Michael Bloomberg Angles for a Role in National Politics
I have written multiple times on the prospects of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg entering the race for the presidency. Bloomberg’s staff has been active in promoting his potential candidate while the billionaire mayor has denied these rumors with some subtle equivocation. It seems that the mayor has made his final decision clear in Thursday’s New York Times.
Bloomberg stated that he would not be a candidate for president in 2008 but that he would offer his support to a candidate who takes an “independent, nonpartisan approach.? I think that there is something paradoxical about this support. Bloomberg is not running for president because John McCain and Barack Obama appeal to independents. If the nominees were Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney or Hillary Clinton and Mike Huckabee, Bloomberg’s support would be crucial to gathering up independents in a partisan election. I think that the appeal of Obama and McCain to independents won’t help either candidate in this election. Independents already like both candidates as has been proven in the primaries.
It has been discussed constantly that Bloomberg is wealthy enough to run for the presidency. The mayor has to finish out his last term in New York City but I see him angling for a larger role in national politics in the future. Millionaires took positions in the cabinets of Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover in the 1920s to steer the country toward pro-business policies. What if Bloomberg took a position in Obama or McCain’s cabinet to steer the country toward a more “independent, nonpartisan? environment? If he is not working his way into somebody’s administration, I can see him developing grassroots support for a run in 2012 without bludgeoning people with his money.
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