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View Full Version : Bloomberg (R-NY) "I think the country is in trouble,"



jetdawgg
06-19-07, 09:44 AM
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2007/06/another_noncand.html



Over this past weekend New York City's Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who surely is not running for president, visited New Hampshire, home of the nation's first presidential primary election. He said it was just a social trip.
Then he flew across the country to California to meet with San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom about getting guns off America's urban streets.

Then, like many candidates before him, the Republican mayor went to the Mountain View headquarters of Google to address about 1,000 employees who also recently sat in the cafeteria to hear from someones named Hillary Clinton, John McCain, John Edwards and Bill Richardson. Coincidentally, all four of those speakers are presidential candidates.

According to Bloomberg aides, the mayor was there as part of a speakers series on technology. According to Google officials, the mayor was there as part of a book author speakers series. The billionaire mayor did write a book, "Bloomberg on Bloomberg." But that volume came out in 2001.

The mayor says he can understand any political misunderstanding, but the New Hampshire trip was for his girlfriend's college reunion. Bloomberg has visited 20 U.S. cities in the past 18 months as well as several foreign countries. In 2005, he made no visits to any U.S. city except Albany, the state capital. Last year his trips outside New York jumped to 14 and he's made 12 already in 2007.


Bloomberg said he intends to serve out his mayoral term through 2009. But he refused to rule out a campaign for president and he declined to debunk a report by conservative columnist Robert Novak that he discussed an independent candidacy with former Oklahoma Democratic Sen. David Boren during a recent commencement speech visit to that state.

Asked about a hypothetical independent candidate entering the race, Bloomberg launched into a broad critical examination of the nation's political state without naming names. "I think the country is in trouble," he said. "We've had a go-it-alone mentality in a world where because of communications and transportation, you should be going exactly in the other direction."

Bloomberg aides just happened to have advance copies of a speech the mayor planned to give in Los Angeles this evening. In it, he complains that partisan gridlock in Washington has left "our future in jeopardy."
"It all begins with independence," Bloomberg said independently, calling for "embracing pragmatism over partisanship, ideas over ideology." Tuesday, the New York mayor is scheduled to participate in a panel on government at the University of Southern California with Gov. Schwarzenegger and L.A. Mayor Villaraigosa.

--Andrew Malcolm




A lot of smart guys here think we are doing ok though....