Bloomberg as an Independent?

New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg is mulling running for President as an Independent.

That's excellent news!

For the Republican Party.

The Democratic candidates are being pulled to the far left during the primaries but the general elections require a more centrist approach. Bloomberg can appear more centrist than the Democratic candidate (whoever he or she ends up being) and syphon off votes from their base just like Ross Perot did to George H Bush in 1990 or like Ralph Nader did to Al Gore in 2000.

A Bloomberg candidacy won't hurt the Republican candidate because the Republican base doesn't consider Bloomberg to be anything than a rich-boy opportunist who was a Republic in name only during his election to be mayor of New York City. Bloomberg's nanny-state policies hurt him with independent gun owners and smokers but could be appealing to some in the Democrat's base.

I for one hope he runs because it will give everyone somebody to make fun of.

EDIT: Jonah Goldberg has very similar thoughts on what a Bloomberg run for President as an Independent would mean and he even uses some of the same words and phrasing I did (although I'm not sure if my "syphon" is correct or his "siphon" is). My post beat Goldberg's by 10 minutes though. It would be cool if Goldberg reached his conclusions only after reading my post but this is just a case of two guys stating the obvious.