But taking the middle out this go-around could prove to be interesting. I have a feeling many hard-core Democrats suffer from ABH (Anybody But Hillary)syndrome, so an Independent run might actually pull more of them this time than it would from our side.
Then one has to consider the cheat factor and the fact that they've gotten extremely good at manufacturing votes.
Nunn, Boren and Robb are hardly flaming liberals. They held office as conservative Southern Democrats, back when those weren't fossils found in layers of scheist.
If the rumors play out, and it's a big if, this election could get interesting. Ron Paul could pull votes from the libertarian wing of both the Democrats and Republicans, while Bloomberg could pull votes from the pragmatic and moderate "go along to get along" wing of both parties. If both enter the race, it would be like having Perot '92 and Nader '00 in the same race.
Let's not kid ourselves. Neither will take a state and neither will get a single electoral vote. The last candidate outside the major parties to have any electoral votes was George Wallace in 1968, and he didn't have many. But they could swing the close states, the way Perot did in 1992 and Nader did in 2000.
A bit of a digression: Freepers love to say that Perot gave us Clinton, but loath to say that Nader gave us W. Even if you assume that Nader brought people into the system who wouldn't otherwise have voted at all, even if you assume that he drew some votes from Bush as well as from Gore, Florida was decided by 541 votes.
If there were 542 more Nader voters who would have gone for Gore than Nader voters who would have gone for Bush, it would have been Al Gore on the steps of the capitol taking the oath in January 2001. 542. Smaller than one team's cheering section of a high school football stadium.
The wild card in this scenario is that Paul and Bloomberg would really draw from both parties. How many? That's a crapshoot. But I'd bet both of them would pull more than 542 votes in Florida. And Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, all the swing states.
The third wild-card (who's stacking this deck?) is that single-issue candidates could enter the fray. If the Republican nominee isn't sufficiently hard-line on abortion, or illegal immigration, another candidate could emerge. Imagine Giuliani vs. Clinton vs. Paul vs. Bloomberg vs. Tancredo.
There are precedents for single issue parties. The "Know-Nothings" were opposed to immigration; on any other issue, they were told to answer, "I know nothing," hence the appellation. The Free Soil party supported the abolition of slavery, and that was the only plank in its platform. There were temperance parties, suffragist parties, you name it. None elected a candidate. But they swung elections.