I doubt even if he hadn't boiled over that he'd have won, it is debatable if he cost Bush I that election, Bush thinks so and I am inclined to agree, but what matters is that a lot who might have voted for an indie ro 3rd don't because they either never really examined them because they weren't realistic or believed it would be a wasted votes.

Anyway, I don't think I'm too keen on just electing some billionaire. There aren't terribly many of them, a few hundred I think, and many are not exactly economic geniuses their cash implies. Google is a great tool for instance but I'm not sure inventing it, and getting rich on it, necessarily translates beyond that much. In my mind there are two jobs best suited to a resume for POTUS, Governor or VP. I want a multi-spectrum list of massive qualifications beyond that. We've got 300 million people to pick from and 'excellent leader' is pretty common, I want one who has already performed as excellent governor, a very close parallel to POTUS in most states. I don't want some rich/popular figure with no executive government experience as my president, no matter how clever they apparently are. And I think a lot of people feel that way. I'm not sure a Govenror has lost a race for POTUS to someone who had never been a governor or POTUS/VP.