As If Two New Yorkers Weren't Enough!

New York Mayor and Republican Michael Bloomberg "has quietly been polling and conducting a highly sophisticated voter analysis in all 50 states as he decides whether to launch an independent presidential bid."

Bloomberg is rich enough to make Mitt Romney look almost poor, and Romney is far wealthier than the Republican and Democratic candidate field. Fortune has estimated Bloomberg's net worth at $11.5 billion.

On Sunday, Bloomberg joined 16 other politicians -- including former New Jersey Gov. Christie Todd Whitman (R), former Georgia Sen. Sam Nunn (D), former Missouri John Danforth (R) and Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE), who is not running for re-election -- in the nation's heartland, invited "by Senator and Oklahoma University president David Boren to discuss the sorry state of the 2008 presidential campaign."

Tom Robbins, writing in the Village Voice, argues that "he could even win."

The only hitch in his game plan would be if the Republicans, in a moment of unlikely sanity, nominate John McCain, who is both a war hero and preaches the same kind of ideology of reform...

Already he has his people traipsing through the states, lining up the support of all those post-Perotian grouplets left over from 1992 that still control little parties scattered around the country. Last June, he changed his party registration from Republican to nonaffiliated, a move that came just before an obscure election-law deadline in Colorado that required candidates wishing to run as independents to be nonaffiliated.

Unity08, spearheaded by Sam Waterston, is promoting a third party ticket and polling "members" about issues. The number one issue? Energy independence.

Will this be the historic moment for 2008? The rise of third party candidacy? An ostensible bi-party ballot? A billionaire buying his way into the White House?