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It's his money, but a race for the White House might not be the wisest way of spending it.

The first Presidential nominating contests are only beginning, but already New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is stealing attention as a potential third-party candidate. We trust he's read the history of what usually happens to such candidates--they lose, finishing essentially as spoilers.

The billionaire mayor has no shortage of cheerleaders for such a contest, including his staff, assorted consultants, and even the usually hard-headed editors at the New York Sun and New York Post. He's rich enough to get on the ballot in every state, and has been widely quoted as saying he'd spend $500 million or more if he did decide to run. That's more than enough to get his message out, if he can find one.

So far that's the rub, though presumably the Democrat turned Republican turned Independent would try to position himself as a kind of postpartisan progressive "centrist." Along those lines, this Sunday the mayor is ostentatiously attending a conference of other self-styled centrists at the University of Oklahoma. Hosted by former Democratic Senator David Boren, the session will include the likes of former Democratic Senator Sam Nunn, current Republican Senator Chuck Hagel (who famously predicted the "surge" in Iraq would be a disaster), and others who argue that the main poison in our politics is too much partisanship. With so many voters soured on Washington, there's a market for this kind of Rodney King can't-we-all-just-get-along politics.

The question is how big that market would be on Election Day, and our guess is not very. Most third-party candidates have run on some issue or cause that the main parties had ignored. Lincoln and the Republicans supplanted the Whigs in 1860 over slavery, Teddy Roosevelt promised a return to progressive Republicanism in 1912, Strom Thurmond represented Southern segregationists in 1948, and even Ross Perot had the budget deficit in 1992.

Independent Losers
How prominent 20th-century third-party presidential candidates did on Election Day
Pop % EV
Teddy Roosevelt,1912 27.5% 88
Robert La Follette, 1924 16.5% 13
Strom Thurmond, 1948 2.5% 39
George Wallace, 1968 13.5% 46
John Anderson, 1980 7% 0
Ross Perot, 1992 19% 0


We aren't aware of any such cause or idea that Mr. Bloomberg represents. Perhaps he could run on "competence," but that's a less than thrilling call to arms. In our view, Mr. Bloomberg has been a good mayor but not a great one. His main achievements have been taking over the school system from a feckless school board and trying to reform it, to so far mixed results; building on the anticrime progress made by his predecessor, Rudy Giuliani; and breaking down the antizoning and political barriers to developing more of the city's under-used areas.

What Mayor Bloomberg hasn't done is challenge the union status quo over the unsustainable city work force and pensions, which will become a crisis for some future mayor. He has dodged this burden himself because of the revenue boom that has flowed from New York's financial industry in the wake of the Bush tax cuts. He has also been able to play the role of nonpartisan healer in part because Mr. Giuliani was willing to take on the city's liberal interest groups on taxes, welfare, crime and public order. Mr. Bloomberg has a better bedside manner than Mr. Giuliani, but it's also easier to be popular when you're not picking as many policy fights.

We also doubt the conceit that all Washington needs is a President who is a better and more ideologically flexible manager. The reason health-care and entitlement reform are so difficult is because the two main parties have such different visions of how to do it. The next President won't be able to wave those differences away, but will instead have to decide whose solutions to favor. Certainly Mr. Bloomberg won't be able to claim he has more foreign-policy experience.

It's entirely possible that a third-party President would accomplish less than a Democrat or Republican because he would have fewer allies on Capitol Hill. Both Arnold Schwarzenegger in California and Jesse Ventura in Minnesota accomplished much less than they promised as nonideological, nonpartisan Governors.

Mr. Bloomberg would also first have to get elected, and this has to be considered a very long shot. His best chance would be if the two parties nominate candidates on the ideological extremes--say, John Edwards on the left and Mike Huckabee on the right. But even if this happens, which of the 50 states would Mr. Bloomberg be able to win to deny one of his competitors an Electoral College majority? Even if he did carry enough states to throw the election into the House of Representatives, Mr. Bloomberg would then face a majority controlled in all likelihood by Democrats.

Our own guess is that Mr. Bloomberg would cut into the support of the weaker of the two major-party candidates, making victory easier for the other. That was Mr. Perot's main legacy in 1992. After eight years out of power, Democrats are eager enough to win this year that we suspect they will unite around whoever their nominee is to get to 270 electoral votes in a three-man race. Mr. Bloomberg would end up spending $500 million to elect a Democrat he probably would vote for himself if he stayed out of the race. Of course, it is his money.