Donald J. Trump and Ross Perot are both billionaires- but that’s where the similarity ends. Perot is erratic, cranky and conspiratorial while Trump is outspoken, blunt and charismatic.

Ross Perot actually became a legal candidate for President, withdrew and became a candidate again in 1992. Even with his late re-start and with ballot access laws harsher and more difficult than they are today- after a decade of election law reform-Perot got on all 50 state ballots. Trump flirted with running-took himself out and now is sending signals he may still just jump in.

Talking of running a late Independent campaign for President ,Trump told Fox News,  ”If I’m not happy with what I see, I can very easily change my mind. I’m not happy with what I see, and I will make a determination sometime into the future, absolutely. There is no deadline. If I did it as an independent, I could do it very much better.”

Trump was preparing to show a net worth of $7.5 billion worth with over $350 million cash on hand, in his federal disclosure form. Trump’s companies are privately held. Clearly Trump has both the $5 to $7 milion it would take to get on the ballot in all states and the $200 million for an intense paid TV and Cable and innovative new media campaign.

Trump also had some tough talk for the GOP, saying they are setting themselves up to lose the next election. Trump seemed to be positioning himself for a Independent run.

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Donald Trump may not be finished in the 2012 Presidential race after all.

Trump has been telling freinds that he would not rule out launching an Independent big for President as late as June of next year if the economy is still sour and no Republican has demonstrated the ability to defeat Obama.

Trump recently teased a possible late blooming candidacy when he sent a hand-written note to MSNBC’s Lawerence O’Donnell, a vitriolic Trump critic that said -”Thanks for all your help–see you in the Spring.”

“Trump’s $60 million contract with NBC would expire in time for him free to lauch a bid June 1 of next year. Clearly Trump has the $5 million to $7 million it would take to collect enough signatures to get on the ballot in all 50 states” one Trump supporter told BIG GOVERNMENT ” Those who think Trump would draw only from Republicans are wrong-blue collar Catholic Democrats would also defect to Trump if gas is $6.00 a gallon and unemployment is still high.”

Trump met yesterday with former Governor Palin for a private 45 minute session in which she told Trump she hadn’t decided yet whether to run for the Republican nomination and Trump told her that many of his supporters are urging him to launch an independent bid next year and thsat he hasn’t ruled it out.

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Trump is drowning in e-mails, letters and phone calls from disappointed supporters who wanted him to make the 2012 Race.

Trump spent $100K on lawyers and accountants who would prepared the disclosure forms to show Trump is worth $7.5 B and has $350M of cash on hand.

Perot an eccentric businessman got out of the 96 race and back in……..and was on all 50 ballots

Trumps’s deal with NBC leaves him free on June 1 of next year.

Trump spoke to Richard Winger Editor and Publisher of the Ballot Access News–a nerd expert on how to get on the legal ballot in all 50 states.

Winger told Trump a late blooming Independent bid could be begun as late a June 1 and get on the ballot in all 50 States- 5 states are hard but doable and one state, Texas would be resolved by litigation.

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Phase one for restoring the republic is over: the House is now in Republican hands, thereby assuring nothing radical will sail through the Congress in the next two years (although it would be wise to be on the alert for unconstitutional executive orders intended to accomplish that purpose). If the electorate remains informed and stays on task, 2012 will see the Senate flip as well since the majority of seats up for reelection are currently in Democrat hands.

Phase two may be more difficult. How likely is it that an incumbent president will be stripped of his position? What will it take? Some say it’s a very difficult task, yet it has occurred rather often. Under what circumstances? A short survey of twentieth-century presidential politics may offer some clues as to the feasibility that Barack Obama will be a one-termer.

We can begin with William Howard Taft, Republican winner of the 1908 election as the handpicked successor to Theodore Roosevelt.

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Last week, Dick Morris became the first pundit to predict a Republican sweep of both houses of Congress next year. Looking at Obama’s sliding poll numbers, and increasing voter frustration, Morris said, “This erosion of support makes the elections of 2010 look more and more like a rerun of 1994.”

Yeah, yeah, I know — it’s Dick Morris saying this, take it with a silo of salt and all that. But Mort Kondracke is one of the more level-headed pundits in DC, and he noted Pew’s study saying that “voters’ anti-incumbent mood is approaching 1994 and 2006 levels,” when Congress changed hands. Kondracke added that he thinks that “there’s reason to believe that the public’s anger is even deeper than Pew’s estimate because voters believe – correctly – that ‘the way things are going’ is not getting better.”

Kondracke was saying all this in the context of seeing “an opening” for a third party to make it big in 2010. But don’t be too certain.

Usually, third parties coalesce around a single candidate (like Ross Perot) or a single issue (like the Greens [no relation]). America’s current funk isn’t really about a single issue, but about a whole host of issues — and Washington’s inability (Democrat and Republican alike) to deal with them. If that seems like fertile ground for a third party, in this case it isn’t. Because what the country really needs is a second party.

Please, let me explain. You might want to pour yourself a lovely adult beverage, because I’d had one or two when this occurred to me.

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The 2009 elections have come and gone.  New Jersey elected a Republican governor.  That is more of a surprise than the fact that Virginia now has a Republican governor (for the first time in 8 years) and less of a surprise than the Democrats winning House seats in New York and in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Mixed results you say?  If so, is there anything to be learned from these elections?  The answer is no, because we should have learned these lessons already.   In case they have been forgotten, however, here they are:

5.   Off year Elections Are Hard on the President’s Party.  The President’s party loses 20 seats, on average, in the House in the mid-term elections.  When President’s approval rating is below 50%, that number doubles.  So it can be of little surprise that voters dealt the Democrats losses this November.

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A national coalition of Tea Party activists called Thursday for rallies in several states to announce their dissatisfaction with the Grand Old Party.  In an October 22 press release they state:

We are extremely disappointed that the Republican Party (and leaders like Newt Gingrich) has missed the message of the Tea Parties and continues to take conservative voters for granted. We applaud all courageous statesmen (Fred Thompson, Michelle Bachmann, and Dick Armey) and call on other GOP officials to put America’s values over traditional, often corrupt and morally bankrupt, power structures.

This is nothing new, and it is certainly nothing good.  I am no partisan apologist, mind you, and would not support Ms. Scozzafava.  My first significant political activity was on behalf of Pat Buchanan in the 1992 Republican primary in New Hampshire against a sitting Republican president.  You may remember how that ended: Buchanan lost the primary, and President Bush lost the general election.

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