Michael R. Bloomberg has instructed advisers to draw up plans for a potential independent campaign in this year’s presidential race. His advisers and associates said he was galled by Donald J. Trump’s dominance of the Republican field, and troubled by Hillary Clinton’s stumbles and the rise of Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont on the Democratic side. 
 
 Mr. Bloomberg, the billionaire former mayor of New York City, has in the past contemplated running for the White House on a third-party ticket, but always concluded he could not win. A confluence of unlikely events in the 2016 election, however, has given new impetus to his presidential aspirations. 
 
 Mr. Bloomberg, 73, has already taken concrete steps toward a possible campaign, and has indicated to friends and allies that he would be willing to spend at least $1 billion of his fortune on it, according to people briefed on his deliberations who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss his plans. He has set a deadline for making a final decision in early March, the latest point at which advisers believe Mr. Bloomberg could enter the race and still qualify to appear as an independent candidate on the ballot in all 50 states. 
 
 He has retained a consultant to help him explore getting his name on those ballots, and his aides have done a detailed study of past third-party bids. Mr. Bloomberg commissioned a poll in December to see how he might fare against Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton, and he intends to conduct another round of polling after the New Hampshire primary on Feb. 9 to gauge whether there is indeed an opening for him, according to two people familiar with his intentions. ||||| This could well be the first election since 2000 with an independent candidate. That has happened only four times in the past century, the others being 1912, 1948 and 2000. 
 
 
 
 And a three-way -- or even a four-way race --would be a wild card. It could take any of several forms, with different partisan winners and losers. Consider: 
 
 
 
 Suppose Donald Trump is the Republican nominee and Hillary Clinton is the Democrat. Establishment Republicans will be convinced that their party has been hijacked by a bizarre rabble-rouser; GOP elites will be unsure which is worse -- the prospect of Trump losing, or Trump winning. 
 
 
 
 Result: pressure builds for a "real" Republican to run as an independent -- a conservative but not a rightwing populist. That could be, say, Paul Ryan, or John Kasich, or Mitt Romney again. 
 
 
 
 Advantage: Democrats. The analogy is to 1912, when two Republicans ran -- incumbent president William Howard Taft and former president Teddy Roosevelt as a Bull Moose progressive Republican -- and Democrat Woodrow Wilson won without a popular majority. 
 
 
 
 Sort of the same thing happened in 1992 when independent H. Ross Perot took more votes from the Republicans than from the Democrats, and Bill Clinton became president with just 43 percent of the popular vote. 
 
 
 
 Or suppose Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio edges out Trump, who places first in delegates but doesn't quite get a majority. An enraged Trump goes back on his pledge, and runs as an independent. 
 
 
 
 Again, advantage Democrats -- but not without some complications. With Hillary Clinton as the Democrat and Cruz or Rubio as the Republican, a good number of working-class Democrats could vote for Trump and make it a close race. Still, the result is a fractured Republican Party. 
 
 
 
 But the permutations do not stop there. Suppose Sanders beats Clinton in Iowa and New Hampshire, and the chemistry of the whole race changes. It's desperation time for Clinton, when she is not at her best. 
 
 
 
 Sanders will likely lose most of the southern primaries to Clinton, but the early calendar also includes Nevada, Colorado, Minnesota and Massachusetts, all states that Sanders could win. And then there are the big, liberal states of California and New York. Momentum: Sanders. He could actually be nominated. 
 
 
 
 And if Sanders is the Democratic nominee, Wall Street will just go nuts. Unlike Hillary Clinton, Sanders could spoil their con game. 
 
 
 
 There will be pressure for the sort of independent candidate for whom economic elites have long been clamoring. Someone who is liberal on social issues but center-right on fiscal issues and economics. 
 
 
 
 That would be Michael Bloomberg, who has been hankering to run and who could easily finance the race out of his own billions. This, of course, would be a catastrophe for Democrats--the flip side of Republicans splitting down the middle. 
 
 
 
 The last time the Dems were split was when Ralph Nader ran as an independent in 2000. And we know what happened. Bush didn't win the election but he won the Supreme Court. 
 
 
 
 And -- hold onto your hats -- it doesn't end there. What if the Republicans nominate Trump and the Democrats nominate Sanders? We could even have a four-way. 
 
 
 
 The GOP could haul out somebody like Romney and Wall Street Dems could turn to Bloomberg. The result would be anybody's guess. 
 
 
 
 In theory, the financial elite might go into a coke-filled room (or maybe a Koch-filled room) and try to agree on a single moderate candidate. The problem, however, is that even mainstream Republicans are now far to the right on social issues. It's hard to think of anyone who would pass muster with both Republican and Democratic billionaires. 
 
 
 
 We've had a four-way once in the past century. That was in 1948, when the Dems split three ways. The progressives nominated former Vice President Henry Wallace. The Dixiecrats broke away and nominated Sen. Strom Thurmond. Republican Thomas Dewey was certain to win, but the people liked Harry Truman's feistiness and Truman pulled it out. 
 
 
 
 The takeaway: the 2016 election has been pretty weird so far--and is likely just to get weirder. If only this were an HBO series instead of our cherished country. ||||| Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg is seriously considering a third-party run for the presidency and has alerted advisers to draw up a plan for success, according to a report. 
 
 Bloomberg, 73, told friends he is prepared to spend as much as $1 billion to win the White House and set a deadline of early March for making a decision, the New York Times reported Saturday. 
 
 He commissioned a poll in December to see how he would compete with Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, but the poll’s results have not been disclosed. 
 
 The three-term mayor has flirted with higher office before. 
 
 He conferred with his advisers and launched polls to determine his electability for the presidency in 2008 and 2012, but decided against launching a bid. He also once flirted with the idea of running for mayor of London, after pols across the pond suggesting drafting him.
– Is it finally Bloomberg time in America? After multiple false starts, sources tells the New York Times this could be the year former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg runs for president. Those close to the billionaire say he's discouraged by how the race is going so far and has concerns about Trump, Sanders, and Clinton. And he's asked his advisors to figure out plans for a 2016 presidential campaign. According to the Huffington Post, Bloomberg is the "sort of independent candidate for whom economic elites have long been clamoring": liberal on social issues and conservative on economics. Sources say Bloomberg would be willing to spend $1 billion of his own money on the race, and he's been studying past third-party campaigns and polling his popularity against Trump and Clinton, the Times reports. Bloomberg—a three-term mayor—considered presidential bids in 2008 and 2012, the New York Post reports. But he never pulled the trigger because he didn't think he could win, according to the Times. That could change this year, pitching himself as a "technocratic problem-solver and self-made businessman" against radical candidates. Sources say Bloomberg would likely run if it ends up being Trump or Cruz against Sanders. “Hillary is mainstream enough that Mike would have no chance, and Mike’s not going to go on a suicide mission,” says a friend and former DNC chairman. While Bloomberg would ideally steal votes from both sides, him running as an independent would be "a catastrophe for Democrats" of Nader-ian proportions, according to the Huffington Post. The Times reports Bloomberg will make a decision by March.