Mayor Michael Bloomberg: Cold Fish for President
As Bloomberg coyly flirts with a Presidential run, I like millions of other Americans wait with bated breath for a man with all the leadership qualities of a cold fish in an icebox who has only held one elected office in his life to run for President.
Every Presidential race needs a crazy billionaire to enter it as a third party candidate believing that the moment the public sees his paid prime time infomercials they will fall worshipfully at his feet. Unfortunately Ross Perot was actually entertaining. Michael Bloomberg is not. Bloomberg could put a room to sleep even if he was reporting the end of the world.
Maybe he thinks that what this country needs most of all is a President with the speech delivery of Ben Stein, the warmth of an ice cube and the empathy of a DMV teller. A man whose biggest achievement is that he took over for the other New York Mayor in the race and didn't entirely screw the city up.
I like most New Yorkers can't help but remember Mayor Michael Bloomberg's fantastic leadership during the several day blackout when he mumbled something on the radio from time to time. And when he tried to imitate Mayor Koch during the transit strike, we all found it inspiring how he actually managed to make the painful effort of standing on the Brooklyn Bridge, briefly breathing the same air as us before flying back to his private island for the weekend.
Maybe in his deluded arrogance, Bloomberg seriously believes that the people of New York voted for him because they believe in him, rather than because they believed that he was marginally competent and the competition were two guys who would have turned most of New York into the Bronx within a few months of getting elected. First Governor Pataki felt the need to try and run for President. That seems to have fizzled out but not before Pataki and Joe Bruno handed over the State to the Democrats. Bloomberg is now set to do the same with the Mayor's office. Ambition makes madmen out of gray figures who should have been satisfied with what they have instead of trying for what they can't have.
The nation is not calling out for Michael Bloomberg. As the candidate of any party, his prospects would be right up there with Walter Mondale. As the candidate of his own party, his prospects are less than nil. A third party candidate has to be able to rally the troops and stand out. Instead Bloomberg has gone on a national tour of mumbling cliches into microphones and criticizing the Republican debates before admitting that he never even watched the debates.
Probably Bloomberg has watched the ascension of Ron Paul and decided that he has at least as much charisma as Ron Paul. That's probably true. A debate between Bloomberg and Ron Paul would be better than prescription sleeping aids. Just the thought of either one opening their mouth is enough to put me into a deep sleep. But Ron Paul got where he has by being appealing to Liberals as an Anti-Republican Republican while being borne on the shoulders of the loony fringes of the right and left like David Duke, Alex Jones and Pat Buchanan.
Bloomberg has no loony appeal. Unless Mayor Bloomberg begins ranting about Jewish bankers, UN concentration camps and black helicopters and calling for the secession of Texas, he can't count on the loony support that will propel Ron Paul from a defeat in the primaries to a spoiler third party candidacy to a mental institution or perhaps the Texas legislature. Where Ron Paul is King of the Fools, Bloomberg is just a merchant with delusions of royalty.
What Bloomberg does have is a private island, an air of arrogant entitlement and a whole lot of money. That should be enough to keep any crazy billionaire happy. And when he leaves the Mayor's office, we can finally get the junk modern art sculptures off the City Hall Lawn.