IS BLOOMBERG EFFORTING TO HELP RINOS IN PREP FOR 3RD PARTY RUN IN 2012?

NYTIMES:

In an election year when anger and mistrust have upended races across the country, toppling moderates and elevating white-hot partisans, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg is trying to pull politics back to the middle, injecting himself into marquee contests and helping candidates fend off the Tea Party.

New York’s billionaire mayor, whose flurry of activity is stirring a new round of speculation about his presidential ambitions, is supporting Republicans, Democrats and independents who he says are not bound by rigid ideology and are capable of compromise, qualities he says he fears have become alarmingly rare in American politics.

Next month, Mr. Bloomberg will travel to California to campaign for Meg Whitman, the eBay entrepreneur and Republican running for governor on a platform of corporate-style accountability and fiscal prudence. He visited Rhode Island on Thursday to champion Lincoln D. Chafee, a Republican turned independent who is locked in a three-way battle for the governor’s office.

And, in perhaps the mayor’s most direct confrontation with a Tea Party candidacy, he will host a fund-raiser at his Manhattan town house for Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader facing an unexpectedly forceful challenge from Sharron E. Angle, a political neophyte backed by Sarah Palin.

In his first extensive interview with a newspaper in several years, Mr. Bloomberg outlined his plans, which will include raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for candidates and represent his greatest involvement in a national election since he entered public life a decade ago.

Mr. Bloomberg described the Tea Party movement as a fad, comparing it to the short-lived burst of support for Ross Perot in 1992. The mayor suggested that the fury it had unleashed was not a foundation for leadership.

“Look, people are angry,” he said. “Their anger is understandable. Washington isn’t working. Government seems to be paralyzed and unable to solve all of our problems.”

“Anger, however, is not a government strategy,” he said. “It’s not a way to govern.”

THE ONLY WAY WE CAN LOSE IS IF THERE ARE THIRD PARTY CANDIDATES DRAINING INDEPENDENTS AWAY FOR US.

IF BLOOMBERG RUNS IN 2012, THEN HE MIGHT PLAY PEROT AND RE-ELECT OBAMA.

• BLOOMBERG REALLY HAS NOTHING TO RUN ON: BLOOMBERG HAS BEEN A LOUSY MAYOR; HE'S DONE ABSOLUTELY NO HEAVY-LIFTING; WE'VE BEEN COASTING SINCE GIULIANI WAS MAYOR, AND RUDY DID A LOT OF HEAVY-LIFTING.

• BLOOMIE IS A NANNYSTATER AND A LIBERAL AND AN APPEASER - NOT A COURAGEOUS POLITICAL LEADER.

• PALIN HAS MORE COURAGE IN HER TOENAILS THASN BLOOMIE HAS IN HIS WHOLE BEING AND HIS BANK ACCOUNTS! (EVEN ROMNEY HAS ACCOMPLISHED MORE HEAVY-LIFTING AS A BUSINESS MAN, CIVIC LEADER AND GOVERNOR.)

(NO ONE IN THE LAME-STREAM MEDIA DARES TO TAKE BLOOMBERG ON BECAUSE HE'S A MEDIA HEAVYWEIGHT WHO COULD HIRE ANYONE HE WISHES - INCLUDING THEM ONE DAY!)