My guess is Michael Bloomberg, perrenial candidate for....

[Smarmie Doofus]

... just about anything, *longs* for Hillary's open senate seat. What a stage THAT would be! I'm thinking he's *pinching* himself himself over this ( as of now hypothetical) incredibly good fortune.

A the moment he's up a tree without a paddle. No high profile positions available, the NYC Mayor ( and wealthiest citizen) essentially announced for reeleection as mayor and essentially changed the term-limits law in NYC $inglehandedly ( the idea of changing the law was was "disgusting", he said, two years ago) with the help of the "little gray people" on the council who hope to benefit by going along... in one way or another.

But re the Clinton seat: how will it actually work? Gov. Paterson ( himself an unelected chief exac.) will appoint a Clinton successor. He's already on record as saying that he likes Bloomberg's hypothetical third term ( laws, schmaws). It's believed a busy ( in NYC city hall) Bloomberg will forgo a challenge to Paterson when the Governor's term is up. Either as DEM or Independent... or even as GOP again.

Bloomberg's planning on ... publicly.... spending ( or WAS planning on spending ) 100 million to be reelected mayor. Paterson would probably prefer to run against a less prosperous opponent in... I think he runs in 2010... and would probably like to make Bloomberg happy in another position.

Bloomberg's proved that enough money can make the public believe *anything*, so unseemly appearances wouldn't really be a factor here.


So.... what happens next?

[BlueManDude]

1. thet're going to end up losing the seat, another reason this is a stupid idea

[Smarmie Doofus]

2. That's possible. But a more likely scenario is....

Bloomberg flips back to DEM; then Paterson appts. him to fill-out Clinton's term and Bloomie does Paterson a solid in the form of a mammoth $$$ contribution or some kind of "bright future in the private sector" when Paterson leaves politics.