Bloomberg Rejects White House Bid as No-Win Situation in TV Interview

[cosmicone]

Source: Yahoo

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg issued a definitive-sounding denial that he will run for president in 2008 during an interview with television newsman Dan Rather taped for airing on the HDNet cable network Tuesday night.


And Bloomberg, according to a partial transcript provided to CQPolitics by HDNet, is outdoing even the famed non-candidacy announcement of 19th century Republican William Tecumseh Sherman.

When the Civil War general made his “Shermanesque” statement rejecting entreaties that he run for the 1884 GOP nomination, he acknowledged the possibility that he might win, stating that he would not serve if elected. Bloomberg, on the other hand, tells Rather that “nobody’s going to elect me president of the United States.”

This is not a matter, according to the transcript, of self-doubt on Bloomberg’s part. Instead, the longtime Democrat who won for mayor in 2001 and 2005 as a Republican moderate and then switched again this June to independent contends that his willingness to take politically contrary views would limit his appeal as a national candidate.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/cq/20070821/pl_cq_politics/bloombergrejectswhitehousebidasnowinsituationintvinterview