The news that Michael "I swear am not running for president" Bloomberg has spent the last several months doing extensive polling to assess his presidential chances has spawned yet another round of speculative headlines about his possible candidacy, and the Times is getting kind of sick of it. "Even before actually entering the contest, Mr. Bloomberg may have already risked losing something: people’s patience." Newsday, too, is unsure that the prolonged game of cat and mouse is doing him any favors. "He risks negative coverage, and it's already begun," they note. Well, yeah.

We've been talking about his jerking our chain for months. And the Post, the Daily News, the Village Voice, and even The New Yorker have all written crabby editorials about the blue balls the mayor has been giving our blue state. Of course, not everyone is so jaded. According to today's Wall Street Journal, the chairman of the bipartisan group Unity08 has left in order to launch an effort to support a Bloomberg candidacy. Still, in the end, polls like yesterday's results from Quinnipiac University say that although many New Yorkers here think he'd be a good president, they believe he has a "moral obligation" to fulfill his term. That is, get the hell out of Oklahoma and come do your job. But none of this stops Hizzoner from continuing to drop hints. Yesterday, while talking to a group of Capitol Hill press secretaries visiting City Hall, according to the Washington Post Bloomberg paused, looked the crowd over, and asked, "How many electoral college votes do you represent?"

Backlash for Bloomberg over presidential buzz [Newsday]
Calls Grow For Bloomberg to Make Up His Mind [NYT]