Bloomberg Quits Republican Party, Cleared For Run

A little past 6 p.m. on the evening of June 19, Michael Bloomberg’s press office sent out the following statement:

“I have filed papers with the New York City Board of Elections to change my status as a voter and register as unaffiliated with any political party.”

And just like that, all the theories about the Mayor’s independent candidacy for President in 2008 became not so theoretical.

Yes, that innocent-sounding statement was followed by a ritualistic denial by the Mayor about how his plans for the future hadn’t changed.

But what does that mean?

No elected official, it’s fair to presume, is immune to the lures of running for higher office; when the press, the public and a coterie of politicians are egging him on, resistance is futile.

(And honestly, it’s not going to be any easier for the New York press to restrain itself about the increasingly real prospect of a three-way race between Hillary Clinton, Mike Bloomberg and Rudy Giuliani.)

Could it be a coincidence that June 15 was the day Deputy Mayor Ed Skyler showed up, according to a source at the board, to meet with the chairman of the New York City Board of Elections to register the change—the same day the Mayor appeared on the cover of Time magazine, leaning up against a smiling Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, over the legend “The New Action Heroes”? (The announcement of the switch was made four days later, shortly after it was reported on the politicker.com blog on this newspaper's web site.)

Or that he’s switching his affiliation even as he maintains a packed out-of-state travel schedule that has, recently, included stops in Oklahoma, Texas, California and (ahem) New Hampshire?

Could the Mayor’s decision to abandon his marriage of convenience with the Republican Party—he enrolled, as New York voters will recall, as an easy and relatively cheap means of gaining access to the ballot for his Mayoral run—possibly represent anything but the first trotting step in his much-talked-about run for President as a self-financed independent?

The answer, from some of the people who know him best, is maybe. Next Page >