Bloomberg Not A Presidential Candidate

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg denies he will run for president.

"I'm not going to be a candidate," he told NBC's "Today Show." "I am not a candidate."

"I'm going to be mayor," he said as he chatted about the environment and helped mulch Christmas trees on camera.

Bloomberg does want to an independent approach to governing:

Asked if he would support another independent candidate, Bloomberg replied that he wanted to see an "independent approach where we stop this partisan bickering and stop special interests and get the best from both parties."

In 2006 George Will explained why Bloomberg won't run:

Bloomberg would have had no regional base. New York is a mere shadow of its former political powerhouse. Between 1868-1948, New Yorkers appeared on more than half of the two major parties' presidential tickets and served as president five times. It has been 46 years since the nation elected a Northeastern president. None of the last three national tickets that included New Yorkers -- vice presidential candidates William Miller (1964), Geraldine Ferraro (1984) and Jack Kemp (1996) -- carried the state.

That more recent electoral history is not very promising for Rudy Giuliani or Hillary.

There was renewed speculation about a possible Bloomberg presidential run after it was announced he would attend a bipartisan forum to plan a "government of national unity."

Perhaps his interest in a bipartisan national unity government explains why he pans the remaining presidential candidates. Or perhaps Bloomberg will run, as I predicted, despite Bloomberg's denials.