Your Word Is A Pot Of Gold At The End Of The Rainbow

Connecting with the people is about making promises and sticking to them:

No nationally known political figures graced the ninth annual St. Patrick’s Parade in Sunnyside and Woodside, and even Mayor Michael Bloomberg gave notice he wouldn’t be around this year, though once he had said he’d attend each parade faithfully, even after he had left office.

The Half-A-Billion Dollar Endowment (Maybe Crotchety Villagers Have Something To Be Worried About After All)

How come tuition is almost $40,000 a year if NYU Law is clearing Harvard levels of loot? Good question:

The NYU School of Law received more than $43 million in donations in the 2006-2007 fiscal year, finishing second only to Harvard Law School and raking in almost double the amount Columbia Law School collected.

The law school has raised $285,657,449 through Jan. 31, 2008 since 2002. With additional verbal commitments and gifts, the total comes to about $330 million.

The school expects to increase that amount to $400 million by December 2009.

But Then What Will Kevin Sheekey Have To Do At Work?*

The only way to let go of the endless media speculation about whether he’ll run is flood the zone with stories saying he won’t. Then maybe we can get our lives back:

His bosom pals endorsed someone else. Some of those trying to draft him for a run are suddenly less interested. And even the mayor himself, as he continues to insist he will not be a contender for the White House, is for the first time sounding like someone who means it.

Has Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s presidential bubble finally burst?

If not, it is losing air as quickly as Senator John McCain’s is gaining momentum, say some of his most ardent supporters.

“I think as soon as McCain started pulling ahead, it became really clear to me that that was probably the swan song,” said Karin Gallet, founder of the New York chapter of Unite for Mike, a movement to draft the mayor for a third-party run. “I hope I’m wrong. But that’s really Bloomberg’s base of support.”

Ms. Gallet’s hopes of a Bloomberg candidacy were finally shattered when Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut and then Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, both Bloomberg friends and supporters, endorsed Mr. McCain, a Republican.

She is abandoning the effort, she said, and getting back to her life.

The question is when all this fruitless presidential posturing will tarnish his legacy as mayor. Maybe that’s the only way he’ll pull Sheekey back.

*Don’t get caught playing solitaire.

Close The Door — Close It! Close It!

I’m guessing the “empirical” doesn’t include the fact that Bloomberg’s final remaining positive attribute — a meaningless nod to “nonpartisanship”* — has been overtaken by events, specifically McCain’s meaningless nod to “nonpartisanship” and Obama’s meaningless nod to “nonpartisanship”:

A venture capitalist who founded a company expressly to support a presidential run by Mayor Bloomberg, and who is conducting nationwide voter analysis for the mayor, says his data show that Mr. Bloomberg can win the White House.

James Robinson IV, the founder of the technology and data analysis company Symposia Group, told The New York Sun he believes that “empirically, he can win,” even with the emergence of Senator McCain as the Republican front-runner.

After starting the company in December 2006, Mr. Robinson’s team, which he says includes people at the “top of the game” in search intelligence and database analysis, spent more than nine months building a technology system that attempts to gauge the thinking of Americans on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood, and even house-by-house, basis.

. . .

Mr. Bloomberg says repeatedly that he is “not a candidate,” but his high-profile appearances and speeches indicate he is trying to keep his options open. He did, however, deviate from his standard denial yesterday, when speaking to employees of Google at the company’s offices in the city.

After saying that he’s not a candidate for president, he went further than usual, adding that he’ll “stay that way.”

His subtle change in tone may be linked to Mr. McCain’s surge, which some political observers say makes it less likely Mr. Bloomberg will run.

Scott Rasmussen, the president of Rasmussen Reports, which conducts presidential polls, said he is fairly confident Mr. McCain will be the Republican nominee and that if Mr. Bloomberg is taking a serious look at the field right now, “he is seeing the door closing.”

. . .

Mr. Bloomberg’s possible presidential aspirations appeared to take a hit yesterday when Governor Schwarzenegger endorsed Mr. McCain for president. The California governor had said previously that he would not back a candidate in the race, leading some political observers to speculate that he was holding out to see if Mr. Bloomberg jumped into the fray.

Both advocate a nonpartisan, pragmatic approach to government, and Mr. Schwarzenegger has called Mr. Bloomberg his “soulmate.”

*And if you want to start talking about the Mayor’s nonpartisan legacy, examine the record.

Your $10 To $20 Billion President

Like the Six Million Dollar Man only times thirty:

As the economy falters, Bloomberg could position himself as the perfect combination of private-sector entrepreneur and experienced, responsible public-service fiscal steward. “Mike could be one of the most important philanthropists we’ve ever seen,” a Bloomberg friend says. “But one example Kevin reminds him about is the smoking ban. Bloomberg ran for office in 2001 and spent $75 million. If he had taken $75 million and paid for smoking-cessation programs in the city, he wouldn’t have made one-thousandth the difference he made by getting elected and pushing through the smoking ban. Maybe not one-millionth the difference. So the $10 billion or $20 billion he’ll give away over the next twenty years, he could still make a greater difference by becoming president.”