NEW YORK – Financial media tycoon Michael Bloomberg claimed that he has “thought about” running for mayor of New York City but is in no hurry to decide whether he might have a future at City Hall.
“I don’t know how to answer any of the hypothetical questions,” Bloomberg told reporters outside a Harlem housing complex where he had personally delivered Citymeals-on-Wheels dinners to an elderly retired couple.
“I’ve certainly thought about it. It’s very flattering that people think that I’d be an legitimate candidate,” he said. “We’ll see. It’s too early to tell. There’s a lot of time and no rush to make a decision.”
Bloomberg, whose phenomenally successful Bloomberg News Service has made him a communications billionaire, recently identified himself as a Republican, triggering speculation that he might run for mayor next year against a crowded Democratic field.
Bloomberg said he was standing outside a restaurant last Friday, when “some woman walked by and yelled over her shoulder, `I hope you run for mayor.’ It might have the only person in New York who’d recognize me,” he said.
He said he was concentrating on his own and his company’s philanthopic activities, which include financial support and personal service to organizations such as Citymeals-on-Wheels, to which he has contributed since 1995 and recently donated $100,000 for holiday fare for 10,000 homebound elderly New Yorkers.
He said his company’s 7,000 employees in 100 countries are encouraged to participate in community activities to help the elderly and others.
While he disavowed it as “not a campaign stop,” Bloomberg’s visit to David and Rose Tolbert, both 72, at the Washington Houses in East Harlem had all the trappings of a political photo-op.
Seated on a couch in the couple’s small, family picture-laden living room, Bloomberg and the Tolberts engaged in small talk, mostly about the meals service and the need for older people to eat nutritious food.
When Tolbert remarked that he had trouble eating apples, Bloomberg observed that “the whole idea of apple sauce is that you don’t have to chew a lot.”
Tolbert, a retired truck driver, and his wife showed him photos of their four children, four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
“I never saw so many people,” said Bloomberg at one point, referring to the 17 reporters, photographers and TV cameras as if they had just happened to show up at the Tolberts’ at the same time.
Bloomberg has been involved with the CityMeals program since 1995, personally delivered meals last year, and had two more stops to make Wednesday.
“We’re not just doing this to get you here to ask these questions,” he said.
By financing his own campaign, as he would be expected to do, Bloomberg could create a financial windfall for other candidates. If he spent more than $2.6 million, others would receive public matching funds at a rate of five-to-one for every $250 raised from a New York City resident, rather than four-to-one — or $1,250 instead of $1,000.
City Comptroller Alan Hevesi, City Council President Peter Vallone, Public Advocate Mark Green and Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer are all expected to run for the Democratic nomination for mayor. The black activist Rev. Al Sharpton has also hinted an interest in the race.
A term-limit law prevents Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, nearing the end of his second term, from running for a third. Giuliani was the first Republican to win New York City’s top post in a generation. Among New York City voters, Democrats outnumber Republicans roughly five to one.
Bloomberg launched his business after being fired in 1981 from Salomon Brothers, where he had been head of information technology. Starting with 20 computer terminals supplying data and analysis that he knew Wall Street firms needed, he now rules a media empire that includes magazines, TV, radio and a cable news network.
