Waiting for Bloomberg — and Biden and Kerry

I couldn’t help but notice that Vice President Joe Biden had an op-ed in The New York Times last week. He wanted to remind us all of the Senate’s duty in appointing a Supreme Court nominee.

{mosads}I don’t recall seeing another op-ed by Biden in the Times in recent times. Maybe he has something else in mind. Maybe he’s thinking of running for president again and wants to remind us that he is still here.

And he took the stage at the Oscars last week with Lady Gaga.

And now he’s heading to Israel next week as part of a big Mideast tour, a mandatory first step for anyone dreaming of the Oval Office.

Three months after bowing out of the 2016 competition, the vice president had a few second thoughts about his decision.

“I regret it every day,” he said in early January.

Probably more so these days as the Republican primary season descends into a maelstrom and drags the country down with it. The lowest plateau might have been reached in the recent debate in that magnificent Detroit theater when moderator Bret Baier, citing a statement by Gen. Michael Hayden — former director of the CIA and the National Security Agency — and 100 other foreign policy experts, asked front-runner Donald Trump how he would respond if the military refused illegal orders from him if president. Trump replied, according to The Washington Post’s transcript:

“[W]aterboarding? I said it’s fine. And if we want to go stronger, I’d go stronger, too, because, frankly … “

[APPLAUSE]

” … that’s the way I feel.”

Later, at a Florida campaign rally, Trump said he would stay within the laws, with a caveat: “But you know what we’re going to do? We’re going to have those laws broadened because we’re playing with two sets of rules: their rules and our rules,” he said, according to CNN.

The more troubling thing was that “applause” interlude; the spontaneous uprising in the theater in visceral support of such a position from an audience that was made up almost in its entirety of Republican elected officials, state committee members and grassroots activists. Only 50 tickets were offered to the general public.

But why would Biden suddenly see an advantage now? Because Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton’s problems are getting worse, much worse, since her ex-staffer Bryan Pagliano — who set up the email server in her home — was granted an immunity deal by the Justice Department which, as The New York Times described it, “could jar her campaign’s momentum in the months ahead.”

If Biden is thinking of entering, would Republican-turned-independent former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who declared in January that he was thinking of running, not likewise perk up at the possibility of more trouble for the Clintons?

In fact, the day after Biden’s Times op-ed, reports began to surface again that Bloomberg was indeed beginning to get serious about a presidential run.

“In a technical move that could be viewed as a prerequisite to announcing an independent bid for the presidency, former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s personal website was recently transferred to an independent web server — away from servers run by his company,” The New York Times reported.

When Bloomberg first came forth with interest in running for president back in January, it was said that he might bring a challenge to Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders when Sanders appeared to be rising against Clinton in the polls for the Democratic nomination. But what if the Democratic primary opposition consisted of a severely weakened and embattled Clinton, a diminished Sanders and Biden while Bloomberg offered a positive, healthy option? And what if Secretary of State John Kerry joined in as News Corp. boss Rupert Murdoch has proposed?

“Watch Hillary’s candidacy sink and sink,” Murdoch tweeted in February. “Nobody buying and more big trouble coming on emails. Dems looking for a replacement. John Kerry?”

The potential indictment of Clinton is a wild card in the Democratic race that could roil the party’s convention, a former federal prosecutor told the Boston Herald.

“There is no way Secretary Clinton and her staff have not violated classified information laws — both misdemeanors and felonies,” said Joseph E. diGenova, former U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, according to the report. “The FBI is conducting a serious, criminal investigation. This is not a security review.”

How would Bloomberg match up with this new batch of contenders?

Very well, perhaps. If Sanders begins now to tread water and Clinton’s problems, including the destabilizing legacy of husband Bill — who, like an unpredictable aging Elvis, brings again his unsettling personal baggage to a new generation — do not go away, it is possible to envision a head-to-head match between Bloomberg and Kerry, both of whom would dominate Biden. And visualize Bloomberg’s and Kerry’s sudden appearances in this long and weary primary race. It could start again, from scratch, leaving Clinton and Sanders in the dust.

This past week, 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney brought a direct challenge to Trump, who is well ahead in the Republican polling. But if Romney fails, maybe Bloomberg can break Trump’s momentum. He may be temperamentally and materially better prepared than Biden to bring a challenge to his fellow New Yorkers Clinton and Trump. As an independent who has flirted with both Democratic and Republican parties in his life, Bloomberg offers something the Washington establishment may be seen as lacking: An honorable and uncomplicated political and personal history and a fresh start.

And if America is tired of its time-worn, threadbare, stagnant, antiquated and paternalistic political parties that have been around since the Civil War and before — and that may be part of the problem — Bloomberg might even go long and create his own party; a party with contours to more appropriately fit the rising century; an equal and opposite counterforce to whatever it is that is happening today with the new Jacksonian Republicans.

Because this is not about 2016. It is the very beginning of something that will go well beyond. And Donald Trump is only prelude.

Quigley is a prize-winning writer who has worked more than 35 years as a book and magazine editor, political commentator and reviewer. For 20 years he has been an amateur farmer, raising Tunis sheep and organic vegetables. He lives in New Hampshire with his wife and four children. Contact him at quigley1985@gmail.com.