WIRE: 04/30/2001 2:26 pm ET

Michael Bloomberg emerges from the boardroom into the mayoral glare

The Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) A lifelong Democrat, he switched his registration to Republican last year. The owner of a media empire employing thousands, he has never held government office or overseen a single public program. And in a city of Yankee and Mets fans, he roots for the Boston Red Sox.

Now, media mogul Michael Rubens Bloomberg, 59, is set to run for mayor.

And because of Bloomberg's outsized confidence, his remarkable business success and his enormous wealth, no one is counting him out.

"With his money, you never know," said pollster Maurice Carroll.

The biggest task for Bloomberg, who declined to be interviewed for this article, may be persuading voters that his run for City Hall is not just a rich man's lark.

To that end, Bloomberg's advisers, drawing on extensive polling and focus groups, have sought to portray him as a man who uses his estimated $4 billion fortune to benefit everyone but is beholden to no one.

"I don't believe that a regular Democrat can run the city anymore," said David Garth, Bloomberg's political consultant, who guided Rudolph Giuliani to City Hall. "Mike is a clear, hardheaded businessman. I can't see him put in a corner by the teachers union, or the cops or the hospital workers."

To retain that independence, Bloomberg is said to be willing to spend upward of $15 million on the race.

With five months before a potential GOP primary against former Rep. Herman Badillo, Bloomberg's friends have become highly disciplined purveyors of the campaign message. Unbidden, they mention "Mike's charity work" and "Mike's need to give something back."

"He's a very smart guy," said John Mack, former president and chief operating officer of Morgan Stanley. "He's very intense. He gets things done. He's very socially conscious about people who need a chance."

Mack added: "This isn't an ego thing."

Republican Assemblyman John Ravitz, who considered his own run for City Hall, said Bloomberg must convince voters he is "not just doing this because he's got six months to kill."

The few political ideas that Bloomberg has discussed are similar to those of his Democratic challengers. For instance, repairing the city's school system is his top priority. He also supports civilian oversight of the Police Department, and rejects Mayor Giuliani's decency commission to review publicly funded art.

He has excoriated the Democratic mayoral candidates, including Public Advocate Mark Green and city Comptroller Alan Hevesi, saying "there's absolutely nothing I can think of that they have done." Yet he contributed to both when they ran for re-election four years ago.

Giuliani is prevented by term limits from seeking a third four-year term.

Born in the Boston suburb of Medford, Bloomberg is the son of an accountant and homemaker. He studied engineering at Johns Hopkins University and moved on to Harvard Business School. He avoided the Vietnam War because he had flat feet.

After graduation, he got a job at Salomon Brothers, where he counted securities in a bank vault that was so hot he toiled in his underwear. Within six years, he became a partner supervising Salomon's stock trading. But amid personality conflicts with co-workers, he was demoted.

When Salomon merged with the Philbro Corp. in 1981, Bloomberg lost his job but got a $10 million severance check, which he used to found Bloomberg L.P.

The backbone of his company is a $1,640-a-month service that provides financial data and allows users to analyze markets, as well as check sports scores, read news stories and book airline flights.

The company has 156,000 accounts worldwide. Bloomberg has also branched out to radio stations, television and other media, building an empire with 7,200 employees.

He is a demanding boss who expects long hours, but his Park Avenue headquarters and Princeton, N.J., offices offer free snacks and feature tanks filled with tropical fish. Because he has banned private offices and personal secretaries, Bloomberg, who owns 72 percent of the company, sits at a desk among his employees.

Last year, he settled a lawsuit filed by a female employee who claimed Bloomberg looked up workers' skirts; discussed sexual acts he would like to perform on them; made racial slurs; and said "kill it" when the employee announced she was pregnant. Bloomberg has denied the accusations.

And while Bloomberg says his company is an example of how city government could operate, hundreds of messages on a Web site for Bloomberg employees claim they are worked hard, paid poorly and have little chance of being promoted.

"Running for office and running a company are very different, and good or bad, we'll be learning a lot more about Michael Bloomberg in the next few months," said Carroll, the pollster.

-- Anonymous, April 30, 2001