Spin Cycle

Eliot Spitzer, the former governor, got himself nicknamed "the steamroller" based on his own self-description to a legislator. But this heaviest of heavy political machinery was dismantled in March -- after it was discovered to have been doing some unauthorized road work.

Now we have Michael Bloomberg, who ends his mayoral run next year, maintaining that the use of the verb "maintained" to describe his assertions regarding contact with the late Sean Bell's family amounts to calling him a liar. (See previous posting).

What our city-and-suburb-slickers might not know is that the machinery known around these parts as a grader is also called a "maintainer" elsewhere in the country, according to our native Nebraskan staffer Erik German.

So given Hizzoner's wack public eruption over Michael Frazier's use of the word in a question, and our obligation to enlighten the reading public, we display a diagram of a steamroller, above, and a maintainer, below. That way we can tell our politicians, past and present, apart.

Bloomberg's new mechanical monicker, "the Maintainer," goes nicely with the fictional piece of machinery once played by his friend in California, Arnold Schwartzenegger, aka "the Terminator."

Sure, it might prove more edgy if he took to the airwaves with Michael Savage or Curtis Sliwa -- but you take whatever news you can get in drive-time or otherwise: Mayor Michael Bloomberg seems to be en route to returning to his Friday performances with John Gambling (left), as the Post reports.

Oh, good night nurse, here we go again. In New York City, another closed little circle of officially-denied but officially-fed speculation has been launched about Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who this time is allegedly trying to find a way around term limits to run for a third four-year hitch in 2009. Reports are here and here. This bears the M.O. of the Keep-Him-Relevant unit of municipal government, in the style of the recently-ended Mike-for-president speculation that of course came to naught.

You can see the advantage to Bloomberg. Without this stuff, the stories about the city's disturbing pattern of building accidents, the lack of urban housing, the faltering economy, and the prevailing idea that the Manhattan toll has been defeated on the merits -- just like the ill-considered West Side stadium -- might be all we hear about the administration.

The mayor's spokesman said Bloomberg will be out of office by the end of next year, but hey --how can you let it go at that when somebody else in a nearby office....

Dan Janison

As widely reported last week, Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s transportation commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan was ticketed for speeding and improperly using lights and sirens. She was en route to Albany to push for a Manhattan toll aimed at funding mass transit.

But we still don't know why she wasn't taking the train.

Dan Janison

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who got a call from Lt. Gov. David Paterson yesterday, told reporters that he spoke to Gov. Eliot Spitzer this morning.

“I told him my thoughts are with him, and wished him all the best, and said if he ever wanted my advice, I’d be happy to give it to him,” the mayor said to a huddle of reporters after an event at the New York Public Library.

Sources say that the mayor called Spitzer, and then the governor called Bloomberg back.

The mayor’s comment, although brief, was somewhat unusual because Bloomberg rarely speaks to impromptu media scrums. However, the mayor doesn’t have a full press availability scheduled today.

That should make tomorrow’s press availability – which may well come not only on the heels of Spitzer’s expected resignation, but also after the release of a new Quinnipiac poll about the mayor’s political future (2010 gubneratorial race anyone?) – pretty interesting.

-- Karla Schuster in City Hall

Politics is a steamroller sport -- just ask Eliot Spitzer -- so it's time to start looking at the upside of his (presumptive) downfall. At first blush, there seem to be a half dozen winners.

1. Michael Bloomberg. Sure, he's said he doesn't want to go north but he also claimed he didn't want to run for president ... Suddenly there's an open job that fits his ego, ambitions, a decade of sucking up to Joe Bruno and self-professed managerial genius. It also gives him the most valuable gift a lame-duck mayor can have: something to talk about other than snowstorms, the latest City Council scandal and water main breaks. He's out of office in January 2010. The gubernatorial campaign would begin a few months later -- leaving him weeks of quality time on the golf courses of Bermuda before writing himself the inevitable $200 million check.

2. Joe Bruno. So much for the purifying Democratic tidal wave that was going to sweep the dirty, corrupt GOP out of power in the State Senate.

3. David Paterson. Nice, upstanding guy who's being given the chance of a lifetime. Will he turn into an unbeatable incumbent -- or Malcolm Wilson II? Wilson succeeded Nelson Rockefeller in late 1973, less than a year in office before he had to run against Hugh Carey. Should Spitzer resign, Paterson will have two-and-a-half years to make his own reputation.

4. Chuck Schumer. Felt dissed when party elders told him to put aside his gubernatorial ambitions to clear the path for Spitzer. People close to Schumer say he's moved on and is now quite happy to be the man behind the Democratic throne in the U.S. Senate. But who knows? At the very least he's got one of the all-time great I-told-you-so's.

5. Hillary Clinton. It won't do her a bit of good now, but Spitzer's blundering insistence on pushing ahead with his immigrant driver's license plan saddled her with an awkward, unpopular position she has since ditched. From a payback perspective, she must be having a discreet chuckle.

6. Andrew Cuomo. Before the rise of Prince Eliot, he used to be the abrasive, hard-driving political son whom everybody detested. For the moment, he's earning high marks for humility and his pursuit of mortgage-disaster villains. It's clear he wouldn't mind taking back his dad’s old job. The downside: David Paterson's in the way.

-- Glenn Thrush

For the politician lucky enough to be its subject, presidential talk makes a great gig.

The chat comes cost-free, risk-free and bruise-free — a windfall of flattering attention that the could-be candidate gets to turn on and off.

Once it ends, though, a bill of sorts seems to come due.

Gov. Mario Cuomo had his friends stoking the presidential speculation until the day in 1992 he decided to opt out, leaving the plane to New Hampshire on the runway. In 1994, a relatively unknown legislator named George Pataki unseated him.

When Mayor Michael Bloomberg draws a spotlight from here on, it will shine on the hard realities of his day job — the crude bombing at Times Square, sagging tax revenues, immense housing costs, and the school system’s flaws.

For the billionaire Democrat-turned-Republican-turned-Blank mayor, who must leave office next year anyway because of term limits, the tenor of the free publicity can only go downhill from here. The only question is how steep the slide will be.

Take the sexy issue of parking.

Seven years since its formation, the Bloomberg administration has revealed, as reported here by William Neuman and Al Baker in the Times....

Dan Janison

Just when you thought it was safe to call the mayor, well, Mr. Mayor, one of his key aides reveals that Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama gave Mike Bloomberg a ring yesterday.

Just, you know, to say hi.

Oh, and maybe to talk about being his vice-president.

Or maybe not.

Wink. Wink.

“Certainly you could joke that Obama’s call was a fundraising call yesterday,” Deputy Mayor Kevin Sheekey quipped on New York One’s Inside City Hall tonight. “The man (Bloomberg) has the ability to finance a campaign. I don’t think that’s why you choose a vice president.”

Sheekey spent months and a lot of the billionaire mayor’s money laying the groundwork for a possible presidential campaign. And since Bloomberg announced in an op-ed in the New York Times this week that he’s not going to run, Sheekey and former mayoral pollster Douglas Schoen have been trying to sell the vice-president scenario to anyone who will listen.

"I think it was a reasonably short call, you know, I was briefed,” Sheekey said the conversation between Obama and Bloomberg. “I was told they had a nice call and I spoke to the mayor after they had breakfast a few months ago.”

Karla Schuster

Mayor Michael Bloomberg is a big proponent of environmental causes – right down to recycling some of the answers he served up during his long – and now finally ended – presidential flirtation.

Check out this exchange on the mayor’s radio show this morning:

Host John Gambling: "So vice-president? Would you be interested?"

Bloomberg: “Um, vice-president of my mother’s shul in Medford, Massachussets might be an attractive thing to focus on. Nobody’s going to ask me, John. I’ve got 671 days left to go in this job. I think being the mayor of New York City is one of the most exciting things you can do.”

Sound familiar? Yep, we thought so too. It’s the second time in as many days that Bloomberg has played coy when asked about the Veep spot. Not that we think Bloomberg is interested in being second banana on anybody’s ticket – in fact, months ago in a television interview, he definitively dismissed the idea.

But give the newly buzz-less billionaire mayor credit for coming up with a new strategy to boost his national profile faster than you can say: “I will not be a candidate for president.”

Former Bloomberg pollster Douglas Schoen appeared on New York One’s Inside City Hall last night, pushing the “he would make a great vice-president or treasury secretary” riff. Deputy Mayor Kevin Sheekey is scheduled to appear on the show tonight. One guess what he’s going to say.

Ah, just like old times….

Karla Schuster

It was the same in the beginning. Michael Bloomberg announced his mayoral run in 2001 in a television commercial and even refused to be interviewed by a New York City reporter who caught up with him the same day it was airing. Today, he uses the Op Ed page of the New York Times as his platform to say definitively that he won't run for president.

There's talk of his role in national affairs and national candidates. How about the day job? Political trajectories tend to decline after announcements like this one. Look at Gov. Mario Cuomo. Bloomberg still has two years left to do things like straighten out whichever bus schedules and budgets the school chancellor has most recently screwed up, find out why a shell company was doing the demolition at the Deutsche Bank building, explore some of the oddities of the building inspection process, like that....Not as sexy, filled with public-relations hazards. What will Deputy Mayor for Political Promotions Kevin Sheekey be doing?

Dan Janison

Even as the clock runs out on Mayor Bloomberg's presidential chances (the mayor himself said on Monday it was "getting close to being too late" for a third-party candidate to jump into the race), former Bloomberg pollster Doug Schoen (right) is keeping the White House fires burning.

The latest leap of logic came when Schoen told the New York Sun earlier this week that Ralph Nader's decision to run for president as a third-party candidate actually helps the mayor's chances because he will pull the Democratic field to the left just as presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain shifts to the right to satisfy GOP conservatives.

That, according to Schoen, leaves "a huge void in the middle" for someone like the mayor.
In other words, in the great tradition of Monty Python: "I'm not dead yet!..."

Next up: Doug Schoen's post-inauguration analysis of how the swearing-in of a new president leaves all kinds of room for a Bloomberg candidacy.

Karla Schuster

UPDATE: Turns out the spokesman from Arnold Schwartzenegger's office who stopped by Room 9 with Deputy Mayor Kevin Sheekey and Communications Director Stu Loeser isn't going to be the Governator's mouthpiece for long. Adam Mendelsohn is leaving as Ah-nold's communications director after this week, which he's spending on vacation in The Big Apple visiting friends, among them - that's right, you guessed it - Sheekey.

Mendelsohn's impending departure has been well-publicized on the West Coast, but not so much when he was introduced to the press in Room 9 earlier today.Still, Mendelsohn said there's nothing to read into the omission, or even into his visit. He and Sheekey got to know each other well because Mayor Bloomberg and Arnold have worked together a lot over the past year, Mendelsohn said, adding that he had never seen City Hall or the mayor's famous "bullpen" for his key staff.

"It was just a sight-seeing tour," he said.

PRIOR TO THE UPDATE: Just a few minutes ago, Deputy Mayor Kevin Sheekey and Communications Director Stu Loeser made a big show of stopping into Room 9 -- the New York City Hall press room -- with Adam Mendelsohn, a spokesman for California Gov. Arnold Schwarnegger, and introducing him around to the assembled media.

Sheekey pointed out reporters by name, except for the ones he doesn't know or doesn't care about, but had little else to offer by way of information. Mendelsohn was friendly enough, but didn't have any business cards or any explanation of why he was here, except to say that he was "just talking" during his visit to City Hall. Loeser, asked a few minutes later why Mendelsohn was here, simply said "he's in town."

Nothing like taunting the local press...

Karla Schuster

Rick Brand has a detailed piece on the efforts of the Independence Party's itinerant Frank MacKay, who's been all over this nation finding ballot spots for the prospective billionaire candidate....

Forget the presidential stuff for a second. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s uber-publicized visit with California Gov. Arnold Schwartzenegger over the weekend prompts this question: Would Ah-nold ever drop his Republican affiliation, as Mike did, if only to become a non-partisan gubernator?

Dan Janison

On the left is Kevin Sheekey, Mayor Mike Bloomberg's deputy mayor for running stealth presidential campaigns, speaking with California Gov. Arnold Schwartzenegger, who is foreign-born and therefore not constitutionally eligible to run as the non-candidate's non-vice-presidential candidate.

Sheekey and Schwartzenegger talked for several minutes after a news conference -- during which the governor said he and the mayor are "soulmates" but also insisted that he will not endorse any presidential candidate.

Newsday's Karla Schuster captured the special summit above in L.A. What should the caption be? (Clean and respectful -- please).

Not a single political position on anything at all is expressed in this political promotion for Bloomberg. Awesome! Let's elect him on the explicit condition that he never specify or even hint at anything he's going to do in office other than fight trans-fats. Watch this, and tell us what if anything you can infer about where the man stands:

Eight years ago this week, Mayor Rudy Giuliani delivered his seventh State of the-City address, marking the midpoint of his second and, by law, final term. It was laced with the usual self-congratulation, aimed in part at an audience beyond the five boroughs.

Yesterday, Mayor Michael Bloomberg delivered his seventh State of the City address, marking the midpoint of his second and final term. It, too, was laced with the customary self-congratulation - and aimed a bit at an audience beyond the five boroughs.

When Giuliani, Bloomberg's possible rival, spoke in City Hall on Jan. 13, 2000, he'd started running for higher office - U.S. Senate - without having announced that he was doing so. And when Bloomberg spoke at the new ice rink in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park yesterday, he, too, had started running for higher office - the presidency - without saying so.

Ballot preparations and strategies and planning have moved far enough along now that for billionaire Bloomberg the only question is whether he pulls the plug in the coming weeks on his unorthodox stealth candidacy - or embraces it in full.

All this presidential fanfare, though, hides the sobering truth of his day job: Having two years left in office means a shrinkage of municipal power and the prospect of a government adrift.

With economic storm clouds looming, Bloomberg called yesterday for sacrifices by unions. But labor leaders in the room knew full well that Bloomberg now lacks leverage. He leaves in 2009 - and the latest round of contracts is already negotiated and signed.

Key parts of his broader agenda appear doomed as well. Nobody applauded, for example, when .....

Dan Janison

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg was deposed in a South Carolina gun dealer’s lawsuit — and a lawyer for the plaintiff tried to question the billionaire about his presidential plans. Bloomberg's city lawyer objected, saying “if the question is a question... as of today, I don't believe that it's relevant.”

Sounds eerily like one of the mayor's press conferences. Anyway, Azi “Politicker” Paybarah has the piece here.

Dan Janison

Now the alliance involved in promoting a major third-party candidacy for president -- presumably Mike Bloomberg -- has come to include a Virginia political organization that's already floated some Mike-for-president petitions. For the release from the Independence Party, led by Long Islander Frank MacKay, click on the continued bar below.

In addition, there are reports of the Unity '08 people losing consultants to the stealth Bloomberg effort under way.

The world's longest media drumroll since the days of Gov. Mario Cuomo thus continues. Of course, this guy won't have to leave the plane on the runway if he decides to withdraw since he probably owns the plane and the runway. Or he'll fly it himself if the campaign goes public. Also, it strikes us that Florida's mayor, Rudy Giuliani, seems to have stopped predicting Bloomberg would not run....Team Rudy usually has the scoop on things that affect itself.

Ah, but don't you long for the good old days -- during what we could have called Unity '04?

In those days Rudy and Mike were together endorsing George W. Bush for re-election, and mere citizens were arrested by billionaire Bloomberg's underpaid and overpressured cops during the New York City GOP convention -- simply for walking down the street. It's true, good out-of-towners. Pedestrians were trapped in orange nets as if they were fish. And even with his minimalist endorsement of the incumbent -- he was running for reelection the following year -- the Democrat-turned-Republican mayor couldn't seem to squeeze out a position on the Iraq war. Maybe he will do so some time before his inauguration in DC, maybe not.

While we're at it, take a good close read of this Voice piece by Tom Robbins this week. It's a good, cold reality-check on what the run by the non-Huckabee Mike really entails.

Once again, it makes good sense here to employ the logic of Wonderland, since we're in it. Just assume Bloomberg is running and that his denials are outright lies until we see actual evidence that he is NOT going to be on the ballots. Colleagues who knew him in his (full-time) business days have said for years that the man likes to operate in secret until that is no longer possible. This itself could become a campaign issue in a democratic republic, of course. But the way it works is that he won't be called on his stealth operating style until he declares his candidacy to everybody, which ought to happen after he gets his strategy in order.

Dan Janison

Mike Bloomberg tried to rattle the "Establishment" cage when he held his indie summit in Oklahoma, but the results in New Hampshire might provide him with a powerful incentive to sit out 2008. The center is getting more crowded than the Obama press bus.

Bloomberg believes Americans are tired of the sharp partisan divide in both parties. Fair enough, but isn't he fighting the last war -- 2004?

Like Hillary, Bloomberg's hurt by the "change" tsunami, not because he doesn't embody change, but because others have successfully appropriated the slogan before he got the chance to spend his $1 billion telling the fine people of California and Florida that he practically invented the word.

More ominously, the two ascendant candidates, Barack Obama and John McCain...

Glenn Thrush

Obama's rise has prompted at least one local supporter of Mike - billionaire Bloomberg, not preacher Huckabee - to say that a Jewish New York independent would have a shot. Privately, a number of former Bloomberg staffers and friends are sharply skeptical of his could-be candidacy. One cites the mayor's "left-of-Democrat" stances on gay marriage, smoking, abortion and gun control. Public denials aside, none are sure what he'll do - which is always how Bloomberg seems to like it.

Anyway, here is that local supporter's statement: "If Iowa, with 98% white voters voted for an African American candidate tonight to be their President, then all the critics that say a Jewish candidate like Michael Bloomberg can’t win middle America could not be more wrong." But of course, as the lottery slogan goes, you have to be in it to win it.

By the way, would it be appropriate to distinguish between Huckabee and Bloomberg with the monickers Dieter Mike and Transfat Mike? Or Poor Mike and Rich Mike? Or Governor Mike and Mayor Mike?

Hillaree and Huckabee has a little more punch...

Dan Janison

For months, a key player in the Bloomberg-speculation effort has been Patrick Brennan, who oversaw political and field operations for the mayor’s 2005 re-election campaign and who has worked outside the state on union efforts in at least one national campaign, city sources said.

Brennan, with extensive labor contacts, works with Kevin Sheekey (below), now a deputy mayor in the administration, on quietly setting up bases of support. With extensive private funding, test-polling of a Bloomberg candidacy has begun in some parts of the country, according to well-informed sources. Brennan did not respond to a phone message from Newsday last week.

Unlike Sheekey, Brennan is no longer on the city payroll. He is a consultant in the Parkside Group, a city-based firm whose other partners have extensive Queens Democratic and union connections.

Dan Janison

Just for fun and snarkery's sake, let's put it this way: A convention of political has-beens will be looking to figuratively hoist Mayor-without-a-party Michael Bloomberg on their shoulders, provided -- say -- the whole subway system doesn't shut down due to some emergency, in which case it wouldn't look so good if he blew off his day job and left town. Next week's event, in the wake of the first round of major-party primary battles, revives the biggest speculation bubble since those early dot-coms went poof. As we said in this space before, the best way to approach this is to assume that Bloomberg's running until he isn't. He's proven over his years as mayor that he likes to operate in a stealthy manner, unveiling a project only after he has made it a fact on the ground. But former Sen.Sam Nunn in the forefront? Ehhhh.... Beyond that, who knows what good or evil lurks in the hearts of billionaire mayors who are forced out of office by term limits in '09? Perhaps The Sheekey, deputy mayor for political promotion, knows.....Anyway, a routine bill-signing was over-attended by the working New Year's Eve press corps, so how does any of the frenzy cost the mayor? The Rudy and Hillary folks cannot be too thrilled, you can be sure of that.

Dan Janison

The latest crime figures released and touted by New York City show a continued decline in key categories, except for a small year-to-year uptick in felony assaults (click for the press release on the 'continued' bar below). Given some bumps and spikes, the overall trend has provided a boasting point for Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly -- for a full mayoral term and a half now.

But this holiday season, the numbers, however you parse and slice them, have a special significance. They come as predecessor Rudy Giuliani runs for president -- peddling crime reduction as a unique signature of his miraculous time running City Hall. If these stats hold up, of course, the miracle continued for almost as long as Giuliani was in office -- and, under the commissionership of Kelly, who Giuliani dismissed when he became mayor.

Of course, it's the same NYPD -- which still has serious pay issues.

Dan Janison

Former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani says he believes his successor Mike Bloomberg won't run since he can't win. Somebody better tell that to Bloomberg's deputy mayor for political promotion, Kevin Sheekey.

Meantime, in what supporters of Sen. John McCain are known to consider a patronizing gesture, Giuliani -- while campaigning in New Hampshire -- said the Arizonan would make a good adviser to him as president.

This may come as a surprise, but last month, McCain did give Rudy a little advice.

When former police commissioner Bernard Kerik was indicted on federal charges, McCain slammed Giuliani's poor judgment in pushing his longtime friend for top posts such as U.S. security secretary. On behalf of the Rudy camp, former deputy mayor Randy Mastro called attention to McCain's role in the savings and loan scandal of the 1980's. To which Team McCain pointed out that Mastro had served as an attorney for the construction firm at the center of the Kerik prosecution, a company whose owners are accused of perjury stemming from the earlier state case against Kerik.

Would Giuliani have stroked McCain as his good friend and hero once again if the latter weren't rising in the polls? Or is that too cynical a suggestion?

Dan Janison

Some more chatter about Bloomberg in the Huffington Post:

"New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel have been conducting regular, private phone conversations over the past few months in an effort to "feel each other out" for a possible presidential run, sources have told the Huffington Post."

And:

"Sources with knowledge of the conversations say they usually occur every few weeks and always are done in private. As such, the topics of discussion remain unclear. But one high-ranking aide confirmed that they have discussed Hagel joining the presidential campaign should Bloomberg choose to run.
" 'It has to come from Bloomberg because Hagel can't really do anything,' said the source, before adding that there was no indication that the two have declared a political alliance. A decision on whether to run will likely be made once the Democrats and Republicans have settled on a nominee."

A story that's sure to keep the Bloomberg-for-president speculation humming: Mike aides have been asking top consultants over the past few weeks to keep their powder dry, and not sign on with anyone else:

"That Bloomberg aides would look to lock up an ad team dovetails with what the mayor has privately told people about how he would spend up to $1 billion of his own fortune on an independent run, which would be played out mostly on the TV airwaves and through direct mail."

Oh, heck, just let those jobs go to China -- nothing you can do about it, suggests the mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg, who is on a visit there this week. In today's Financial Times the mayor, whose final term expires in 2009, says:

"A growing China creates jobs for our export producers, keeps consumer prices low, expands our choice of goods and services, and increases our access to capital and talent... Our serious differences with China in these and other areas must be managed through engagement, not used as excuses to pursue politically expedient - and economically wrong-headed - short-term retaliatory measures.

"What of the argument that China is taking jobs from America? Those jobs - if they did not go to China - would go somewhere else. The US government cannot keep them here through costly consumer-funded tariffs and taxpayer-funded subsidies. We learnt that lesson the hard way in the 1970s, when congressional protection of the automotive industry only hurt Detroit and helped its foreign competitors."

"When politicians suggest that the benefits of globalisation go primarily to low-wage countries, they are playing to people's fears..."

Hey, maybe it would be more efficient to just "restructure" the republic as an Llp...The best of all possible global economies!

Dan Janison

The upcoming departure of Dan Doctoroff as Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s top economic aide to run the affairs of Bloomberg Lp prompted this analysis from a former firm insider: “Why make an investment banker head of Bloomberg Lp? Maybe because you are planning to sell the firm before you move to Washington?”

Bloomberg said Thursday the firm is not for sale. But someone in his camp seems to think that if Giuliani and Clinton are nominated, the billionaire mayor could run as an independent without worrying about coming off by comparison as too pro-gay rights, or too pro-abortion, or too pro-gun control -- or too divorced.

Dan Janison

The quote was, "As a little munchkin, did you come to New York?” This is what Diane Sawyer asked Mayor Michael Bloomberg on the tube this morning that got kind of a giddy buzz going on some blogs. Rumors of a new collective bargaining agreement with the lollipop guild were denied. We're sure she did not mean to address his current status and was referring to when hizzoner was a small child.

One of Suffolk’s top political consultants, Anthony Manetta, is hooking up with Frank MacKay’s Independence Party. Manetta, a Conservative, filed Wednesday to switch to Independence. Although that doesn’t take effect until a week after Election Day 2008, MacKay (photo above) has named Manetta a county party vice chairman. “It’s not something we would normally do, but it’s a sign of respect for someone with so much talent,” he said.

MacKay plans to deploy Manetta as a paid party fundraiser locally, at the state level, and for his newly created Independence Party of America — a platform from which New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg could run for president if he chose. Manetta proclaimed a chance to “work with a great political mind” in MacKay and join a “political movement that is spreading across the country.”

Manetta, head of Roosevelt Strategies, raised $80,000 for the Independence Party this year, which never before raised more than $25,000 annually — thus allowing MacKay to draw a $70,000-a-year salary. The consultant first hit it big....

Rick Brand

Jim Callaghan recalls a time when a New York City mayor was committed to settling labor disputes regardless of whether they were public or private. He describes Mike Bloomberg as missing-in-action on the current high-cost Broadway strike.

"As New Yorkers watched the strike unfold, the mayor –heretofore known as Missing in Action Mike- was busy giving the keys to the city to the singer Fats Domino and dining at a midtown bistro, to help one business owner. Bloomberg has an uncanny tin ear when it comes to those moments that call for decisiveness and ingenuity; indeed, during last summer’s half-hour rainstorm that closed down the city for an entire day, the mayor was very busy honoring a baseball player, Tom Glavine, who also got the key to the city, which won’t help him much in Atlanta as he recently bade Gotham farewell."

The full piece is here.