Getty Fourth Estate Why the Media is Desperate for Bloomberg to Run His latest not-quite-announcement has reporters salivating.

Jack Shafer is Politico’s senior media writer.

The Michael Bloomberg for president trial balloon has arrived just in time to elevate and rescue a weary press corps that has been suffering almost nonstop for a year to cover the candidate-surplus slog that is Campaign 2016. Bloomberg has always aspired to be president, if 2006 is a sufficiently distant date to qualify as “always.” It was then, according to David A. Graham’s pocket history of Bloomberg’s presidential ambitions, that the press first noted his White House lust. The piece, written by New York magazine’s John Heilemann—currently one of Bloomberg TV’s two million-dollar TV babies—sketched Bloomberg as someone who “seems to view himself as a man of destiny,” just as you might if you, too, were worth $38.8 billion.

Bloomberg’s flirtation with running in 2008 included heavy tutoring on foreign policy by a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and while he declined to mount a campaign that year, he has continued playing footsie with the office. Footsie transitioned to heavy foreplay early this month when Bloomberg adviser Douglas E. Schoen, a pollster, asserted loudly that his centrist patron would make a “serious contender” against Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump or Ted Cruz and acknowledged that Bloomberg was “contemplating” a run.


Foreplay turned to smut on Monday as Bloomberg, in a Financial Times story, expressed his dismay with the “discourse and discussion” of the presidential campaign and explained that the beginning of March marks a deadline for name placement on some state ballots should he run as an independent. “I’m listening to what candidates are saying and what the primary voters appear to be doing,” Bloomberg told the FT, which is political speak for “Can I make it any clearer to you that I’m going to be the next president?”

The FT story was the second attempted injection of Bloombergmania into the campaign, following a late-September peek at his presidential musings reported in the New York Times. Journalists didn’t flood the streets carting “Run, Mike, Run” signs, but as Bloomberg works his way through the editorial food chain and breaks through the primary election news, I’m certain reporters will be setting themselves on fire to convince their editors to assign them to Bloomberg.

Even if Bloomberg’s entrance into the race gets the same coverage as Rick Santorum’s exit did, he’s got the money and the tenacity and the winning record to put on an excellent show for the press. By giving the campaign a third dimension—making the race more like the caroming and crashing of three billiard balls than a two-person horse race—Bloomberg’s independent run will trash enough of 2016’s coverage to force reporters to start over. Trump’s billions must now be compared to Bloomberg’s more ample billions. Bloomberg’s centrism will encroach on the centristic thinking of Jeb Bush and John Kasich. His social liberalism will displace much of what Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have brought to the political market. His common-sense approach to issues will puncture a bit of the Tory fervor of Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. Cable news and the Sunday morning shows will punch and gouge each other to give him a platform.

A vast buffet of Bloomberg stories are there for the grabbing should Bloomberg announce. Stories about his money, his New York City mayoralty, his high-voltage wonkery, his money, his wacky centrism, his media empire, his personal relationships, his money, his crusades against soda, guns and trans fat, and of course, his money. The New York press corps, already the beneficiary of a Trump candidacy that has permitted them to recycle decades of celebrity real-estate reporting into their Trump campaign coverage, will win similar residuals when Bloomberg announces.

The beauty of the Bloomberg candidacy from a reporter’s point of view is the breadth and heft of the paper trail that flows regally behind him. No reporter assigned to the Bloomberg-for-president beat need ever go hungry: There are 12 years of Mayor Mike’s technocratic administration to cogitate over; there are a couple of decades of his building out of Bloomberg LP, from which journalists can draw to illuminate his thinking and business acumen; and let’s not neglect the thousands of editorials published by his Bloomberg View since 2011 on everything from trade to illicit drugs to abortion to the Middle East and beyond, which carry the germ if not the stalk and leaf of his views on issues. The words in the editorials might not be his, but the sentiments nearly always are. He loves wrasslin’ with reporters, once telling New York City reporters he would cancel future news conferences if they kept asking questions he didn’t want to answer. And as one who has been a registered Democrat, a registered Republican and a registered independent, Bloomberg offers everybody something to love and much to hate.

The only thing more beneficial to the press corps than a Bloomberg campaign would be a Bloomberg presidency. A Bloomberg administration—am I being too eager?—would be the greatest boon to the Washington press corps since the invention of Twitter. To begin with, Bloomberg would literally tear down the walls in the White House, Oval Office included, and install cubicles for his top aides in a “bullpen” arrangement as he did at New York City Hall and Bloomberg LP to facilitate communication. Or maybe not. He’d find the White House too stuffy for his lifestyle, as he found New York’s Gracie Mansion, and get a high-rise apartment somewhere in downtown Washington. Or maybe move the White House operation to his estate in Bermuda.

The Bloomberg candidacy will also enrich journalism by waving the policy fluorescer over issues that have gone underexamined this season. Bloomberg, who started a company based on the theory that not enough actionable numbers were in the hands of decision-makers, has already stated he feels that way about the current campaign debate. By entering the race a socially liberal, fiscally conservative (but independent) candidate, and outlining a political philosophy of radical ordinariness, Bloomberg thinks he can attract the votes to win. A master of arithmetic and a devotee of fancier mathematics, Bloomberg draws obvious confidence from a survey cited by his pollster that puts him at 28 percent in three-way contests against Clinton and Cruz or Clinton and Rubio without yet campaigning or spending a cent of his billions. I won’t bet against him entering the race, and I won’t bet against him winning. A Bloomberg candidacy would redefine the range and tone of the political argument, changing the story and thereby giving reporters a chance to renew themselves. If he inserts his copy-friendly personality into the race, he’ll have made every political journalist a winner.

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If you had to pick between Trump’s unfriendly fascism and Bloomberg’s friendly fascism, which would you take? Send your vote to [email protected]. In the Clinton administration, my email alerts will be classified. In the Trump administration, my Twitter feed will be cat-centric. And in the Rubio administration, my RSS feed will be an endless feedback loop.