An independent 5’7″-Jew-from-New-York billionaire who’s divorced for President?

September 16, 2006

Rumors surfaced a couple of months ago about New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s possible interest in a [tag]presidential[/tag] [tag]campaign[/tag] in [tag]2008[/tag]. Publicly, [tag]Bloomberg[/tag] has denied any interest and vowed not to run. Privately, he’s thinking about it — and talking to others about the possibility.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has always denied it, but CBS 2 has learned the details of a secret meeting, involving the mayor, to discuss a possible run for the White House. […]

CBS 2 has learned the details of a private dinner for the mayor that was held at an apartment building on Manhattan’s Upper East Side last month. There, he spent the evening in serious discussions about the viability of a White House run.

Sources told CBS 2 Bloomberg brought three deputy mayors with him, and proceeded to talk through every angle of a presidential run. By the end, the group had zeroed in on his running as an independent in 2008. And, the sources said, he seemed intrigued.

The dinner was held at the home of Michael Steinhardt, a legendary Wall Street hedge fund manager and a Bloomberg friend. He brought along Al From, head of the Democratic Leadership Council, which played a part in Bill Clinton’s rise to power in 1992.

Sources said the man who put Bloomberg together with Steinhardt and From was New York City Schools Commissioner Joel Klein.

A couple of points. First, From’s participation in this meeting, if accurate, is disconcerting. The head of the DLC has been criticized for many years for not taking the Democratic cause seriously — meeting with a Republican about an independent presidential campaign suggests the criticism is well-founded.

And second, I’m having a hard time understanding exactly what Bloomberg is thinking here. As the NYC mayor reportedly told one of the people at his private meeting, “How likely is a 5’7″-Jew-from-New-York billionaire who’s divorced and running as an independent to become [tag]president[/tag] of the United States.”

I’d say it’s pretty unlikely, isn’t it?

As an independent, no way. As a Democrat?

  • Ah, the 2008 silly season gets a second wind, after the great dry spell since Tom Daschle let it be known he’s interested in running.

    Al From is a futhermucking scumbag. Whenever I see his name, I am reminded of what Clarence Darrow once said – ” I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure” – but to date I never find Al’s name in the obituaries.

  • DLC=Democrats Loving Corporations.
    It may be too early to say, but if Bloomberg ran as an independent from whom would he siphon votes, Democrats or Republican’ts?

  • Al From switching to the Republicans would be a GD blessing. What’s his scorecard right now? Something like 8 campaigns, no victories, isn’t that right?

  • From is a fat scumbag–period, full stop. And indeed he should be drummed out of the party for this–or at least change the name of his organization. On the issues, I’m often much more sympathetic to the DLC than many who frequent blogs like this one. But From’s transparent glee in shivving his nominal co-partisans is the single reason I could never really support his group.

    That said, as I’ve written here before, I’d absolutely love to see a Bloomberg campaign. And the reason why is exactly why he seems to think he couldn’t win: Jew, big-city guy, a bit blunt, divorced, short, has had a lot of sex…

    …and who gives a shit? Or, more to the point, who should.

    Bloomberg is super-smart, he has a conscience and a sense of government’s social responsibilities, he’s as far from an ideologue as you can get, and he doesn’t have any of the partisan encumberances that Democrats and Republicans usually bear.

    The rationale for his campaign is what I personally think everyone should run on: he’s thoughtful, honest, competent, and understands how the economy and the society work. A Bloomberg campaign would effectively say to America: “Grow up, and stop electing affable idiots.”

    Considering that we’ve just made the country’s worst-ever mistake in that vein–putting aside my personal disbelief that anyone could find the torturer-in-chief/First Fart-Joker affable–maybe the time is right for that message.

  • Um…. Bloomberg may be listed as a Republican right now, but that ignores the little detail that Bloomberg was a Democrat until he decided to run for Mayor when he chose to register as a Republican in order to get on the ballot easily and avoid a bruising series of attacks from the left in the Democratic primary.

  • How about this:

    From knows that Bloomberg would peel away more votes from McCain or any Republican candidate than from a democrat. Setting up a democratic victory, Smart move.

  • I tend to agree with dajafi. I’ve been a New Yorker most of my life, and Bloomberg has done a good — if not great — job as mayor. He’d certainly be better than any visible Republican, or many of the Democrats. And yes, one argument IS that a vote for someone whose ‘girlfriend’ has been publicly acknowledged would be a thumb in the eye of the moralists and neo-puritans around. He’s no Lieberman or McCain, and I think the positions he’d run on would please most of you.
    Do I think he could win? Probably not, but he’d make things interesting.

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