Holding Out for a Four-Party Race

I find myself delighted by the hint that New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg might just run for president after all, and that if he does, he's prepared to spend $1 billion on the effort. The reason isn't that I'm a big fan of Bloomberg -- I'm not -- but I'm intrigued by what could happen if we had a four-candidate race in November.

Yes, I said four (credible) candidates. Various Christian Republicans have already hinted at staging an independent bid should Rudy Giuliani get the GOP nod. And if that happened -- and Bloomberg entered the fray -- we could have four fairly big-name candidates.

Unlike previous third-party bigs -- think Ross Perot or Ralph Nader -- here the spoilers would likely offset each other. The pro-life candidate would probably siphon off GOP votes, but Bloomberg -- a longtime Democrat before becoming a Republican for purely practical reasons -- would likely take away Democrat votes (especially if Hillary Clinton is the Dems' choice). For that matter, Giuliani would also probably attract some moderate Democrats to his campaign, while scaring some moderate Republicans Hillary's way.

Which is to say, with four candidates, everything would be up for grabs. There would be far more in-play states. And the election, then, could just become more than the usual attempt to win over the narrow 10 percent that's undecided, but a wide, free-ranging debate on a host of issues.

Hey, I can dream, can't I?