The candidacy of Mike Bloomberg is shaping up to be an interesting story here in NYC. While people don't yet know what to make of him, he is beginning to hold forth on the issues and cluing the press, the electorate and even his own campaign team on where he stands. Most interesting to me is that he has switched his party affiliation from Democrat to Republican in order to run. The move may seem strange given that his ideas are all squarely New Democrat, but if you know anything about NYC politics, it makes plenty of sense. The dems here are quite a bi further left than there counter-parts almost everywhere save university campuses. Consequently, they have an old-school party bureaucracy that stifles anyone but the best paderers to the various special interests around the city. Not surprisingly, the democratic field is filled with four career politicians who will compete to dote on the special interests the most effectively and dance along the far left party line as neatly as possible in order to gain the nomination. Bloomberg rightly evaluated that there was no way he could compete in that field and come out with the nomination. The republicans here are Nelson Rockefeller by any stretch of the imagination, but Bloomberg will be their best bet for keeping the Mayoralty as Bloomberg's opponent in the primary is a perennial candidate and perennial loser. In reference to switching parties, Bloomberg says, "I certainly looked at it very carefully, an outsider would have no chance of getting [the nomination]."

One point he made that I particularly liked was in expressing his frustration that the candidates often like to hold forth on national issues:

"Mayoral candidates should talk about what they can do in the city, with the money that is available, with the political clout, or the power given them by the City Charter. And if they spent their time on that and let those we elected to the federal government focus on national issues, we'd all be better off."
- posted by levinson @ 7/01/2001 12:38:00 PM