How Mike Bloomberg made himself the only political player in New York

who really matters. Excerpts from Chris Smith's great article:

The clearest sign that this Sunday evening holds special resonance for Bloomberg is the presence of Rupert Murdoch, Mort Zuckerman, and Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the publishers of New York’s three daily newspapers. They’re here because Bloomberg asked them to be. “Those three are at anything that really matters to Mike,” a dinner-party veteran says.

After cocktails on the second floor, the guests walk up to the fifth floor and find their chairs at one of the small tables. Bloomberg circulates throughout the evening, working his way from one table to the next. Katie Couric is here, and Emma Thompson, and Ken Chenault, the CEO of American Express. There’s Dan Doctoroff, the Bloomberg deputy mayor for economic development turned president of Bloomberg L.P. Each guest is a significant player in his or her own realm—wielding the power of celebrity or the power to swing elections or to move markets. Yet wherever he mingles, the 67-year-old Bloomberg eclipses his guests. Not because he is worth far more money than any two of the corporate tycoons put together; that’s been true for years. It’s because in the past seven years Michael Bloomberg has become the only powerful figure in New York who really matters.
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His social-issue sensibilities—pro-immigration, anti-gun—line up tidily with the city’s liberal mainstream. And his signature accomplishments, like taking control of the school system, have been easy to sell as sensible reforms, no-brainers opposed by troglodytic vested interests. In many ways he’s been a very good mayor. And yet there’s an inescapable queasiness in the city as the mayor proceeds through the democratic formalities and prepares—barring a huge upset win by Democrat Bill Thompson—for a third term. Bloomberg’s successful campaign to rewrite the term-limits law—using his connections and his money, he artfully circumvented bringing the matter to a public referendum—is precisely what, in a democracy, should not be possible, no matter what one thinks of the ends.
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But who can tell the mayor that he’s wrong, that he has a bad idea or is making a big mistake, and be taken seriously? “No one,” a Bloomberg intimate says. “He doesn’t really listen to anyone.”
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A remarkable number of dominoes have fallen Bloomberg’s way. The city’s ethnic politics are at a transition point: Black activists trained in the civil-rights model are fading, and though the city’s Latino and Asian communities have rising population numbers, they have yet to coalesce around any leaders, though the primary victory of John Liu is perhaps a sign of things to come. The speaker of the City Council is usually a mayoral antagonist. But the current speaker, Christine Quinn, decided that the best way to be elected mayor herself was to ingratiate herself with Bloomberg. Then Quinn was further neutered by the council’s slush-fund scandal.
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He looks elfin, barely five-foot-six and stoop-shouldered, wearing a tangerine-colored V-neck sweater so bright it practically vibrates. He’s charming and self-deprecating, much more the natural politician than when he’s on a podium. Bloomberg accepts hugs from customers and passes along anecdotes about the children of immigrants who have been accepted to Ivy League colleges, a reminder that at bottom Bloomberg is a world-class salesman.
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Bloomberg shares an appeal with that of Starbucks: the satisfaction of associating with an upscale product, even if our standard of living is declining. And many of us aspire to the mayor’s power, or at least a piece of his bank account.
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The mayor’s dance with the Independence Party provides perhaps the best illustration of his creativity with cash. In 2001, Bloomberg attracted a crucial 59,000 votes on the Independence Party line. Four years later, he wrote a check for $250,000 and was once again rewarded with its slot, giving guilty Democrats a place to vote for Bloomberg in 2005. The cost at least doubled this year, with Bloomberg receiving the Indy and Republican ballot spots after making donations of $250,000 to each.
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Bloomberg’s wealthy friends aren’t going to be disloyal, either. Many of them have, in the past, been reliable Democratic donors. This year, though, more than 160 people who maxed out their contribution to Bill Thompson’s 2005 comptroller campaign have given him exactly zero to run for mayor against Bloomberg.
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But perhaps the greatest difference is that Bloomberg’s power outstrips Rockefeller’s by a wide measure, wider even than the gap in their wealth: Bloomberg, New York’s richest man, is approximately twelve times richer than Rockefeller, in today’s dollars, and he’s spread his money around more craftily and more extensively than Rocky ever did.
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Perhaps Bloomberg still pines for the presidency. But you don’t amass all this power, and spend $100 million to hang on to it, to prematurely surrender the job to Bill de Blasio. Instead, the mayor is agitating to eliminate the office of public advocate even before De Blasio has officially been elected. If Mike Bloomberg is going to stick around until 2014, he wants to have all possible power at his disposal. How he uses that power can’t completely efface the fact of how he gained it.

I saw Bloomberg once, while I was working for Salomon Brothers at 55 Water Street, back around 1990. He was picking off technology folks from his old shop to go work for him at his new one. Not the flashiest of guys.

I also know where his secret farm in PA is, through a friend who used to own a farm in the same area. Hard to keep it that secret with the helicopter traffic.