If It Looks Like A Perot And Sounds Like A Perot, It Must Be A Perot

Even though he has no plans to run, everybody he meets around the country wants him to run, and his advisers want him to run but he has no plans to run, “at least not yet”:

Deputy Mayor Kevin Sheekey noted the mayor has raised his national profile during a slew of trips around the country — and now he wants Hizzoner to reconsider his vow not to run.

“I hope he changes his mind,” said Sheekey, a key player in both of Bloomberg’s mayoral campaigns.

“Are his views going to change? I don’t know. Time will tell.”

. . .

So far this year, Bloomberg has traveled to Washington eight times as well as making two trips to Chicago and visits to Atlanta, Baltimore and Philadelphia.

And the mayor is headed to Boston on Thursday for yet another event in his crusade against illegal guns.

Sheekey said the flurry of recent trips is not designed to be the groundwork for a White House bid. “It’s not the intent, at least not yet,” he said.

. . .

Asked about the mayor’s recent travel, George Arzt, a Democratic political consultant who served as press secretary to former Mayor Ed Koch, said it’s clear “there is a tasting of the presidency.”

“Despite his announcements that he’s not interested in running for President, it seems that there’s some sort of national agenda involved here,” Arzt said.

Did We Mention That This Would Probably Be A Tough Sell?*

A super-secret poll commissioned by Council Speaker Christine Quinn confirms what should have been obvious — voters don’t want the City Council to self-servingly overturn term limits:

The poll showed that only four in 10 New Yorkers favor having the council members stay longer than the current limit of two four-year terms.

Following months of speculation, the lawmakers were briefed yesterday on the results of a survey of 700 registered voters that the council speaker, Christine Quinn, commissioned in the spring. A consulting firm, Kiley & Co., asked voters whether they supported an extension of term limits: 40% responded that they did, while 57% were opposed, according to several council sources with knowledge of the poll results. The speaker paid for the poll with campaign funds.

The results appeared to confirm that Ms. Quinn and her colleagues would be igniting a political firestorm if they decided to take on term limits. Mayor Bloomberg is opposed to changing the law, and the businessman who originally championed the term limits initiative, Ronald Lauder, has vowed to fight an effort to overturn the law.

There are many reasons to get rid of term limits — the instability of revolving doors, the need for an institutional memory, the potential for increased grandstanding — but this is the best reason:

A Brooklyn council member, Kendall Stewart, said voters were “disenfranchised” in the earlier referenda because Mr. Lauder spent so much money, about $4 million, in support of term limits.

Huh.

*Why, yes we did.

Traffic Shouldn’t Be Too Bad At That Time Of Day On The East Side

Because if you’re driving around on the lam the obvious place to escape to is Midtown Manhattan:

Joel Noonan, 36, of Avon, Mass., was driving a Jeep on Lexington Avenue yesterday morning when he collided with a Nissan Pathfinder at 63rd Street, police said. The Pathfinder bounced off the Jeep and struck a woman who was taken to Lenox Hill Hospital and was listed last night in stable condition. Noonan’s Jeep was sent onto the sidewalk where it collided with a group of pedestrians. Their conditions were unclear last night.

Two Metropolitan Transportation Authority police officers were the first on the scene and found Noonan outside his vehicle with a knife in his hand, authorities said. Police said they fired at him and used pepper spray to subdue him.

Witnesses described a chaotic scene.

“He had a knife in his left hand and he’s swinging it at the cops, chasing them around his Jeep,” recalled bystander Raymond Garcia, who said he saw the police pepper-spray and shoot Noonan.

. . .

Noonan — who was shot in the groin and abdomen — is wanted in connection with the stabbing death of his cousin’s husband. East Providence, R.I., police told the Providence Journal-Bulletin that Noonan stabbed 37-year-old Steven Dowaglia to death during an argument Sunday evening at a home there. He then attacked his cousin and her 8-year-old daughter, police said.

If I’ve Learned Anything During My Short Time On This Earth It’s To Doublecheck Before Carving In Granite

The Bayonne 9/11 memorial that Jersey City turned down has more problems:

A 100-foot-tall sculpture being unveiled on Monday’s fifth anniversary of 9/11 in Bayonne, N.J., honors thousands of terror-attack victims, and then some: Carved into the granite base are the names of more than 40 people who weren’t killed on Sept. 11 after all.

The majestic sculpture across the Hudson River from Ground Zero will feature 3,024 names of people once believed to have died in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the Sept. 11 attacks on the twin towers, the Pentagon and United Flight 93 in Pennsylvania.

The problem is that the Russian artist who created the work used an outdated list of names of the missing at the trade center.

At Least They Held Back From Flinging The Tea Sandwiches*

This is what you get when you appear at an event with a candidate a week before the primary:

Mayor Bloomberg threw some kind words yesterday toward congressional hopeful David Yassky — but they were easily the nicest things hurled about.

The news conference at Wyckoff Gardens in Brooklyn was interrupted by heckling, some cursing and a flying, circular object that landed near Bloomberg.

It was a doughnut.

Chocolate glazed.

Harmless as it was, it did cause Bloomberg’s gal pal, state Banking Superintendent Diana Taylor, to run for cover.

“Just another reason why we need cameras,” Bloomberg quipped. “All right, let’s focus back here.”

The purpose of the news conference was to announce that the city Housing Authority property was going to get security cameras, thanks in large part to Yassky, the Brooklyn councilman who is running in a nasty four-way primary for the Democratic nomination to succeed retiring Rep. Major Owens.

Although Bloomberg isn’t officially endorsing any of the candidates, he did take the time yesterday to praise Yassky as someone who “worked very hard for the city” and tries to “make life better in this city.”

But the unruly crowd, which included supporters of other candidates, did their best to ruin the visit.

I Can’t Believe I Ate The Whole Thing: Score One For Opportunism; The Post Oppo Research Machine Chugs Along; See, The Thing Is Was, Senior Year Was Just Such A Blur For Me . . .; Excitement!; Well, That’s A Relief!; Pay To Campaign!; Recipe For Hitting The Front Page Of The Sunday Times: Just Add Sharpton; You Know You’ve Jumped The Shark When . . .; Unite To Stop White Individuals!; The Sad Thing Is That It Was Probably A Carefully Crafted Statement; How Do We Put This? Let’s Just Say Identity Politics Still Exists . . .; Barack Obama: Some Guy They Stuck In There; Nothing Against Your Policies, It’s Just The Color Of Your Skin.

*Believe me, I tried.