The Draft Bloomberg movement is a

political draft In elections in the United States, political drafts are used to encourage or pressure a certain person to enter a political race, by demonstrating a significant groundswell of support for the candidate. History 20th century Movements to draft ...

movement in the

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that launched in 2007 as an effort to convince

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

Mayor In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilities of a mayor as well ...

Michael Bloomberg to run for

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as an

independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independ ...

candidate in the 2008 election.Molla, Rani (2008-01-14
"Draft Bloomberg Movement Launched"
''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...

''. Retrieved 2010-05-01. The movement ended for that election cycle on February 28, 2008, when Bloomberg formally announced that he would not run for president. The movement relaunched in late 2010 as an effort to persuade Bloomberg to make a presidential bid and/or lead in the formation of a viable

third party Third party may refer to: Business * Third-party source, a supplier company not owned by the buyer or seller * Third-party beneficiary, a person who could sue on a contract, despite not being an active party * Third-party insurance, such as a V ...

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.Saul, Michael Howard (2010-10-14
"Bloomberg Supporters Plot Draft"
''

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''. Retrieved 2010-10-14.(2010-10-13
"Green Party Candidates Race to Join the Committee to Draft Michael Bloomberg Press Conference This Thursday"
PR Newswire. Retrieved 2010-10-18. Eight years later, he eventually entered the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries and lost.

Support from Independent Greens of Virginia

In January 2008, the Independent Greens of Virginia launched the first state petition drive in the nation to put Michael Bloomberg on the ballot for president. The party collected and submitted more than the minimum number of required petition signatures with Bloomberg's name to the

Virginia State Board of Elections The Virginia State Board of Elections (SBE) was created in 1946 as a nonpolitical agency responsible for ensuring uniformity, fairness, accuracy and purity in all elections in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The SBE promotes the proper administration ...

, prior to the Board's deadline, to put the party on the ballot for president in Virginia. Despite these efforts, Bloomberg did not appear on the Virginia ballot in the 2008 election as a presidential candidate because, one day prior to the State's deadline for ballot submissions, he requested that the party remove his name.

Unity08 splinter group

There had been speculation of drafting Bloomberg to run as a presidential candidate on the

Unity08 Unity08 was an American political reform movement that sought to offer all voters an opportunity to directly engage in politics by ranking the most crucial issues facing the country, discussing them with the candidates and engaging in an online, ...

ticket. On January 10, 2008, the organization released a statement announcing that two of its co-founders,

Doug Bailey Doug Bailey (October 5, 1933 - June 10, 2013) was an American political consultant and founder of ''The Hotline'', a bipartisan, daily briefing on American politics. Life Douglas Lansford Bailey was born on Oct. 5, 1933, in Cleveland. After rec ...

and

Gerald Rafshoon Gerald Monroe Rafshoon (born January 11, 1934) is an American television producer and political operative. He is one of the four founding members of Unity08, and was the White House Communications Director under the presidency of Jimmy Carter. I ...

, were leaving Unity08 and launching a national draft movement to entice Bloomberg to run as an independent candidate.

Support for the movement in 2008

Support for the movement came primarily from independent voters unhappy with the choices the two major parties were offering.

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, creator of the comic strip ''

Dilbert ''Dilbert'' is an American comic strip written and illustrated by Scott Adams, first published on April 16, 1989. It is known for its satirical office humor about a white-collar, micromanaged office with engineer Dilbert as the title charact ...

'', and entrepreneur

Mark Cuban Mark Cuban (born July 31, 1958) is an American billionaire entrepreneur, television personality, and media proprietor whose net worth is an estimated $4.8 billion, according to ''Forbes'', and ranked No. 177 on the 2020 ''Forbes'' 400 list ...

acknowledged the movement on their respective

blog A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order s ...

s and made favorable comments regarding a potential Bloomberg presidential campaign. Political consultants

and

quit the

movement to work to draft Bloomberg.

Relaunch for 2012 election campaign

In October 2010, The Committee to Draft Michael Bloomberg announced it was relaunching the movement in hopes of persuading Bloomberg to lead in bringing together independents, members of the

Independence Party of America The Independence Party of America (IPA) was a political party in the United States, founded on September 23, 2007 as a coalition of existing state parties bearing the Independence Party name. Its National Chairman was Frank MacKay, chairman of ...

and Greens to form a viable third party. The Draft Bloomberg Committee choose this approach as polls in October 2010 showed 58% of Americans want a third major party, and Bloomberg has stated that he does not intend to seek the presidency in 2012.(2010-10-14
"Bloomberg: I’m Not Running For President"
CBS New York. Retrieved 2010-10-15.

References

External links

DraftMichael.com
official site of the Committee to Draft Michael Bloomberg
RunMikeRun.com
support site for Draft Bloomberg efforts
UniteforMike.com
archived site of Draft Bloomberg 2008 movement {{United States presidential election, 2012

Bloomberg Bloomberg may refer to: People * Daniel J. Bloomberg (1905–1984), audio engineer * Georgina Bloomberg (born 1983), professional equestrian * Michael Bloomberg (born 1942), American businessman and founder of Bloomberg L.P.; politician and m ...