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New mayor is rich, mysterious©Washington Post
© St. Petersburg Times, NEW YORK -- Michael Bloomberg, one of the two or three richest men in this richest of U.S. cities, awoke as the mayor-elect of this large and fragile metropolis. He had upset Democrat Mark Green late Tuesday, after spending more money -- at least $55-million -- on a mayoral race than anyone in history. He is a novice politician who has never held elected office, a 59-year-old businessman who must restore the city's confidence as he tries to slash billions of dollars from its budget. And he'd like to avoid decimating schools and libraries, parks and hospitals. But his campaign rarely hinted at the specifics of his strategy, and in a cameo appearance at City Hall on Wednesday he did little more than project his trademark self-confidence. "We are going to go through a period where job retention is going to be a very serious problem," Bloomberg acknowledged. "I . . . have a situation where we don't have the revenue to do the things I'd like to do." Bloomberg ran as Rudolph Giuliani's surrogate and successor, mixing fiscal conservatism with social liberalism. But his is the antithesis of Giuliani's primal scream style. And he shocked this city's political establishment by beating Green, the city's two-term public advocate. Green's 12-point lead evaporated in the last two weeks, as Bloomberg ran hundreds of ads -- including four $100,000 spots during the World Series -- on a dozen television stations. Many of the ads featured blistering attacks, portraying Green as an arrogant liberal who would defile Giuliani's city. Bloomberg, who is the founder and CEO of the business and media empire Bloomberg L.P., tapped New Yorkers fears of economic collapse following the attack on the World Trade Center, offering himself as a captain in stormy seas. The pitch was perfect for New York, as the city has long been familiar with the mogul style. "New York doesn't have a culture that looks down on money," said Mitchell Moss, director of the Taub Urban Research Center at New York University and an adviser to Bloomberg. "We like billionaires." But none have spent so prodigiously as Bloomberg who was a lifelong Democrat who became a Republican shortly before announcing his mayoral bid. Waving off the city's campaign finance laws -- which limit spending in exchange for giving candidates public funds -- he lavished close to $60-million on his campaign, paying more than the going-rate for top campaign professionals. He spent $23-million on television ads and another $4.5-million for the services of former President Bill Clinton's pollster, Doug Schoen. And he paid New York University's Moss and Columbia University's Ester Fuchs to advise him on policy. Still, an air of mystery attends to Bloomberg. Few mayors have taken office with a higher media profile -- and, paradoxically, with less known about their views. Bloomberg's name is ubiquitous, on his stock tickers, on mugs, and on election posters plastered on walls, buses, and hundreds of television commercials. His rise from a family of modest means in Medford, Mass., to a partnership at Salomon Brothers (where he was shoved out with a $10-million buyout in hand after 15 years) to the founding of one of the nation's most successful financial data companies, was the stuff of business legend. And he cut an outsized figure socially. An active philanthropist (who also donated to Bill Clinton's presidential campaigns) and party-goer on Manhattan's Upper East Side, he is known as a ladies' man, and the sort who rarely bothers to zip his lip. Others point to a darker side of Bloomberg, which surfaced in the campaign, involving three sexual discrimination lawsuits filed against him by women who previously worked for his media company. All alleged that he presided over a workplace that did not respect women. Bloomberg has denied the allegations. One case was settled by him without any admission of liability, a second was withdrawn, and the third was dismissed and denied on appeal, spokesmen said. He often flew below the media radar. Bloomberg refused to attend dozens of mayoral forums and kept his street appearances short and disciplined. He rarely offered policy specifics. Bloomberg takes the helm of a city that's lost close to 100,000 jobs and he faces a $4-billion to $6-billion budget deficit next year. The teachers and police officers are working without contracts, and the remaining union contracts come due next June. The city's pension funds are bleeding money as the Dow tanks. -- Information from the Los Angeles Times was used in this report.
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