Four years ago, serious rumors started being spread through the New York Media Industrial Complex media that NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg was assembling a staff and seriously looking at running as an independent in the 2008 presidential election.
With the possibility of a Hilary Clinton vs. Rudy Giuliani race being contemplated, the thought was that there might be an appetite in the populace for something different, with theoretically another New York candidate, Bloomberg, coming in with his unlimited resources to appeal to a public burned out by George W. Bush.
That didn't happen, of course Bloomberg did meet with both Barack Obama and John McCain during the campaign, and he was said to have believed that since both candidates weren't from the ideological divides of their party, there was no need to him to get into the race. But after he didn't run for office, Bloomberg decided he wanted to still be mayor, which meant pressing acquiescent members of the New York City Council to change the term limit laws and allow him to run for a third term in 2009.
Bloomberg won, but not without a severe blow to his ego. He spent a reported $105 million but only defeated his little regarded opponent, Democrat William Thompson, by less than 5%.
But just like clockwork, the hype for another Bloomberg race has begun again, particularly after an article in New York magazine in October by John Heilemann, that posited that a Obama-Sarah Palin match could end up deadlocked in the House of Representatives, where Bloomberg would then save the day and become the ideal choice (Heilemann wrote a similar piece nearly four years previous, in December of 2006). Speculation was fueled even more after Bloomberg blasted President Obama in the current GQ.
Now forget the fact that though he is a political independent, by most measures Bloomberg is a pretty liberal guy, which one would think would make it a challenge to win in what we're being told by the pundits once again that the U.S. is a center-right country. Of course, the fact that he's a billionaire several times over doesn't hurt though.
