How Bloomberg Decided Not to Run for President

Worth Clicking: Blasts from the past wound Romney

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September 14, 2009

How Bloomberg Decided Not to Run for President

Out next week: Mike Bloomberg: Money, Power, Politics by Joyce Purnick.

Mike Allen runs brief excerpts from the book on how New York City's mayor ended months of speculation by deciding not to launch an independent bid for president in 2008.

"The true scope of the Bloomberg's stealth campaign has never been disclosed. A company called the Symposia Group, which had a client of one -- Mike Bloomberg -- had created a Bloomberg for President website on Sheekey's instruction. Mayoral sources were quoted in news accounts saying Symposia was preparing to analyze voter preferences nationwide if Bloomberg ran. They also said they were polling around the country. It remains a well-guarded secret how far that went, what Bloomberg paid for preliminary 'micro-targeting,' travel, salaries and polling, or what he learned. Since Bloomberg personally underwrote his non-campaign, he could spend what he wanted without creating the standard paper trail of public candidate reports."

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Taegan D. Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites.

Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country, including the Washington Post, USA Today, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer and Christian Science Monitor.

Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

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September 14, 2009