A Modern Willkie?
Imagine this: A long-shot wartime presidential candidacy by a "sturdy, able," New York business executive who lives near the Metropolitan Museum of Art. His "original supporters" are "eastern establishment" Ivy League graduates who work "in major media organizations, Wall Street law firms, and financial institutions." He is a longtime Democrat who changed his party registration to Republican. A committed internationalist on foreign policy, he runs a future-oriented campaign that, while initially scoffed at, eventually makes an impressively strong showing.
For those pondering a presidential run by Mayor Bloomberg, it's worth remembering that there are precedents, or at least analogues, beyond Ross Perot. The story of Wendell Willkie's 1940 presidential campaign has recently attracted renewed attention from book-writing journalists across the political spectrum. The longtime editor of the Washington Monthly, Charles Peters, a neoliberal, wrote "Five Days in Philadelphia," about the convention that won Willkie the Republican nomination. Amity Shlaes's new history of the Great Depression, "The Forgotten Man," pays lots of attention to Willkie. The description above is drawn from both sources, and the striking thing is that it could apply just as much to Mr. Bloomberg as Willkie.
Mr. Bloomberg's supporters hope, of course, that unlike Willkie, he'll actually win the presidency. Maybe, maybe not. 2008 isn't 1940, and while Willkie and Bloomberg have certain similarities, they aren't exactly alike. As we've said before, we're not yet endorsing any presidential candidate in 2008. But if one of the things holding the mayor back is a fear of embarrassing himself, the respect accorded Willkie's losing candidacy from writers across the political spectrum more than 65 years later should help to allay that concern and encourage Mr. Bloomberg to move ahead with a run for the White House.
