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Bloomberg prez run: Will he or won’t he?

February 11, 2008

As a billionaire businessman, New York City mayor and now potential independent presidential candidate, Michael Bloomberg has never been one to blab to the world about his war room strategies and plans.

To do so, he has reasoned, only tips off the competition. And this is partly what’s going on right now with his presidential exploration that can seem curiously two-sided at times.

While Bloomberg eyes the major party contests and contemplates whether he wants to run, his aides are building the framework for a campaign. The extensive operations include preparing to get his name on state ballots, vast amounts of polling and studying potential running mates; right now, associates say it’s down to Nebraska Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel and former Georgia Sen. Sam Nunn, a Democrat.

Publicly, Bloomberg refuses to talk about any of this, insisting only that he is “not a candidate.” It is how he has always operated.

Consider a similar period of “will he or won’t he” limbo in 2001, when he had just stepped down as chairman of his financial information company amid widespread speculation that he was preparing to run for mayor.

As an Associated Press reporter caught up with him outside an event and asked if he was going to run for mayor, Bloomberg grew annoyed, dismissed the question and walked away. Later in front of the audience at the event, he singled out the reporter and ridiculed the notion that he would divulge his plans before he was ready.

“I don’t know whether I’m going to run or not, but if I did, I’m not going to declare it today,” Bloomberg said that day.

At the time, the newly Democrat-turned-Republican was engaged in an exhaustive study of his chances at winning City Hall, an effort that involved polling, reaching out to political strategists and gathering the opinions of close confidants.

The idea of running had been percolating for some time. And more than a year before he entered the race as a Republican — avoiding a crowded field of Democrats in this left-leaning city — his pollster had even conducted a benchmark poll testing whether he could win as a Democrat.

While all of this intensive study was going on, Bloomberg said very little publicly about what he was thinking and doing behind the scenes.

“I’m a big believer in instinct,” he said that day in March of 2001. “I think you’re gonna get up one morning and say, ‘If you’re gonna do it, you better do it now, the sun’s shining, I got a good night’s sleep, let’s go do it.’ Or you wake up and say, ‘Well, something else will be more interesting.”‘

Weeks later, he announced his candidacy.

Bloomberg’s decision-making process typically involves a mix of these gut-feelings along with obsessively collecting and analyzing hard data, while saying nothing about any of it to outsiders.

In addition to gathering their own data to measure his presidential potential, Bloomberg and his aides are also paying close attention to other measures of public opinion.

An AP-Yahoo News poll released last Friday found that 33 percent of respondents were somewhat likely to consider voting for an independent or third-party candidate, with 34 percent saying they were not too likely and 32 percent not likely at all.

The idea of voting for an independent or third-party candidate was particularly appealing to young people, the poll found; 41 percent of respondents under 30 were open to the idea. Among Democrats, voters who backed Obama were most open to an independent candidate, while Clinton supporters were the most wedded to their party.

The poll surveyed 2,016 adults from Jan. 18-28.

Bloomberg takes this quiet approach to decision-making not only in his own life decisions but also in governing.

It was evident, for example, in the path that led him to ultimately embrace the politically radioactive concept of charging drivers a toll to enter the most congested parts of Manhattan.

Bloomberg proposed this model to cut traffic and pollution in New York City last year during a major environmental address, but had not fully signed off on the concept just weeks before the speech. In the months before he presented the environmental agenda, he was publicly dismissing the traffic fee as a political non-starter that had shown mixed results in other cities.

Behind the scenes, aides were showing him data and studies on various aspects of the plan, including financing, traffic-reduction projections and estimated revenue.

To admit publicly that his administration was considering the idea, before he was on board, would only have given the opposition an advantage.

Asked Wednesday whether he is the type of person who takes a long time to make a decision or if he knows what he wants right away, Bloomberg said it was an impossible question to answer.

He joked that he had decided “virtually instantly” to order the Dover sole, Caesar salad and champagne while celebrating his girlfriend’s birthday the night before.

Growing serious for a moment, Bloomberg said “some things do take time to think about, and some things you just, instinctively, you know.”

Source: Newsday

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Written by NY Politics · Filed Under Bloomberg Watch 

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