Bloomberg’s Advisers Against a Third TermDeputy Mayors Kevin Sheekey, Patricia Harris, and Ed Skyler have indicated they think a change on term limits is a bad idea.
King B Continues to Tease Us MercilesslyAfter Mayor Bloomberg finally ended speculation about a possible presidential run last week with an op-ed in the Times, we were hoping to put the whole annoying saga behind us once and for all. After all, it was mentally exhausting trying to parse Bloomberg’s carefully worded denials and mixed messages each week. However! It turns out that POTUS was only one of many jobs Bloomberg may be looking at for when he is forced out of office by term limits at the end of next year.
intel
New Year’s Resolutions for the Best New YorkersRecently, we were watching John Waters’s 1998 movie Pecker, which starred all kinds of great people like Martha Plimpton and Lily Taylor and Edward Furlong, before he got weird and started getting arrested and dating his manager. Anyway, as in all John Waters movies, there were about five really brilliantly funny parts in it, one of which was a game the characters played called “Shopping for Others,” in which they’d go to the supermarket and sneak things into the shopping carts of fellow shoppers when they weren’t looking. (Like a long phallic gourd in the cart of a mousy single woman or a stack of Depends for a smarmy dude in tight jeans, etc.) Anyway, we got to thinking: How about if, this year, we make New Year’s resolutions for others? We’ve never made New Year’s resolutions ourselves — it’s weird, every year New Year’s Eve rolls around, and we realize we’re still kind of perfect! — but we’ve always felt we were missing out on that great American tradition. Not to mention, frankly, there are people that could use our assistance. So. To celebrate the great New Yorkers who make this blog possible and to help them continue their gloriousness into 2008, we’ve generously ginned up some resolutions for their benefit.
early and often
Leaky Sheekey Is at It AgainIn this week’s New York, Geoffrey Gray reports that Mayor Bloomberg’s political guru Kevin Sheekey has a new element to his Bloomie-for-president plan: getting California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger as a running mate. (This, as Gray points out, is problematic and unconstitutional, as the Governator was not born in the United States.) Sheekey’s been blabbing about it to Gray’s highly placed sources. Today, Daily News reporter Adam Lisberg asked Hizzoner about the issue, point blank. Here’s what the mayor had to say:
“Number one, I had dinner with him on Saturday night. And number two, he couldn’t be vice president. The Constitution is clear. You have to be able to be president to be vice president. I don’t know where that story came from, but the law would not allow it. Incidentally, he’s a great guy. He’d make a great vice president This guy’s a substantive guy who really is serious about governing, and I think California — he’s going to be term-limited out — California’s going to miss him, because he really has made a difference in his term in his office. But Saturday night’s the answer to your question, and I had steak a la stone.”
Now, just because the mayor says he’s not considering something doesn’t mean it’s not really running through his head. Witness all of his back-and-forth-ing about his presidential ambitions in the first place. But all the same, we’re beginning to become suspicious of this Kevin Sheekey character. Does he ever get in trouble for mouthing off about Bloomberg’s hypothetical political ambitions? Like, he’s leakier than your grandmother watching a America’s Funniest Pets rerun. Shouldn’t he have been fired by now? Or at least, you know, gagged?
Bloomie and Arnie, Centrist Twins [NYM]
Bloomberg on Schwarzenegger [NYDN]
Earlier: Bloomberg Toys With Gubernatorial Ambitions, Us
At Last, Clarity on Bloomberg’s Presidential Plans
in other news
At Last, Clarity on Bloomberg’s Presidential Plans So we haven’t dragged you through the whole is-he-or-isn’t-he drama of Bloomberg’s presidential aspirations lately, but today we just can’t help it. Deputy Mayor Kevin Sheekey, Hizzoner’s political guru, opened up about the whole fiasco with Cityhallnews.com, and his statements hardly clarify anything. It was Sheekey’s original daydream that Mayor Mike would run for president, after he was reelected in 2005, and he still thinks he’s the only man for the job. “I mean the truth is, I think he is the ideal, if not the only, choice for a credible third-party candidate,” he said. So wait, sorry, but no really, is he or isn’t he going to run for president?
