Monday, June 18, 2007

Run, Mike, Run!

The New York Post catches NY Mayor Mike Bloomberg keeping the kind of travel schedule usually reserved for presidential candidates:

Mayor Bloomberg is on pace to break the travel record for any recent occupant of City Hall, a Post analysis has found.

Records show the mayor - who happens to be swinging through San Francisco and Los Angeles starting today - has visited 20 U.S. cities in the last 18 months...

Barnard College Professor Esther Fuchs, who served as a special adviser to the mayor in his first term, suggested Bloomberg has a different agenda: to thrust urban concerns into the forefront of the national debate.

Certainly, the mayor has spotlighted the ease of obtaining illegal weapons, by lining up mayors across America in his coalition to toughen gun laws.

Bloomberg recently addressed a crowd of more than 1,000 at Google, and touched on a number of national issues:

Bloomberg seemed to side with President Bush when he decried "an anti-immigration policy that is a disgrace" and called for a more open migration policy. And he dismissed the notion of deporting illegal immigrants as part of immigration reform.

"We need to recognize we're not going to deport 12 million people already here," he said. "Let's get serious, we don't have an army big enough to do that, it would be devastating to our economy, it would be the biggest mass deportation of people in the world."

The mayor said there had been too little discussion of health care and education on the campaign trail, and later blamed journalists for not asking hard enough questions of the candidates.

In one of his harshest comments, Bloomberg dismissed creationism—the theory that the universe was created by intelligent design—mistakenly calling it "creationalism." The remark made plain that Bloomberg has no interest in running in the Republican presidential primary, where outreach to Christian conservatives is critical.

A lifelong liberal Democrat, former Mayor of New York, who has a billion dollars, supports gun control and an amnesty for illegal immigrants, and who disdains Christian conservatives. I can't think of better news for the Republicans in 2008.

I'd offer to donate, but I know he doesn't need the money. What else can I do to support his candidacy?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think he has actually been a very good mayor, but he is very candid about America not being ready for a man like him in the presidency (billionaire,divorced, jewish)
My question is would he run as a republican or democrat?

The Editor at IP said...

Independent by all accounts -- and he's reportedly already spoken to former Senator David Boren (D-OK) and Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) about running with him.

Anonymous said...

He will run as neither Republican nor Democrat, but as an Independent.

Run Mike Run - Michael Bloomberg for President