Can the Nation Handle Another New York Mayor in the Race?
... And is he even running?
It’s the question on everybody’s minds since New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg hinted to the NY Sun in 2006 that a bid for the White House might be in his future.
The anti-establishment mayor’s non-campaign had its moment of glory yesterday, too, at a forum on “bipartisanship,” where he enjoyed comparing himself to the rest of the crop and coming out, of course, heads and shoulders above:
"There's no accountability today ... There is no willingness to focus on big ideas," he said. "What we want is for people to be selected for government based on competency."
Competency like his… or at least what he perceives his is. Like his predecessor, Rudolph Giuliani, Mike Bloomberg suffers from an infectious belief that he himself is god’s gift to politics and the people. They operate on the Great Leader theory of politics: it takes a great man to make great things happen, and the only difference between their theories is who define that great man as.
That seems to be a common problem among New York mayors, Elizabeth Kolbert noted in her New Yorker article last week.
Mayors of New York have often seen themselves as singularly suited for higher office. “It’s the second-toughest job in America!” according to John Lindsay’s famous slogan. Giuliani likes to say that having run the city “is about as good a preparation for being President as exists”—an assessment that, not surprisingly, is much the same as the one offered by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has flirted with running as an Independent. (In 2000, when Bill Clinton was rumored to be thinking of entering the New York mayoral race, his press secretary inverted Lindsay’s formula, observing that the President “already has the second-toughest job in American politics—why would he want the toughest?”)
Yet what seems self-evident to New York mayors has rarely seemed that way to voters. The last mayor to make it even as far as Albany was John T. Hoffman, who, with the help of Boss Tweed, became governor in 1869. (Briefly, Mayor William J. Gaynor seemed headed for state or national office, but he died in 1913, before his prospects could be tested.) During Lindsay’s Presidential run, in 1972, he thought that the support of retired New Yorkers living in Florida would help him win that state’s primary, and thus the Democratic nomination; instead, he finished fifth out of seven, and dropped out of the race shortly thereafter. Ronald Reagan, then the governor of California, reportedly turned the mayoralty-is-the-second-toughest-job slogan against Lindsay, saying, “It probably is, the way he does it.”
And the way Michael Bloomberg has done it may not appeal to the typical independent – and he’ll have to run Independent, he’s way too liberal on social issues to be a nationally-favored Republican – voter. He replaced the city school board with direct mayoral control in May of 2007 and he wants to charge eight bucks to any driver entering New York by car. He’s sued New York City gun dealers, banned smoking, and by and large put the mayoral smackdown on the city.
He supports abortion and same-sex marriage.
He’s no typical candidate. But with the Obama train in full speed, does it even make any sense for him to banter about a run? The New York Times says no, but if he did, he’d be a force with which to contend.
The Bloomberg-for-president scenario starts with the mayor’s growing sense of himself as a man of destiny. Throw in the country’s disgust with the two parties, add a half-a-billion bucks, and you’ve got yourself a race.
But besides recreating another Nader vote-pull, Bloomberg wouldn’t like get much traction. It’s too late in the race for him to be serious, and he’s sane enough to know he can’t beat Obama. (Let’s hope.) So what’s all the hub-buzz?
He's a New York mayor, so maybe Michael Bloomberg just likes to hear his last name and “president” in the same sentence.
election 08, president, michael bloomberg, independent
