Michael Bloomberg’s most radical idea yet

If Michael Bloomberg runs for president, he’s going to do so in a most radical way: Skipping the first four early voting states.

“If we run, we are confident we can win in states voting on Super Tuesday and beyond, where we will start on an even footing,” Bloomberg spokesman Howard Wolfson told the Associated Press.

It’s hard to explain how unconventional that approach would be — and how little success past candidates who tried similar strategies have met with. At the same time, there are several factors — Bloomberg’s immense wealth, the states voting on Super Tuesday (aka March 3) — that could make Bloomberg’s move more viable.

While it remains to be seen whether Bloomberg plays at all in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada or South Carolina, it seems quite clear that he will be spending his time (and his money) on the states that come after the first four.

That likely means California first and foremost, with California Sen. Kamala Harris flagging badly — and possibly not even making it all the way to the March 3 primary when the Golden State votes — there is, theoretically, an opening for Bloomberg there.

That’s doubly true because unlike say, Iowa or New Hampshire (or even South Carolina), California is a state where the candidates will campaign primarily via TV ads. The state is simply too large to make retail politicking worth your while. And guess what TV ads in California require? Lots and lots of cash. And guess what Bloomberg’s campaign has in abundance? Lots and lots of cash!

Ditto Texas, which also votes on March 3. (California and Texas represent the two largest delegate hauls of any states in the Democratic primary process.) And two weeks after Super Tuesday, Ohio, Florida and Illinois are all slated to hold primaries — again, all large states where retail campaigning takes a back seat to TV ads, and where money for those ads matters.

In short: There is, at least on paper, a path for Bloomberg.

But — and it’s a giant but — if past is prologue, the window of opportunity that appears on paper may not actually ever materialize in real life.

Here’s why: Presidential nominating fights tend to be momentum-driven. Even when the first ballots are being cast in Iowa in early February, there will be lots and lots of Democrats who still haven’t made up their minds about who to support. How will they make up their minds? Human nature being human nature, they are likely to line up behind someone they think looks like a winner. And what better way to look like a winner than to actually win a caucus or a primary in the early voting states?

And to follow this logic out, if you aren’t really running in the early voting states then you are very, very unlikely to win in them. Which means that by the time the race gets around to your preferred state or states, it may have passed you by as you stood on the sidelines for the first month.

That’s exactly what happened to former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani in 2008 when he very publicly skipped Iowa and then pulled out of New Hampshire to focus on Florida, where his team believed he had the best chance of winning. By the time the campaign made it to Florida, however, Giuliani was at best an afterthought.

There is some limited success of a candidate skipping Iowa or New Hampshire — as then-Arizona Sen. John McCain did in his 2000 campaign. (McCain skipped Iowa, won New Hampshire and then very nearly upset George W. Bush for the GOP nomination.) But that doesn’t seem to be what Bloomberg and his team are doing — or considering doing.

Bloomberg has been, throughout his political life, a bit of a radical thinker — in terms of policy solutions and his political strategy. Trying to pull off a complete skipping of the four earliest states is his most radical idea yet.