New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has left the Republican party, he announced Tuesday evening.
Said Bloomberg: “I have filed papers with the New York City Board of Elections to change my status as a voter and register as unaffiliated with any political party. Although my plans for the future haven’t changed, I believe this brings my affiliation into alignment with how I have led and will continue to lead our city. A nonpartisan approach has worked wonders in New York: we’ve balanced budgets, grown our economy, improved public health, reformed the school system and made the nation’s safest city even safer. We have achieved real progress by overcoming the partisanship that too often puts narrow interests above the common good. As a political independent, I will continue to work with those in all political parties to find common ground, to put partisanship aside and to achieve real solutions to the challenges we face. Any successful elected executive knows that real results are more important than partisan battles and that good ideas should take precedence over rigid adherence to any particular political ideology. Working together, there’s no limit to what we can do.”
At an appearance at Google headquarters yesterday, Bloomberg pretty much trashed the presidential debates that have been held so far:
“They have absolutely nothing to do with the job and the qualifications. And they don’t tell you anything about whether or not any of those candidates would be good or bad presidents. What they really say is, did they memorize their notes of ‘What to say if …’ and whether their staff was able to anticipate. If you look at both debates, they pandered, what I would argue, the same ways.”
Bloomberg lamented the lack of solutions from the candidates, said they were exploiting terrorism, and decried the state of “dithering” Washington, according to the New York Sun.
Will the billionaire run for president? Although he told the crowd at Google that his “next career will be in philanthropy,” these are certainly some interesting developments.
