Michael Bloomberg (I)

Mayor of New York City (since January 2002)

(Win McNamee/
Getty Images)

Why He Matters

For nearly two years, there was one question that dominated discussion about Bloomberg in New York political circles: What's next? Facing the end of his term-limited mayoral tenure, would the billionaire businessman mount an independent run for president? Might he run for governor? Or would he stick to his oft-stated plans to focus on philanthropy?

Ultimately, Bloomberg decided he simply wanted to keep the job he'd held since January 2002. Shrugging off an outcry from civic groups and his political rivals, the mayor in late 2008 engineered a change in the city's election law lengthening the mayoral term limit from two to three four-year terms. And it paid off: the Republican who ran as an independent secured a third term in November 2009, 51 to 46 percent.

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Background

At a Glance

Career History: Chairman and CEO, Bloomberg, L.P. (1981 to 2001); General Partner, Salomon Brothers (1972 to 1981)
Birthday: February 14, 1942
Hometown: Medford, Mass.
Alma Mater: Johns Hopkins University, B.A., 1964; Harvard Business School, M.B.A., 1966.
Spouse: Divorced

Religion: Jewish
Office: City Hall, New York, N.Y. 10007, 212-639-9675
Email
Website

Path to Power

Bloomberg was born on Valentine's Day in 1942 and raised in Medford, Mass., a blue-collar community north of Boston. His father an accountant and his mother a homemaker, Bloomberg enjoyed what he described as a typical middle-class upbringing.

His parents were loving and supportive, and they instilled in him an ethic of hard work that he would carry throughout his career. After attending public high school, Bloomberg enrolled at Johns Hopkins University and then Harvard Business School. Graduating from Harvard in 1966, he took his first job on Wall Street at Salomon Brothers, earning a $9,000 salary along with a $2,500 loan that was later forgiven. The firm would be his home for the next 15 years.

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Salomon Brothers

Bloomberg was made a general partner six years after arriving at Salomon Brothers, and he relished the reputation he had earned as an "up and coming star" among a set of bold, young traders on the Street. He also reveled in the life of wealth and opulence that his plum job afforded him. "As a bachelor with a big expense account, I had a girlfriend in every city, skied in every resort, ate in every four-star restaurant, and never missed a Broadway play," he later wrote, in an oft-quoted description of his younger self.

Bloomberg's career at Salomon came to an abrupt end in 1981, when he was forced out following the sale of the company. He left with a $10 million severance payment, seed money for the financial start-up that would make him billions more.

Bloomberg, L.P.

Too young and too hungry to retire at 39, Bloomberg searched for an idea for a new business. He soon settled on building a computer terminal that could provide reams of real-time financial data to Wall Street firms. The firm started with a handful of former Salomon colleagues, and within a year, Bloomberg had his first client, Merrill Lynch. The company expanded through the 1980s and by the end of the decade it was dominating the market. Capitalizing on his success as a self-made Wall Street mogul, Bloomberg renamed the company after himself and added a news wire service, magazine, and radio and television stations.

Bloomberg basked in the sensation he had created, and before long he became known for the kind of brash pronouncements and jocular bravado that is now more associated with real-estate mogul Donald Trump. The computer terminal at the center of the company's success had become known simply as "the Bloomberg." As the firm grew during the late 1980s and into the 1990s, so did its founder's celebrity. With a multi-billion dollar media empire under his control, Bloomberg made sure his name was plastered all over town, and he was unapologetic about the exposure. "People say I have my name all over town because I need to feed my ego," he said in 1994. "Actually, it's because that's the way to build brand recognition." He even managed to squeeze two references into the title alone of his memoir, "Bloomberg by Bloomberg." In the book, he described himself as "the Colonel Sanders of financial information services."

As it expanded, Bloomberg's company also drew criticism for a male-dominated corporate culture, including multiple lawsuits from women claiming sexual harassment and discrimination. In the most explosive case, a woman alleged that when she informed Bloomberg she was pregnant in 1995, he replied, "Kill it!" Bloomberg denied the charge, and the suit was settled with no admission of wrongdoing.

Running for Mayor

With the dawn of a new decade in 2000, word began to spread that Bloomberg was considering a run for mayor of New York in 2001. The incumbent, Rudolph Giuliani, would be leaving office after two terms, with no obvious heir apparent. Bloomberg, who had made clear his interest in public service in his 1997 memoir, began laying the groundwork for a campaign. In October 2000, he switched his party registration from Democrat to Republican, a move that would allow him to avoid a crowded Democratic primary battle against several better known and more experienced politicians.

Bloomberg's strengths and weaknesses as a candidate were clear from the start. Though he was frequently mentioned in the financial press and the tabloid gossip pages, most voters knew little about him. His biggest asset, on the other hand, was money. Bloomberg's unlimited financial resources allowed him to blanket the city with his name and message as a non-partisan political outsider not beholden to the interest groups funding the campaigns of his rivals.

The Democrats facing off in the party primary were veterans of city politics. And although Bloomberg had been a lifelong Democrat with liberal views on many issues, he was running as a Republican in a city where Democrats had a five-to-one advantage.

A year before the election, a Democratic strategist and adviser to Democratic rival Mark Green Hank Sheinkopf, summed up Bloomberg's chances: "Interesting guy, interesting life, but it's very hard for a Republican to win when there has not been a cataclysmic event."

Ten months later, of course, a cataclysmic event is exactly what happened. On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, city Democrats headed out to vote in the party primary, and Bloomberg badly trailed both leading contenders in the polls. The terrorist attack that destroyed the World Trade Center shook both the city and its politics. Public Advocate Mark Green, twice elected to citywide office, had won a bitter run-off for the Democratic nomination after a postponed primary. Democrats were deeply divided, and Bloomberg gained ground as voters looked for a strong leader in the wake of unprecedented tragedy.

The turning point for Bloomberg arrived with a late endorsement from Giuliani, whose popularity had soared as he led the city through the terrorist attack. Within days, the businessman had pulled even with Green in the polls.

Bloomberg went on to win a close race, besting Green 50 to 48 percent after spending a record $74 million of his own money on the campaign.

Presidential Flirtation

While he looked to build his legacy in New York, Bloomberg was also eyeing a national profile. In 2006, he embarked on a nationwide campaign against illegal guns, and he spoke out on the need for action on climate change, an increased investment in infrastructure, and a host of other issues.

Within days of Bloomberg's re-election as mayor in 2005, speculation began about whether he would run for president in 2008. The mayor stayed mum on the topic, but his aides, led by chief political adviser Kevin Sheekey, whispered that the mogul could spend $500 million or even $1 billion on a campaign that would inevitably shake up the White House race. Bloomberg's increased travel schedule and federal policy portfolio added to the gossip, which reached a fever pitch in June 2007 when he abruptly quit the Republican Party and registered as an independent. For months, the mayor coyly refused to rule out a bid, often scoffing about the possibility when asked. "What chance does a five-foot-seven billionaire Jew who's divorced really have of becoming president?" he wondered in an interview with New York Magazine.

Bloomberg officially ended talk of a presidential bid in February 2008, writing in a New York Times op-ed that while he would not run himself, his endorsement would be up for grabs. The move made him a prime target of affection for both John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.), but the mayor ultimately stayed neutral in the race.

Re-Election Races

In 2005, Bloomberg spent $85 million of his own money to beat Democrat Fernando Ferrer with 62 percent.

In 2009, after helping to overturn term-limits to pursue a third term, Bloomberg broke his own spending record and donated $90 million to beat New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson Jr., 52 to 46 percent.

The Issues

When he first ran for mayor in 2001, Bloomberg described himself as "a social liberal and a fiscal conservative." He is an ardent supporter of abortion rights, stem-cell research and gun control, and he opposes the death penalty. He also supports same-sex marriage. On fiscal matters, Bloomberg's record has defied easy labeling. He did not hesitate to raise property taxes to close a budget gap upon entering office, and he has proposed additional tax hikes to combat a deficit in 2009. Though Bloomberg has drawn praise for using surpluses to pay down future budget gaps during flush economic times, some fiscal watchdogs have criticized him for inadequate spending restraint.

First Mayoral Term

With the city mired in an economic slump following Sept. 11, Bloomberg had a rocky first year in office. Faced with a $6 billion budget deficit, he pushed through an 18.5% hike in property taxes along with budget cuts in an effort to avoid slashing city services. He also forged ahead with a ban on smoking in bars and restaurants that initially met with deep resistance from local businesses.

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Stylistically, the technocrat mayor brought elements of Bloomberg L.P. to City Hall. He transformed the building's second floor executive offices into an open "bullpen" layout, where senior officials, Bloomberg included, worked side-by-side without the barriers of walls or windows. And he created a customer service hotline called 311 aimed at making it easier for New Yorkers to navigate the municipal bureaucracy and register complaints about city services.

City residents were slow to warm to Bloomberg, a manager who preached competence but lacked charisma. A year and a half into his first term, Bloomberg's approval rating stood at just 31%, and Democratic politicians were salivating at the prospect of running against him in 2005.

But public support for the mayor gradually rebounded, as voters took stock of the economic recovery after Sept. 11, a continued steady drop in crime and other quality-of-life improvements. Bloomberg also weathered defeats in his efforts to overhaul city elections and to build a football stadium for the New York Jets on Manhattan's West Side, which was blocked by the state legislature. When it came time for re-election in 2005, the mayor had solidified his standing, and with the help of a record $84 million in campaign spending, he overwhelmed the Democratic nominee, former Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer. Bloomberg won with 59% of the vote, the largest victory margin in 20 years.

Bloomberg's landslide victory earned him an infusion of political capital, and he immediately launched ambitious plans to spend it. In the area of public health, he turned from smoking to obesity, seeking a ban on the use of trans- fats in restaurants and a requirement that fast-food chains display the calorie count of items on their menu. On the environment, the mayor announced a sweeping 25-year sustainability plan, the centerpiece of which was a hotly-debated proposal to charge a fee to all motorists driving into the busiest sections of Manhattan.

The Economy

Bloomberg has generally supported government intervention to stabilize the financial markets, including the Bush administration's fall 2008 $700 billion bailout package for Wall Street and early efforts by the fledging Obama administration to tackle the economic crisis. In January 2009, the mayor praised President Barack Obama's stimulus package and its aid to cities and states, telling reporters that "the federal government has really delivered for New York." Two months later, Bloomberg praised the president for laying out ambitious proposals on health care, energy and education in the face of the economic crisis, saying Obama "deserves a lot of credit for trying to do what he promised he would do if he got elected."

Education

Education formed the centerpiece of Bloomberg's first campaign for City Hall, as he told voters to judge his mayoral record on his success or failure in reforming the schools.After winning mayoral control of the city school system in 2002, he overhauled accountability standards, ended social promotion in some grades and later added merit pay for teachers. Bloomberg has also instituted a pilot program to give cash incentives for students.

Bloomberg has championed a rise in test scores, higher teacher pay, an expansion of charter schools, and a drop in school crime, but he has also faced criticism that his administration has overstated gains in scores and graduation rates and that centralized control of the schools has cut off parental and community involvement. The Bloomberg administration's record on education is at the center of intense debate in 2009 as the mayor runs for re-election and state lawmakers decide whether to renew mayoral control of the schools.

Illegal Guns

Bloomberg launched a high-profile campaign to stop the flow of illegal guns onto New York City streets at the start of his second term in 2006. He formed a bipartisan national coalition, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, that now counts more than 320 municipal leaders from across the country. Though Bloomberg has failed to change the political dynamic on gun legislation in Congress, his administration has forced more than two dozen out-of-state gun dealers to settle lawsuits in which they agreed to monitoring of their firearms sales for illegal purchases.

The Network

Though Bloomberg has solid working relationships with New York's governor, David Paterson (D), and its senior senator, Charles E. Schumer (D), he has forged his closest alliances with national figures who share his distaste for partisanship and ideology. At the top of the list is Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger , a Republican. A political friendship with the mayor often comes with an added benefit: access to his financial largesse. He was instrumental in helping Lieberman stave off defeat in 2006, and he also supported Schwarzenegger's re-election bid the same year.

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