On Meet The Press this morning:
Bloomberg said…that his advisers should “cease-and-desist” with their suggestions that he run.
The Democrat-turned-Republican-turned-independent says he’s focused on his job as mayor. He has occasionally been mentioned as a long-shot presidential candidate.
Bloomberg says he wants to leave office having a reputation “as a very good, maybe the greatest mayor ever.”
Not news says Eric Alterman who notes Bloomberg told CBS News this week that “nothing” could make him run for president. Alterman posted a piece last night detailing why Bloomberg won’t run. And how he benefits from the chatter:
While you might not have noticed, Michael Bloomberg enjoys attention. And so long as reporters can fill space and time with pointless speculation about his intention, the faux presidential candidacy buys it for him without his having to dip into his multi-billion dollar fortune. In a media system desperate for celebrity-driven content that it can pretend to treat as serious news, this phony/baloney story hits all the right buttons and costs nobody anything… except time.
Face it, it’s as if the country is clamoring for a Bloomberg presidency. A waste-of-time Marist College poll that finds in a three-way race against Sarah Palin and Michael Bloomberg, Barack Obama would collect 45 percent, Palin would collect 31 percent, and Bloomberg just 15 percent. And this is before most people in America figure out that Bloomberg is really just a pro-choice, pro-gun control, pro-Islam, pro-immigration liberal Democrat who happened to buy himself the Republican nomination for the mayoralty a few years ago when it was onsale, cheap. In the meantime, the charade continues.
While everyone says they want a bipartisan leader few actually want one. Witness the battle over the Bush tax cut compromise.