Posted on 06/29/2006 8:45:42 AM PDT by presidio9
Mayor Bloomberg has privately said he has more than enough money to run for President - and now he may have a potential entry strategy. Bloomberg's main political adviser, Kevin Sheekey, indicated that the mayor would be unlikely to challenge Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) - a friend who has been successful with the same category of independent voters to whom Bloomberg would appeal.
But Sheekey told The New Republic - in an interview with this columnist - that Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) would not be an obstacle, and could even be an ideal adversary.
"If John McCain gets beaten to the right - which is possible in a conservative Republican primary - and if Democrats elect someone through a primary who Democrats generally view as unelectable, there's a large segment of the American electorate that is looking for something different," Sheekey said.
That disaffected segment could translate into "36% of the vote in enough states to give you an electoral win," he added.
Clinton has been dogged by aperception among some Democrats that she's unelectable. And Bloomberg's candidacy would only be plausible in a deeply divided election between two candidates viewed as overly partisan.
If that were to happen, there's no doubt that Bloomberg has a big enough bankroll to fund an independent candidacy.
"I could easily put up half a billion [dollars]," Bloomberg said at an April dinner party, according to the gathering's host, public relations titan Howard Rubenstein. The 2004 Bush campaign broke spending records with outlays of $367 million - a third less than Bloomberg said he could spend.
The comment adds to the evidence that Bloomberg is seriously considering a run as 21st century version of Ross Perot, the Texas billionaire who briefly led polls for the presidency in 1992 and finished with almost 20% of the vote.
Democrats are starting to take Bloomberg's aspirations seriously - and view them warily. A Clinton adviser, Howard Wolfson, dismissed Bloomberg's presidential aspirations as "insane."
"He couldn't win," Wolfson said. "But unlike Perot, he would end up doing a lot more damage to a Democrat than a Republican."
Bloomberg has started to cast himself as an antidote to the nation's partisan divide.
"Both ends of the political spectrum share the blame" for the partisan paralysis, he said at the University of Chicago commencement this year. "And both seem unwilling to change."
The mayor has denied presidential aspirations publicly, but he has privately hinted that he's considering it: At a fund-raiser this month in Greenwich, Conn., he responded to questions about a run by saying, "Absolutely not. And anybody who's running will say exactly that."
I don't believe any mayor of anywhere has ever become President, but if it's gonna happen, it'll be NYC. I believe the last NYC mayor to *eventually* end up President was TR.
I don't get this comparison with McCain. The two have almost NOTHING in common. Bloomberg is a social liberal, McCain is a social conservative. Bloomberg understands business, McCain doesn't.
I guess there are a few things they agree on, but they seem more different than the same.
I guess anybody who is a "moderate" is the same to the media.
Yes, huge losers...If Gore enters, it will be a dogfight between the two and leave them both battered and bruised. Mark Warner and Evan Bayh are the only others I think have a good chance of capturing the nomination.
What NYC mayor ever ran and lost?
Giuliani... no
Dinkins ... no
Koch... no
LaGuardia... no
Rockefeller... no
Tweed... no
Beame... no
Impelliterri...no
Van Wyck... no
Roosevelt... no, but he did eventually become President.
Those are the most famous NYC mayors; hard to imagine someone NOT on that list thinking he was a big shot enough to run for President...
Roosevelt was never mayor of NYC, he was the Police Comissioner before being appointed Assistant Secretary of the Navy. When he was 28, he ran for mayor and lost, badly, to Abram S. Hewitt.
Oh let him run and destroy the lefties in the Dem Party. His ego alone will make his campaign implode.
Having someone mount a major third-party candidacy may be a major part of Hillary's strategy for winning in 2008, but Bloomberg doesn't seem like the ideal one to do it. Someone like Chuck Hagel or John McCain would be more useful to her...if she can't get one of them to run as her running-mate (bottom of the ticket).
Boss Tweed was never mayor of NYC, but he did nurture the political career of Al Smith, sheriff or NY, Governor of NY, and finally an unsuccessful presidential candidate.
Cuomo, at the very least.
Look up RINO in the dictionary and there will be a picture of Bloomberg. Then McCain.
That would be great!He would suck off votes from the rat and help us really kick ass.
"Micheal.... Michael, dear.... time to wake up now - you're dreaming."
Two problems:
1. Cuomo wasn't mayor
2. He didn't run for president.
:^D You're right on one thing: Cuomo IS the very least. It's OK, it happens... turns out TR wasn't mayor either... NYC Police commissioner, and governor, but lost the race for mayor. By a lot.
Dinkins would give him a run for his money for that title...
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