BLOOMY'S BILLIONS

By JOHN R. LOTT, JR.

"CAMPAIGN-finance regulations keep on wrecking havoc with America's elections, entrenching incumbents and reducing voter turnout. Now they could help make Mayor Bloomberg our next President or at least give him great influence over who wins.

Bloomberg is reportedly talking of devoting $1 billion of his own money to win the White House as an independent - vastly outspending any conceivable combined outlays by the Republican and Democratic nominees, even if they forego public financing.

The mayor's willingness to spend his wealth on his campaign is hardly unique. New Jersey's Jon Corzine spent $60 million of his own savings to win a Senate seat in 2002. In 2004, 23 candidates spent more than $1 million of their cash in congressional races; in 2006, the number rose to 28.

The law limits each American to donating a maximum of $2,300 to someone else's campaign - but the Supreme Court has ruled that the Constitution prevents such limits on spending for your own bid for office. Thus, Steve Forbes in 2000 would have preferred to give millions to Jack Kemp's presidential campaign, but since the law prevented that, he launched his own self-financed bid to promote the ideas he shared with Kemp.

Wealth hardly guarantees election - the voters still decide. But the campaign-finance laws tilt the playing field in favor of the wealth - and also in favor of incumbents and other political insiders.

Under these so-called reforms, Congress holds more millionaires than ever. Fewer than two-tenths of 1 percent of Americans earn over $1 million dollars a year, but at least 123 out of 435 members of Congress earn that much. Pre-"reform," politicians who were in this "economic stratosphere" were extremely rare..."

Another way of looking at it is the galaxy-sized ego of the wealthy and their understandable penchant for believing that money can buy anything. I still can't see the Clinton's allowing Bloomberg to ruin Hillary's chances, but here's a wildass guess:

What if Bloomy is holding off to see if her highness flat out loses. I do believe that RodHam would accept a VP gig, and then take another shot at the big job down the road. She continues to falter, then Bloomberg jumps in with a billion to spend and promises her the second seat.

Stranger things have happened.