3. Purpose
This California statute disenfranchises or eliminates existing multiple incongruent Election Code procedures of Signatures-in-Lieu, Nomination Signatures and Write-in Candidate Qualification Signatures for nonpartisan General Election candidates, and, creates a new aligned signature gathering process for state wide and district nonpartisan candidates, including a default write-in candidate qualification means.

The whitepaper introduction is at: http://www.NonPartisanPatriot.com

We invite your interest in this Initiative Measure. Attorney General Jerry Brown will release the official Title and Summary in 25 to 30 days. The official press release will include who is our "Charlton Heston" media spokesperson.

Our email address is: Independent@NonPartisanPatriot.com

Sincerely,

Connor Vlakancic, Advocate, CAO
California NonPartisan Independent Committee 501(c)4

Now, the interesting question would be:

"Could Al Gore do the same... AND... could the two create a running ticket together?"

Food for thought.

Given the mainstream media already has chosen who should be nominated, and thus won't cover the lesser known candidates, thus preventing people from hearing their issues and possibly supporting them. This election needs some real candidates that that the entire country can unite behind.

Giuliani did nothing to fight terror, yet it is the bedrock of his current presidential campaign.

Bloomberg made his own riches and is an extremely competent business. His daddy never had to bail him out of job after job after job after job after war after 911 commission.

Yes Bloomberg was a RINO, and everyone knew it. If you support someone's beliefs it shouldn't matter what party they claim. Republican Senator Trent Lott said that the country would be a better place if Pro-segregationist Strom Thurmond was elected president, even though at that point in his life Thurmond was a Democrat. In yet another ironic twist Lott was one of the first and biggest Republicans to call for the dismissal of Rumsfeld, yet he is now adamant that Congress make no judgement about the legal violations of the current A.G.

Wow, what brash ignorance. This man could only leech off GOP votes... therefore, I hope he does run, not that any of the Repuglican candidates stand a whim of a chance anyway.

You can't be serious. A meaningless label doesn't change your core values. His values have been pretty consistent. His soul is the same; he just keeps changing his socks. No biggie. I would definitely vote for him.

It comes down, though, to the fact that he would self-finance. This is the bottom line to me:

So long as the Presidency is for sale to the biggest spender, we might as well vote for the man who's buying with his own money.

Can you imagine a President with no big fund-raisers to "thank" and no donors to "honor?" Somebody who isn't beholden to special interests for campaign cash?! What a miracle THAT would be!

Being a New Yorker, I applaud the Mayor and only hope that his vision isn't trampled by all the others that are "stuck in the mud" with their own self importance.

It's about time that this country had someone at the top that has a real commitment to the people of this country and not to a special interest group or their bank balance.

Sure enough he dropped the bomb.

Spells disaster for the Republicans... Ross Perot all over again. Though they seem to be struggling right now with current set of candidates. Might be a moot point, maybe that's why he did it.

I can think of numerous things about Bloomberg, that when viewed independently of others, could put him on either side.

Fortunately, the world isn't as black and white as so many of you towing the partisan lines seem to think that it is. It's this sad frame of mind that our two party system has indoctrinated into too many voters (and non-voters who refuse to support either side because they differ on so many things with both)

While there is a niche for a candidate like Bloomberg, he may end up being a sightly more relevant Ross Perot.

But who knows. It's still very early in the campaign, and when Bloomberg was asked about how much a campaign would cost and was told $500 million, he simply replied, "Okay."