COVER: THE BILLION DOLLAR WILD CARD
BLOOMBERG ON RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT: ‘I am not running for president. I have 790-odd days to go in this job, the greatest job in the world—maybe the second greatest job.’
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‘One of the sad things is that at the moment America is not liked around the world. We are closing our eyes… And I don’t hear from the candidates how they would go about pulling the world together, getting people to respect us.’
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One year from Election Day, Newsweek takes an in-depth look at the people—and places—that could have a major impact on Campaign 2008
New York—For New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg—the billion dollar wild card in the 2008 presidential election—public service and public attention are inextricably linked, and have been since boyhood. Now he is thinking hard about taking a turn on the biggest stage of all: a campaign for the White House. The odds against an independent bid for the White House are long, but if Bloomberg’s life tells us anything, it is that he is often more motivated, and more successful, when other people say he cannot do something, writes Editor Jon Meacham in “The Billion Dollar Wild Card” cover story in the November 12 issue (on newsstands Monday, November 5).
A rich man with a record of service and seemingly limitless ambition, Bloomberg represents a formidable threat to the traditional party nominees, Newsweek reports. “This is a billion-dollar campaign,” Kevin Sheekey, Bloomberg’s chief political adviser, told Newsweek aboard Bloomberg’s Falcon 9 jet late last week. He then amended the declaration—slightly: “If it happens, it’s a billion-dollar campaign.” If it happens. What would make it happen? In Sheekey’s view—on the record, Bloomberg himself answers questions about his White House ambitions by saying he has 790-odd days to go as mayor, and that he could not be happier—the two major parties may wind up nominating candidates with negative ratings at or above 40 percent.
Looking ahead to the future, Bloomberg tells Newsweek, “I am not running for president. I have 790-odd days to go in this job, the greatest job in the world—maybe the second greatest job. The mayor’s job is where you can really get things done… And I have been successful in business, and I hope when I leave this job they will say I was a good mayor or a great mayor. Philanthropy will probably be the next big thing. I am lucky enough to have a lot of money, I am planning on giving it all away, and I think you change the world that way.”
Bloomberg believes, “The job of being president is to lead the country and the legislature, and it is pulling those together. And because America is the only remaining superpower, you are the leader of the free world, it is having the credibility and working with other countries to get them all to work together to stop genocide, to stop nuclear proliferation, to make sure we have fair trade among countries... And one of the sad things is that at the moment America is not liked around the world. We are closing our eyes… And I don’t hear from the candidates how they would go about pulling the world together, getting people to respect us.”
Pressed once more, he says he is not running, but then offers a lucid, if indirect, case for a man like him at a time like this, Newsweek reports. “I think that the candidates are not addressing, in a way at least I can understand, what they would do if they got elected. Unfortunately in the process that we go through—all of these, quote, ‘debates’—…there’s no way to do that,” he says.
Also part of the cover package marking one year from Election Day, a team of Newsweek correspondents look ahead to the 2008 presidential campaign:
· According to the new Newsweek Poll, almost exactly a year before Election Day, Hillary Clinton’s lead for the party’s nomination remains unchanged with 44 percent of the overall Democratic vote, compared to 24 percent for Barack Obama (down a point since Newsweek’s August poll) and 12 percent for John Edwards (down two points).
· Editor-at-Large Evan Thomas and Senior White House Correspondent Richard Wolffe examine why the Iowa caucus, although arcane and confusing, has a critically important role in the 2008 presidential race.
· Senior Washington Correspondent Howard Fineman and Senior White House Correspondent Richard Wolffe debut “Report From the Front,” a new series featuring interviews with candidates, with an interview with Sen. Barack Obama. With the Iowa caucuses, a must win, just eight weeks away, Obama talks about the sense of urgency in his campaign and amps up his new willingness to criticize Democratic front runner Sen. Hillary Clinton, whom he calls “disingenuous.”
· Trapped in a series of fuzzy nonresponses, Clinton was bruised in last week’s Democratic debate in Philadelphia. ‘The lawyer is back, like one of her bad hairdos from the 1990s,” writes Senior Editor and Columnist Jonathan Alter.
· Washington Correspondent Eve Conant reports on what the Democratic Party’s new Faith In Action Initiative is doing to court religious voters, and profiles Brooklyn’s Rev. Leah Daughtry, the group’s charismatic leader, who serves as chief of staff of the DNC—No. 2 to Chairman Howard Dean—and is in charge of planning for the ’08 Democratic convention in Denver.
· White House Correspondent Holly Bailey reports on GOP candidate Mike Huckabee and how, despite only visiting Iowa three times since August and spending almost nothing campaigning there, he is running a close second to Mitt Romney in a recent Iowa poll. Also, Editorial Assistant Andrew Romano reports on the time he spent with Huckabee and his classic-rock cover band, Capitol Offense.
The cover package also features an extensive online component at www.Newsweek.com.
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