Feature

Citizen Mike

Bloomberg's management and financial expertise, as New York teeters on the verge of recession, is likely to be a key selling point in his campaign. His aides hope that Mark Green, now the front-runner in all major polls, will be the Democratic nominee, since they see him as the most liberal of the four, allowing Bloomberg to position himself instead as the pragmatic businessman willing to take on the unions with a slew of difficult contract negotiations ahead.

Ray Harding, the head of the state Liberal Party, known for its devotion to patronage politics, supported Giuliani and has met with Bloomberg twice. "He's obviously a man of great ability," Harding says of Bloomberg.

Harding's party will conduct face-to-face auditions of all mayoral candidates on April 28 and May 5. "Sure, I'll talk to them," says Bloomberg. And what will he do if pressed to make his candidacy official sooner in order to win the endorsement? "That would force the issue to make a decision earlier," he admits.

As for a possible Republican primary, Bloomberg's advisers are hoping there won't be one, that state GOP officials will pressure Herman Badillo not to run. The media mogul would likely win, but he'd be forced to move to the right in a contested GOP race, alienating Democrats in November.

He's hired a bipartisan team of advisers, including the legendary David Garth, who helped elect John Lindsay, Ed Koch, and Rudy Giuliani; pollster Doug Schoen, who helped engineer Jon Corzine's $60 million New Jersey Senate win; Maureen Connelly, a respected former Koch aide; and Cunningham, a press-savvy former Moynihan aide. Carl McCall, who's running for governor with an infinitely smaller budget and brain trust, jokes, "Mike is a political consultant's dream."

"He can buy name recognition," says Charlie Rangel. "Blitz people with ads and they'll think they were raised with you."

So how would Mayor Mike govern New York's concrete jungle? On the public-school system: "I would have backed Edison 100 percent, because these are the five worst schools in the city and you have to try something new. Vouchers, charter schools, I'm in favor of trying them all." On the police: "I'm very much in favor of the Civilian Review Board. The police are doing a good job, crime is way down. But the big problem is the black and Latino communities feel the police are out of control; there's a bit of truth in that in a number of cases." On gridlocked New York traffic: "A toll system that makes it more expensive for trucks to deliver during the day would be easy and enforceable." He also would coerce Con Ed and cable and phone companies into informing the city before digging up streets, so the police could direct traffic accordingly. "The mayor ought to be able to sit down with these organizations and say, 'If you want to have a problem, you'll have a problem with me, baby.' "

There is one softball question, however, that he dodges: Asked whether he wants the Yankees to stay in the Bronx, he stares at me and says, "You'll notice I'm not answering." Responding to a litany of issues that reporters have raised to date, he says he will release his tax returns if he runs, but in a limited way: listing the sources of income but not his total yearly take or his specific charitable gifts. He takes umbrage at the suggestion that inquiring minds want to know: "It's nobody's business." He also says he hasn't decided whether to decline a $14 million city tax break for a new corporate headquarters to be built on the Lexington Avenue site of the old Alexander's. "If I walk away from the money for personal reasons, I have an obligation to my shareholders, and I'll have to write a check."

At South Bronx High School one recent afternoon, Bloomberg got a cram course in glacial geology -- more specifically, the slow-moving pace of city budgets. Principal Eduardo Genao complained that he had been trying for seven years to get funding to replace the ancient windows. "I know it's the city's responsibility, but if they can't help, can't you get the community involved?" asked Bloomberg, who has donated money to a charitable organization that is fixing up the school's sports field. "There must be carpenters in the neighborhood." Replied the principal, "The community is pretty apathetic." Afterward, in his car, driving past trash-strewn lots, Bloomberg seemed genuinely disturbed by the why-bother despair of this poor neighborhood. He's used to being a get-it-done-yesterday, write-the-check mogul. "There's got to be a way," he mused aloud, "to get people involved in something that would help their own children."

To his credit, Bloomberg has given pots of money to support education, from teacher training to arts in the schools to scholarships to literacy programs. In fact, he's supported almost every major city charity -- Citymeals-on-Wheels, shelters for battered women, Gay Men's Health Crisis -- and most of his commitments are long-standing. Bloomberg, who usually flies his helicopter every Monday to Baltimore, where he's chairman of the board of Johns Hopkins, serves on twenty different boards, including those of the Jewish Museum, the Old Vic Theatre, and the Serpentine Gallery in London. As a champion of the arts, he is the least likely person to go on one of Rudy's headline-making campaigns against so-called obscene art; Bloomberg calls the decency panel "ridiculous." (Friends tease that Bloomberg routinely falls asleep at operas and plays.) Should Bloomberg run, his campaign will undoubtedly stress the big bucks he's given away as evidence of his civic commitment.

"Mike's been the rock of Gibraltar for us," says Rusty Staub, the former Mets outfielder who chairs the New York Police and Fire Widows' and Children's benefit fund, to which Bloomberg's been a donor since 1988. "He didn't get involved with us for political reasons, but if being involved with us can help him now, God bless him." However you slice it, the money makes him a formidable opponent. "He can buy name recognition," says Charlie Rangel, who says he likes Bloomberg but could not back him as a GOP candidate. "You blitz people with ads, and by the time you're done, they'll think they were raised with you and went to school with you."

Even before his declaration, Bloomberg's billions have become a major issue in the mayoral race, since he has indicated that he will not abide by the city's voluntary campaign-finance system, which allows candidates to spend $5.2 million in the primary and $5.2 million in the general election. The New York Times has already editorialized against Bloomberg on this score, calling his likely decision "a major political error" and leading most observers to assume that he's killed his chance of getting the paper's prestigious endorsement. (The Times backed Republican Bob Franks over the free-spending Jon Corzine in New Jersey for just this reason.)

The last fabulously wealthy media mogul to attempt to become New York's mayor was William Randolph Hearst, who ran in 1905. Bloomberg is now reading The Chief, David Nasaw's new biography of Hearst, and he admits that the first thing he turned to was the account of the New York mayoral race. Hearst was one of the richest men of his day, yet he ran effectively as a populist reformer, losing by a mere 3,000 votes. (The election was most likely stolen from him by Tammany Hall.)

If Bloomberg wins in November, he says, he has no interest in using City Hall as a stepping stone to higher office. But then again, he sounded pretty unequivocal in his 1997 autobiography when he claimed he wasn't interested in political office of any kind. So things change.