David Gergen, the noted presidential advisor, is the second person so far to make reference to Mayor Bloomberg at the No Labels event today, praising him for the work he's done on schools and the economy.
The first reference was made earlier this morning by LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who also praised Bloomberg's handling of schools.
Bloomberg will speak here later today, and has already given a Shermanesque statement about not running for president. For what that's worth.
But the praise of Mayor Bloomberg is, according to Slate's editor, not indicative of what he could do in the Oval office.
In a chat last week, David Plotz - who heaps praise on Bloomberg, also says:
The thing that strikes me about Bloomberg and the reason why I think he would have a very hard time being president is that, actually, being New York mayor is fundamentally a dictator. There is very little that the New York mayor has to answer to…he has to answer to the people I suppose and that makes him very dictator like. Dictators are often responsive to the people but they'r not responsive to any other governmental institutions. But there aren't really any governmental institutions and other people in politics who can constrain what the New York mayor does. Whereas when you're president, you're constantly being constrained and your ability to affect things is very, very limited. And Bloomberg has gotten most of what he has gotten done because he does it by fiat. He just declares it. He says 'It shall be so,' like a dictator does and I don't know that that's a model of government that you can take easily to the White House. And I think that's why Giuliani actually was a bad national candidate. Giuliani was like 'I'm just going to come in there and do these things.' Well, in fact, you can't just come in there and do these things. You have to win people over.