OPINION:
Recent news reports indicate that former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is considering an independent run for the White House and is likely to make a decision in the next month in order to ensure that his name is placed on the ballots of all 50 states. Of course, his entry would change the whole dynamics of the November election, given the controversial Donald Trump, the salivating socialist Bernie Sanders and the floundering Hillary Clinton.
But hizzoner’s past may haunt him: A lifelong liberal Democrat, Mr. Bloomberg made two big errors in his political life. the first, in 2001 when he became a Republican, the second, in 2007, when he became an Independent.
Whatever his motivation for these flip-flops, Mr. Bloomberg has always been a liberal Democrat with more successful experience in governing a large population than Mr. Trump, Mrs. Clinton or Mr. Sanders, or, for that matter, the governors of most states. There are probably more people on the long stretches of First and Second Avenues in Manhattan than in Mr. Sanders’ sparsely populated Vermont. And although Mrs. Clinton has served as a senator from New York, her administrative skills, as illustrated by her email problems as secretary of state, are lacking, to say nothing of the on-again, off-again liberalism she spouts.
Mr. Bloomberg, on the other hand, is an unabashed liberal that the Democratic Party’s left would love. He’s for gay rights, abortion, gun control and is opposed to sending illegal immigrants back home. He’s an environmentalist, in the forefront of turning New York’s yellow cabs green. And although under his record three terms as the Big Apple’s mayor a lot of taxpayer money was spent, there were also surpluses and rebates to taxpayers. Mr. Bloomberg successfully waged war against smoking and trans fats, as well as poor housing and bad schools.
Had he primed the political pump properly for 2016, the mayor would have been a perfect foil for the GOP’s Donald Trump. Unlike The Donald, he’s really, really, really rich, about $38.5 billion, making Mr. Trump look like a piker. Word has it that Mr. Bloomberg is willing to spend a billion bucks on an Independent campaign. And he has a distinguished record as a philanthropist, almost certain to join the ranks of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett in continuing large-scale donations. Unlike the brash, in-your-face Mr. Trump, Mr. Bloomberg is tasteful in composure, articulate in his speech and has appeal to the average voter because he never lived in the mayor’s mansion during his terms in office but in his Manhattan apartment. His phone number is in the city’s White Pages, and he took the Subway to work when he was in office.
And here’s the real kicker: As a senior citizen, Mr. Bloomberg took Spanish lessons and used his new language in order to communicate to his city’s large Latino population.
One other asset: Mr. Bloomberg doesn’t seek favor by flattery or counting votes. In 2006, when Con Edison, the city’s electric utility, was faulted for a several-day outage in Queens, the mayor defended the company in terms of its efforts to deal with the problem. Nor is he afraid to battle the unions, including those representing teachers. “If people want more teachers in the classroom,” the mayor said in March 2007, then why not resort to “the union reps that just sit around and get paid by the taxpayers and not teach.”
And if he doesn’t like a question from a reporter, he makes that clear and moves on to the next questioner. Or he interrupts. Case in point: In June 2007 during a press conference in Brooklyn about a police shooting, a reporter began by stating: “The attorney representing the family ” Bloomberg interjected: “Miss, attorneys make a living doing this. May we get to substantive questions, informative to the public?”
As for questions regarding homeland security, Mr. Bloomberg is confident that the professionals in the field know what they’re doing. For that reason, when a story broke in July 2007 regarding an alleged plot to blow up a fuel pipeline at John F. Kennedy International Airport, the mayor’s first comments to a reporter were not what you would expect from a politician.
“There are lots of threats to you in the world. There’s the threat of a heart attack for genetic reasons. You can’t sit there and worry about everything. Get a life.”
To be sure, liberal Democrats are the real losers in terms of putting their best foot forward in the 2016 race for the White House. But an Independent run, well, that’s a losing choice given the fact that had Mr. Bloomberg remained a Democrat, he would have been a really viable candidate.
• Thomas V. DiBacco is professor emeritus at American University.
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