The competition to occupy the White House just got more interesting. The Telegraph, UK reports:
Bloomberg’s secret White House bid- A third Party candidate?
“He wants to do this, he thinks he could win it and he thinks he could be a great president,” said a source closely connected to Mr Bloomberg’s inner circle.
“Mike Bloomberg has got $500 million to spend and he is supremely confident.”
The Daily Telegraph has established that a senior aide to Mr Bloomberg has held three lunch meetings, two of them last month, with officials from the Independence Party during which there were detailed discussions of how a third-party bid could be launched…[.]
Earlier this year in an interview with Fortune magazine, Mr Bloomberg talked about his future saying “assuming I’m not living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue” – the address of the White House.
Mr Bloomberg is understood to be waiting until next February to see who will emerge as the Republican and Democratic nominees before making a final decision.”The mayor thinks the speculation is very flattering but he’s not running for president. His next career will be as a full-time philanthropist.”[.]
Stu Loeser, Mr Bloomberg’s spokesman, confirmed that meetings with the Independence Party took place but said that they were about the general issue of how a third-party presidential candidate could compete in 2008.
He added: “People read presidential motives into a lot of what he’s doing. But the speculation is good for him and it’s very good for the city. It’s an advantage that he’s more than happy to exploit.”
But a political operative who has spoken to senior Bloomberg aides said: “This is as dead serious as a heart attack. If they are not serious, then these people are the greatest actors, the best showmen I’ve ever seen.
“They are talking minutiae. They’ve done tons of research and looked into this very deeply.”
A Bloomberg run opens a whole lot of zeros for the current crop of GOP presidential wannabees. And, as the article points out, Hillary’s dreams would be diminished – competition for New York votes and money.
Will he or won’t he? And why not under the GOP banner? Mr. Bloomberg was once a Dem and is most likely disgusted at what the Grand Old Party has become. What self respecting gentleman would not distance himself from the Bush banner. I’m just asking.
What say you?