Most of the political press in New York have apparently decided that they must interpret everything Mike Bloomberg does is part of a campaign for President.
In Saturday’s NY Times, a story about Bloomberg speaking in Houston began:
Sounding a lot like a presidential candidate, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg laid out the framework for a national energy policy on Friday and accused Washington lawmakers of “passing the buck” on meaningful energy reforms.
But there is another way of looking at the same news.
Here is how a reporter who doesn’t think Mike is running for President might have written a story.
Sounding nothing like a presidential candidate, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg gave a speech in the 2nd largest state in the country proposing changes in energy policy that would harm that state. The speech delivered in Texas, a state with 34 electoral votes and with an economy dependent on high-energy prices. proposed ways that Americans would spend less money on energy.
This action is consistent with Bloomberg’s actions in the last week that make it clear that if he is running for President, he is doing in bizarre way completely different with how he ran for Mayor.
For example Bloomberg started the week by attacking the flagship newspaper of media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s empire for “making up a story” about him. Not exactly the way to get favorable coverage.
He then re-launched his personal website http://mikebloomberg.com/, which did not include any mechanisms to allow potential volunteers to join Bloomberg’s efforts or even anyway to get on a mailing list. A failure to take advantage of the site.
The website even has an issues page http://mikebloomberg.com/en/issues that does not mention of such important issues to voters as the war in Iraq, foreign policy, defense policy, immigration or terrorism. Something no serious Presidential candidate would do.
And on Friday, both Bloomberg’s present press secretary and his former communications director were quoted as saying he wasn’t running for President – http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wn_report/2007/05/11/2007-05-11_hil_would_kill_mike_chuck_sez-2.html
Stu Loeser, Bloomberg's spokesman, said, "This isn't – as Chuck would say – a dagger in the heart, since the mayor isn't running for President."… "He's told us all what he intends to do," said Cunningham, referring to Bloomberg's plan to become a full-time philanthropist.”