Bloomberg is destined to become Election Day roadkill

It's the grand illusion of activists and the fool's gold of candidates all wrapped in one. The belief that masses of Americans will rise up with righteous indignation and demand radical political change ranks up there with faith in the tooth fairy. Michael Bloomberg and his billions have met their match.

The New York mayor's resignation from the Republican Party was a clear sign he's running for president as a third-party independent. His blasting Washington as "hooked on partisanship" and saying, "we do not have to settle for the same old politics" were straight out of the populist playbook.

And that's the problem. No matter what the issues are or how much money the latest dreamer has, third- and fourth-party candidates inevitably become roadkill. Even if their ideas catch on — think daffy Ross Perot in 1992 and the budget deficit — they end up with no place to go on Inauguration Day.

In the past 100 years, only Teddy Roosevelt in 1912, running on the Progressive Party ticket, pulled more votes than either the Democratic or Republican nominee. Roosevelt's 27 percent was good enough for second, behind winner Woodrow Wilson, with GOP incumbent William Howard Taft finishing third.

TR had already served nearly two terms as president — and still couldn't win on the third-party line! Since then, only a few have gotten more than 3 percent and none has pulled more than Perot's 19 percent. Since 1968, when George Wallace got 46 electoral votes, no third-party candidate has won even one.

The record is what it is for good reason. Quite simply, the two-party system fends off every assault, because the public wants it that way. The vast, vast majority of voters go into the booth and pull the lever or punch the chad for a Democrat or a Republican. No matter how much they moan about the scarcity of choices the two parties offer, most end up picking one of them.

People like Bloomberg essentially argue that voters are wrong for doing so. Which is why they never win. Democrats and Republicans win because, more or less, they give people what they want, a reasonable trade-off in a democracy.

And who is to say the voters are wrong? America remains the freest, most affluent, most appealing country in the history of the world. Every time I see a story about Japan, where the population is dying of old age, I am reminded that, whatever our problems here, we are still where the world wants to live.