The Undeclared Bloomberg

As Mayor Bloomberg heads to St. Louis this week to join the declared presidential candidates —including Senators Edwards, Obama, and Clinton — in addressing a national conference of the Urban League, it's worth pausing for a moment to ponder the support that his undeclared presidential campaign has already gathered. Mortimer Zuckerman, the real-estate executive who is the owner of the Daily News and of U.S. News and World Report and who is a former chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, told the New Yorker magazine earlier this month of Mr. Bloomberg: "He's the most gifted public servant I've ever encountered." Lally Weymouth, the journalist who jets around the world interviewing heads of state for Newsweek and the Washington Post, was quoted in the New York Observer as saying of Mr. Bloomberg, "Everybody in New York that I know thinks he's a brilliant mayor, and everyone thinks he would be a brilliant president."

As we reported in The New York Sun, in April Mr. Bloomberg was praised by both the former speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, and by a Tennessean who served in Congress as a Democrat and ran unsuccessfully for Senate in 2006, Harold Ford Jr. The Democrat who is the mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa, called Mr. Bloomberg "a great mayor," while the man who is police chief in Los Angeles and who served as police commissioner of New York City from 1994 to 1996, William Bratton, said he would vote for Mr. Bloomberg, who he said was "prepared to assume the responsibilities of president." The governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, has said of Mr. Bloomberg, "He's my soul mate. He's the man," and has publicly encouraged the mayor to run for president.

Barbara Walters, the ABC newswoman who has interviewed every American president since Nixon, as well as Prime Minister Begin and President Sadat, told our Jill Gardiner, "Mayor Bloomberg would make a very good president." She said, "He is brilliant and honest and decent."

The president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, Leslie Gelb, a former New York Times correspondent, said Mr. Bloomberg "is at least as qualified as the hordes in the ring now." "None of them would do a better job," Mr. Gelb told The New York Sun. "In terms of qualifications for the job, they don't overmatch him at all."

The senior chairman and co-founder of the Blackstone Group, Pete Peterson; chairman of the board at the Council on Foreign Relations and the president of Concord Coalition, a bipartisan group that promotes fiscal responsibility, said, "I think Mike Bloomberg would do a great job at virtually anything he decided to do, including being president of the United States." The president of the New School, Robert Kerrey, who was a Democratic senator from Nebraska and a member of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, said of Mr. Bloomberg, "there is no question he would be a good president." The CEO of Time Warner, Richard Parsons, sounded a similar theme, saying Mr. Bloomberg would make a "very good president."

Not all of those praising the mayor have formally endorsed him, but then again, the mayor himself hasn't formally entered the presidential race. It may be noted that the list of enthusiasts is heavy of Manhattanites, journalists, and multimillionaires, but then again, Mr. Bloomberg is a Manhattan multibillionaire who made his fortune with a financial news and information service. No doubt the other candidates have their own enthusiastic backers. But in sticking their necks out in praise of Mr. Bloomberg, individuals such as Mr. Zuckerman, Mr. Gelb, Mr. Peterson, Mr. Kerrey, Mr. Schwarzenegger, Mr. Bratton, Mr. Villaraigosa, Mr. Parsons, Ms. Weymouth, and Ms. Walters risk alienating others who are running for the job, such as Mayor Giuliani and Senators Clinton, McCain, and Obama.

We wouldn't want to make too much of this. To mount any kind of presidential campaign, Mr. Bloomberg is going to have to reach far beyond the glitterati. And for success in the long run a presidential campaign will require not only friends and a record of competence but also ideas. But the point we would make, as Mr. Bloomberg heads for St. Louis, is that his presidential campaign is off to an impressive start even without a declaration. To those who insist his campaign isn't going to happen, it's something to think about.