The Cherry Orchard

So Mike Bloomberg, the mayor of my city, has ended his affiliation with the Republican Party and may run for President as an independent. This is an interesting proposition, and since I’ve been aware of Mike Bloomberg (as a businessman more than as a politician) for over a decade and a half, I’ve got some thoughts (and a bit of newsworthy gossip) to offer.

In 1992 I was the youthful Manager of Software Development for a start-up financial database company, Loan Pricing Corporation, based in New York. We specialized in information systems for the banking industry, and our role model was a vastly successful company called Bloomberg, which had managed to sell cute little television sets with dedicated live financial news and pricing feeds to every stockbroker on Wall Street. Mike Bloomberg’s name frequently came up in meetings, because we yearned to replicate his success, and occasionally these references would take on a reverential “What Would Bloomberg Do?” tone.

My company also did business with Bloomberg (we were one of their countless data sources) and I remember a curious story making the rounds about Mike Bloomberg’s surprising insensitivity towards women in the workplace. My friend Steve, an economist and journalist, attended a meeting with Mike at the Bloomberg offices and came back wide-eyed. In the middle of the meeting, an attractive secretary walked in with refreshments, and after she left Bloomberg held up the conversation to watch her walk away with a salacious grin on his face. He then made a remark that, Steve said, caused everybody in the room — both men and women — to feel extremely uncomfortable. Others at my company who had worked with Bloomberg concurred with Steve — apparently this was a routine he was famous for, and it made everybody uncomfortable, but that was Mike. Our role model was a sexist slob.

This certainly gave me a bad first impression of Mike Bloomberg, and years later when he ran for mayor of New York City I wondered if these stories would surface and cause him problems. He broke no law, of course, but he did offer a disappointing key to his personality that might cause voters and journalists to doubt his judgement. I was surprised that no such stories ever surfaced, and I have to assume that this brash entrepeneur has matured and is no longer behaving in public like Michael Scott in “The Office”. And that’s all I’m going to say about this story, because I’ve come to have a slightly better opinion of Bloomberg, who has been my major for the last six years.

It’s not his politics but, ironically, his plain-speaking and modest personality that I’ve come to feel better about. New York City mayors tend to be loud publicity-seekers — Rudy Giuliani, Ed Koch and John Lindsay come to mind — but Mike Bloomberg’s public appearances since becoming mayor have shown him to be mild, sensible and humane. He seems to seek the middle ground on most issues and never leaps towards the types of broad-stroke politics that define his predecessors. He also gets points for speaking at my daughter Liz’s Forest Hills High School graduation a few years ago — as a good Democrat, I sat on my hands when others clapped, but I have to admit his speech was refreshingly humble and appropriate to the occasion.

Clearly the man has grown up a lot — haven’t we all? — but the fact that I’ve come to not dislike his public persona doesn’t mean I agree with his politics. Until this week I’ve had no idea where he stands on the conduct of American foreign policy in the Middle East, for instance, and some Google searches have only shown that he is against a withdrawal timetable for Iraq (which doesn’t impress me much) and that he dislikes our administration’s “go-it-alone” approach to foreign policy (that brings him closer to my heart).

I’m a long, long way from supporting Mike Bloomberg for President — in fact, I’m quite sure I’d never support him for President– but my instincts and initial impressions tell me he’s more clued-in than most Republican candidates, and I like it that he avoids the stink of cloying “America Is So Great We Can Do No Wrong” chauvinism that seems to infect so many in his former party.

I don’t think Mike Bloomberg will be our next president and I don’t think I want him to be. But I’d take him over the frenetic Rudy Giuliani in a minute, and over the slick flip-flopper Mitt Romney in two minutes. I’m sticking with the Dems for 2008, but the opposition just added an interesting surprise player who may shake things up. I’m all for that.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 21st, 2007 at 8:38 am and is filed under Uncategorized, 2008 Elections, Rudy Giuliani, Mike Bloomberg. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.