Bloomberg Refutes 2012 Presidential Bid Rumors: "No Way, No How"

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Bloomberg Rules Out 2012 Presidential Bid


Appearing on NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg flatly denied that he will launch an independent presidential bid in 2012.

“I’m not going to run for president,” he said, adding a few seconds later for emphasis: “No way, no how.”

“I’m not looking at the possibility of running,” he told NBC’s David Gregory.

Bloomberg said people “should be encouraged” by the compromise agreement to extend tax cuts and unemployment benefits that President Obama and Republican congressional leaders reached last week.

“At least both sides of the aisle and both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue have come together to do something in a bipartisan way,’ he said. “And I’m sure the president would have liked other things, but the real world of governing is to do what is possible and everybody getting something, nobody getting 100 percent of what they want.”


Obama 'has to Succeed'

And throughout the interview Sunday, Bloomberg expressed sympathy for Obama.

“This president has to succeed. We all have an enormous amount of capital invested in his success,” the mayor said. “His success is the country’s success.”

He said voters unhappy with Obama will have a chance to vote for someone else in two years “but right now we should all pull together… and make sure that this president is successful.”

He also said, “We don’t give him enough credit” especially for promoting American exports when he visits foreign countries.

While endorsing Obama’s tax deal with Republicans, Bloomberg also said that United States will face a point at which sacrifice and budget cutting will be inevitable. “The Chinese are going to stop buying our debt; we’re going to get to the point where business has so little confidence they not willing to expand; there’s a lot of problems facing us down the road: some of these trust funds like Social Security running out of money; Medicaid and Medicare just taking over the whole economy.”
Video: Bloomberg on 2012: ‘No way, no how’ (on this page)

The New York mayor also made a strong pitch for allowing foreign students who receive graduate degrees at U.S. universities to be granted permanent resident status so that they can eventually become American citizens. He said this was the single most significant step the federal government could take that would spur innovation and job creation.


Mayor Bloomberg worth an estimated $18 billion

Elected mayor of New York City three times, Bloomberg, 68, made his fortune by building a financial information and news media empire and has a net worth of $18 billion, according to an estimate by Forbes magazine.

He has tried to taking a leading role in the national debates on the economy, crime, reducing health care costs, and other topics.

His speeches — especially one he gave last week in New York on the economy — have signaled his restlessness with the two-party leadership of the nation and have given a hint that he thinks he could do better than those now in charge in Washington.

For a man of such forceful opinions and an appetite for public service, a run for president wouldn’t be surprising. Unlike the last self-financed independent to run for president, Ross Perot in 1992 and 1996, Bloomberg does have experience as an elected official responsible for governing a city of eight million people

If he ran, he could pose a threat to the two major party candidates by attracting some of their voters and possibly wining a few states.


Effect of a third-party presidential bid

A presidential candidate needs to win 270 electoral votes to win the presidency. If Bloomberg ran and ended up winning a few states — such as New York (which is likely to have 30 electoral votes after the reapportionment of representatives) and Connecticut (seven electoral votes) — he could keep one of the other candidates from winning that 270.

The last time a third-party candidate won any states was in 1968 when George Wallace won four states and 46 electoral votes.

If no candidate receives a majority of electoral votes, the House of Representatives elects the president from the three candidates who received the most electoral votes.

In November 2007 Bloomberg invited Obama to a highly publicized breakfast in New York City, an event that observers saw as helpful to Obama in his battle with Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Although he did not endorse Obama or his Republican opponent Sen. John McCain in 2008 election, he was helpful to Obama by going to Florida and denouncing rumors of him secretly being a Muslim, saying they were ''wedge politics at its worst, and we have to reject it — loudly, clearly and unequivocally.''

And Obama has on occasion paid compliments to Bloomberg, praising him in early 2008 for "extraordinary leadership" and adding that the mayor "shows us what can be achieved when we bring people together to seek pragmatic solutions."


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Sources: GQ Magazine, Meet The Press, MSNBC, Google Maps