Would Bloomberg Run If Obama Gets The Nod?

From all accounts that I have heard, Bloomberg is not running and I believe them. However, I've also heard the media say that sources close to him have indicated that he would run if he felt the candidates were too divisive (he apparently wants to heal the nation with a "moderate" third party run).

Bloomberg is my mayor and I have to say that he has proven to be remarkably competent at his job. However, nothing about his experience makes me all starry-eyed about a Bloomberg presidency, even if he were running as a Democrat.

I truly hope he doesn't run, especially since I think he will overwhelmingly pull down Democratic votes. Maybe a couple of zillion dollars in ads might change my mind. I don't know.

In any case, I was wondering what y'all thought about the issue. It seems to me that the careful use of the word "divisive" is a code word for Hillary Clinton, but I could be wrong. What do you think about the whole mess?

"Divisive" means different things to different people. It could mean "too female," certainly, it could also mean "too black," it could mean "too Mexican," it could mean "So fucking fundy one believes dinosaurs lived contemporaneously with humans."

It's hard to see how it would play out. He's got his own (forgive the expression) crosses to bear in the "too" category. Too Jewish, too short, too rich, too unmarried, too many days spent at his home in the Bahamas, too Northeastern/citified...people who wanted to make a big deal of that could.

The only thing is, he could play the "too rich" card and spend everyone else's mouth shut. Money can change perception.

He's my mayor, too, and once Americans hear the bland technocrat and his nasally voice one too many times, they'll consider paying not to listen to him. He's also famously short (oops) with the media and too impatient to deal with the touchy-feely demands of the stump (a no-nonsense type that plays well in NYC but not necessarily around the big country).

A third party candidate needs to have some entertainment value (i.e. Perot) or a pet issue (i.e. Wallace) that packs an emotional punch. Bloomberg is a business-oriented version of Dukakis. If we go completely downhill economically between now and 2012, voters might see him as some sort of messiah, but we're not there yet, so Bloomberg Nation will have to wait.

He still says "Med-fid" when he speaks of his hometown, Medford!

I agree with your take, absent the dollar turning into toilet paper of dinar proportions overnight...!