Razzle Dazzle: The 5-Billion-Pound Gorilla

By RICHARD STEIER

It was the disclosure June 19 of Mayor Bloomberg's change of his party affiliation from Republican to independent that brought close to 100 journalists and a dozen TV cameras to the Department of Information Technology's lower Manhattan headquarters the following day to see whether he would admit that he's running for President.

Mr. Bloomberg played it coy, denying interest in holding any political office besides Mayor while acknowledging he was pleased that so many people believed he'd be a "credible candidate" for the White House. "They must think I'm doing a decent job."

His argument that shedding the Republican label he tried on to gain the party's nomination for Mayor six years ago did not signify anything was technically true. He did it four months earlier than he was required to for the change to be recognized for the 2008 election, but even if he has made up his mind to run for President, it might be wise for him to wait until after the host of key primaries that will be held next Feb. 5 to state his intentions.

Sounded Like a Candidate

For those who are convinced he is running, the content of his speech in Los Angeles the day before the party affiliation announcement was a truer gauge.

The Chief-Leader/Pat Arnow RUNNING OR RAMBLING?: One bit of information that couldn't be obtained by calling 311 when Mayor Bloomberg visited June 20 was whether he is running for President - as he insists he's not - or merely using the bully pulpit his raised national profile has given him to demand more aid from Washington and more attention to the issues he deems priorities from the declared candidates for White House.

Sounding much more like a candidate presenting himself to the national electorate than a government official merely speaking his mind, Mr. Bloomberg stated, "We do not have to accept the tired debate between the left and right, between Democrats and Republicans, between Congress and the White House."

He spoke of the need for collaboration rather than confrontation, saying that "more than ever, Washington is sinking into a swamp of dysfunction. No matter who's in charge, sadly today, partisanship is king. Decisions in D.C. these days are more political and less issue-based than ever before, and the consequences have been disastrous."

Mr. Bloomberg continued, "When you go to Washington now, you can feel a sense of fear in the air - the fear to do anything, or say anything, that might affect the polls, or give the other side an advantage, or offend a special interest.

"This is paralyzing our government - and it's leading our elected officials to push all the big, long-term problems onto future generations: health care, Social Security, budget deficits, global warming, immigration, you name it."

The failure to address such issues, the Mayor told his audience, was "hurting our economic competitiveness, driving scientific and medical discoveries overseas, and jeopardizing our future as the land of hope and opportunity."

He called it "a waste of time pointing fingers and blaming the politicians in Washington - after all, we elected them."

Just when it seemed he was echoing the theme of Illinois Sen. Barack Obama that the in-fighting had to give way to mutual compromises, Mr. Bloomberg stated that he wasn't suggesting that the solution to all the issues dividing Republicans and Democrats was "just splitting differences.

"Nor is it honest to make decisions that are guided by political expediency or campaign donations - or by faith-based science, instead of real science."

A Harpoon Aimed at Bush

He could have been talking about members of either party concerning political expediency and contributions, but the line about faith-based science was a harpoon into the underbelly of the Republicans led by President Bush.

The Mayor continued, "Honesty means having the courage to tell the public the unvarnished truth - the downsides as well as the upsides, the costs as well as the benefits, and it means making decisions on the merits - and only on the merits."

He was speaking from his strength. Early in his first term, Mr. Bloomberg took on unpopular positions from banning smoking in bars and restaurants to substantially raising property taxes to avoid having to eviscerate municipal services during a budget crunch. More recently, he has launched a crusade to better regulate gun sales outside New York that has made him a political target of dealers and the National Rifle Association and clearly won't play well in many southern and western states should he run for President.

The outcry over the smoking ban has long subsided, and many homeowners would agree - particularly with the hit from the property tax softened by a recurring $400 annual rebate - that he made the right choice among several painful options. Mr. Bloomberg's case for himself, laid out in the speech despite his protests that he isn't running, is that he personifies the qualities he said America needs in a leader: the willingness to make tough calls based on common sense rather than ideology and to accomplish things because he's taking positions and picking aides on the merits.

Pitch for Merit Hiring

"We need to hire the best, not the 'yes men' or the campaign contributors or the politically connected," he stated. "Where in the Constitution is it written that ambassadors have to be big campaign donors? Passing over career diplomats to give big donors jobs as ambassadors to important foreign posts doesn't help us overseas at the very time that international opportunities and problems should be central to the Federal Government's planning and work.

"Where does it say we should care about campaign experience or party affiliation in filling Federal jobs? That doesn't get us the best and the brightest." He went on to insist that both parties were guilty of this practice, but it was hard not to think this was another indictment of Mr. Bush's personnel practices, as seen at agencies from the Department of Justice to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

"Ideologues throw good money after bad, while results-oriented managers fix problems before they invest more money," Mr. Bloomberg said.

He excoriated a national health-care system in which costs are 50 percent higher than in Europe even though our average life-span is four years shorter. "It offers no incentives for doctors or patients to seek preventive care. As a result, problems that could be prevented with cheap, basic medicines - or with smarter personal choices, especially around diet, exercise and smoking - are not dealt with effectively until they become life-threatening and require expensive procedures."

Praise From Arnold

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared that he believed Mr. Bloomberg would make a "great candidate." During the press conference at DoITT two days later, the Mayor remarked, "He's a very smart guy and I'm very flattered that he'd say it," but insisted, "I'm not a candidate."

A poll issued that same day by Quinnipiac University suggested that if he were, he'd be starting at a distinct disadvantage to the front-runners in the major political parties. The survey of 1,369 registered state voters, concluded prior to both Mr. Bloomberg's speech and the disclosure of his leaving the Republican Party, indicated that in a three-way matchup, Hillary Clinton would get 43 percent, Rudy Giuliani 29 percent, and Mr. Bloomberg just 16 percent.

Despite those numbers, Quinnipiac's polling director, longtime political reporter Mickey Carroll, said he believed Mr. Bloomberg was most likely to get into the race, and had his best chance of winning, if Ms. Clinton and Mr. Giuliani were the Democratic and Republican nominees.

"Both of them have huge negatives," Mr. Carroll said, referring to the percentage of voters who so strongly dislike New York's junior U.S. Senator and the city's former Mayor that they would not vote for them if given a palatable alternative. "If Bloomberg really runs, he will do better."

The Mayor has already shown, Mr. Carroll said, that he will not repeat the mistakes of Tom Golisano, the Independence Party candidate for Governor five years ago who got his pockets picked by consultants who knew he had no chance of winning.

'Run on Competence'

"He'll spend money, but he won't hire pirates," he remarked. "He'll hire smart people, and if Bloomberg runs, he's gonna run on one thing: competence."

And, Mr. Carroll added, "an awful lot of money," a good deal more than the $65 million that Ross Perot spent on his 1992 bid for the White House that got him 19 percent of the popular vote. The high regard Mr. Bloomberg's performance as Mayor has earned him is another significant difference between him and Mr. Perot, who had no experience in government, a shortcoming compounded by the perception that he was emotionally erratic.

Political consultant Maureen Connelly, who worked on Mr. Bloomberg's underdog campaign in 2001 and also was involved with former Illinois Rep. John Anderson's run for President as an independent in 1980, was less certain than Mr. Carroll that the Mayor had made up his mind to pursue a White House run.

During a June 21 phone interview, she said what had struck her about Mr. Bloomberg's press conference the day before was that "he looked relaxed, which he isn't when he's in the middle of a political campaign."

The fact that his appearances outside the state and his speeches of late have given the impression of a looming candidacy might also be nothing more than a strategy to make the city's concerns resonate both in Washington and on the campaign trail, Ms. Connelly contended.

'Shook Up the Debate'

"I think it will increase his clout and help get the city more aid from Washington," she said. "And I agree with him: watching the debates on both sides, you get sound bites and nothing. It needed to be shaken up, and that's what he's done. He certainly has changed the dynamic and I think he will definitely affect the debate. I think he's the five-billion-pound gorilla."

The leverage he is currently able to exert, she argued, would to a certain extent be lost if Mr. Bloomberg became a candidate. Instead of the kind of glowing profile he got in Time Magazine last week while sharing the cover with Governor Schwarzenegger, "the minute he throws his hat or his shoe in the ring, every negative story of the last six or seven years resurfaces."

Ms. Connelly continued, "He is always well-prepared, and he always wants to know all the answers before he launches a major project. But as a non-candidate who people believe might run, I think he has the best of both worlds. It strengthens his ability to be an advocate for New York."

Several labor leaders, including Correction Officers' Benevolent Association President Norman Seabrook - one of only two union heads who backed Mr. Bloomberg in the 2001 race for Mayor - praised his stewardship but declined to discuss whether they would support him before knowing that he'll be a candidate.

Not His 'Model' Candidate

Bill Henning, a vice president of Communications Workers of America Local 1180, said that while the Mayor was "creating a lot of buzz," he had reservations about Mr. Bloomberg's conception of government.

"I think what he's trying to position himself for is the meritocracy," Mr. Henning said, referring to Mr. Bloomberg's accomplishments and his emphasis on doing what makes sense over partisanship. "What's unattractive to me about that is that he's talking about government as if it were a business, and as if you might make decisions based on the bottom line. That's not a model I'd want to embrace."

He was among those who agreed that Mr. Bloomberg could be elected even if it weren't an all-New York match-up next year. If the nominees were Senator Obama for the Democrats and former Tennessee Sen. Fred Dalton Thompson, Mr. Bloomberg could position himself as ideologically falling between them, and while he can't match either man's charisma, his achievements - both in running the city and in building his private business - tower over the thin resumes each has amassed in the Senate.

Mr. Henning said having those two men as opponents would "leave the door open for him to run up the middle."

George Arzt, a former Press Secretary to Mayor Koch who's now a political consultant, called that hypothetical three-way race an instance where "the stars would be perfectly aligned" for Mr. Bloomberg.

Could Spoil Hillary's Shot

He disagreed with Mr. Carroll that Mr. Bloomberg would risk running if the nominees were Mr. Giuliani and Ms. Clinton, saying he believed the Mayor - notwithstanding Mr. Giuliani's major assist in his first gaining office - would have reservations about denying Hillary the presidency if he was unsure that he could prevail.

"I don't think he wants to play spoiler in the race," Mr. Arzt said. "I think he hurts Hillary a great deal if he gets into it."

He remains convinced that Mr. Bloomberg will ultimately decide against running, and that the rumblings which began with the reactivation of a campaign Web site two weeks ago are intended "more to create a hubbub than anything else."

At the same time, Mr. Arzt said of the Mayor, "Would he want to run for President? Does he think he's as good as any of the candidates? You bet."

And Mr. Bloomberg, for all his railing against the influence that big contributors have on legislation and appointments to top positions in Washington, D.C., knows that candidates for President who aren't independently wealthy are bound to wind up beholden to some of their donors, perpetuating the cycle he laments.

He also knows that the reason that Mr. Thompson can vault to second in national polls for the Republican nomination without even declaring he's a candidate, and that his own flirtation with running has attracted so much interest, is that no one in either major party - including the front-runners - has generated enough enthusiasm to be considered a presumptive nominee, or to convince the public that they can move the country out of the mire into which it has been sunk by President Bush.

Big Issues Shortchanged

Mr. Bloomberg told reporters that he was "particularly upset" that what he regarded as the big issues facing the nation "keep getting pushed to the back" of the political agenda, citing Social Security, health care, immigration, education and crime among the matters that are not being treated with sufficient urgency.

"We are losing our young men and women overseas, and the public wants to know why and [wants] an explanation of how we are going to move forward," Mr. Bloomberg said. "It is easy to criticize; it is much more complex to come up with solutions for the future."

Voicing such sentiments suggests he believes none of those who are declared candidates are supplying explanations and solutions. It also hints at a yearning, despite his professions to the contrary, to be the person offering them.

Mr. Carroll put it this way: "He's not in the starting gate, but you'd have to say he's on the track."

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