A Valentine Proposal From Bloomberg?

In the glory days of Time Inc, an editor who didn't get a promotion he had been expecting sent Henry Luce a wire: "Why did you keep me standing on my tippy toes if you didn't intend to kiss me?"

Voters may be feeling that way about Mike Bloomberg. After a year of flirting with us, and as the possible nominees in both parties look less desirable all the time, will Gotham's Prince Charming ever make his move?

Now there are hints he could pop the question, or not, right after Super Tuesday, February 5th, when more than 20 primaries provide some idea of who the Democratic and Republican candidates will be. "If the parties nominate polarizing candidates," a leading pollster says, "then there's plenty of room"

Meanwhile, Mayor Mike has been busy traveling to China to talk about entrepreneurship and Bali to discuss climate change while observing that the next president should “go around the world, make sure that people understand that we are willing to listen--and actually listen.”

While polishing his foreign-policy credentials, Bloomberg has been working hard to remind potential voters of his environmental and other quality-of-life improvements in New York.

Along with all this, the non-candidate has been reaching out to consultants and ad people from his past campaigns for a possible run while a "Unite for Mike" web site keeps supporters abreast of all the Bloomberg buzz, including a weekend dinner with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, "amid hints that he has been trying to find a way for the Austrian-born governor to run as his vice president."

No Ross Perot, if he decides to go for it, Bloomberg will spend a billion dollars only if he sees a way to win enough electoral votes to take the prize, and enthusiasts are working on a map to show he can do it.

But like Miss Adelaide in "Guys and Dolls," we have heard these songs before. Will our bachelor billionaire ever stop playing Nathan Detroit, get down on a knee and ask us to be his?

Valentine's Day might be a good time.

Time to End Bloomberg's Ambivalence

With Election Day '08 less than a year away, the Hamlet act is wearing thin for New York's Mayor. Soon he will have to decide whether to be or not to be a candidate for President.

Lately he seems to be leaning toward it. Last weekend in New Orleans, the symbolic site for Washington inadequacy, Mike Bloomberg proclaimed his principles of governing "a challenge to candidates to move beyond photo-ops, to reject stage-managed town hall meetings, and to talk about how we're going to use real accountability to solve real problems and take real questions from our constituents and give them real answers.

"They're a challenge to a rotten political culture that rewards sellouts and sycophants, and I've just always thought that we can do better."

After blasting the campaign as "pandering in full throttle," Bloomberg toured the hurricane-ravaged lower Ninth Ward and got an endorsement from one of the residents, Fats Domino.

At the same time, the Mayor is taking a cram course on foreign policy with Nancy Soderberg, a former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and a Clinton Administration foreign policy adviser, and has had his chief political aide, Kevin Sheekey, meeting with officials of Britain's Independence Party to discuss how a third-party bid could be launched.

Earlier this fall, Bloomberg dined with retiring Sen. Chuck Hagel, whose Republican domestic credentials, opposition to the war in Iraq and Washington know-how would pair up nicely with the Mayor's executive experience on an Independent ticket.

This month, Newsweek's editor Jon Meacham wrote a long story about Bloomberg's "American odyssey," blurbed, "He has the money and message to upend 2008."

But Bloomberg will have to decide soon. Even with a billion dollars, it takes time to put together a campaign and get on the ballot in 50 states.

As the major parties seem ready to nominate two unusual New Yorkers--a woman and a multi-married Italian-American--will another, described by CNN's Jeff Greenfield as "a vertically challenged Jewish billionaire," have the legs to make it a three-way?

Carve-Up-California Campaign Fails

Republicans won’t be getting electoral slices of the Golden State next year after all. The referendum to carve up California like a Thanksgiving turkey is apparently dead.

In recent months, Democrats have been alarmed by a ballot initiative to award Presidential electors by district instead of the traditional winner-take-all method, which might have given Republicans at least 19 of the state’s 55 votes.

It would also have been encouragement for an Independent run by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s dear friend, New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg.

But in the land of endless Propositions and 135 gubernatorial candidates in the recall election of 2003, sanity, or at least insufficient money, has prevailed--this time.