It’s typical of Mayor Bloomberg that when he personally confirms for the first time that he’s considering a run for the presidency in 2016, he does so in … what would one figure, USA Today? The Wall Street Journal? The Kelly File? CNN? Rachel Maddow’s show? The O’Reilly Factor? Or even his own newswire? Nah, not Mike. He does it in an interview with a Japanese owned financial daily published in London, the Financial Times, and proceeds to insult the American political conversation so far as “banal.”

Not to be misunderstood here. The New York Sun has been running out of pixels trying to encourage Mr. Bloomberg to make a run for president — and we don’t even agree with him on two thirds of his program. We urged him to run for president in the 2008 campaign, hoping for a trifecta of Hillary Clinton for the Democrats, Rudy Giuliani for the GOP, and Mr. Bloomberg as an independent. It would, we expained at the time, be great for the circulation of New York newspapers.

However loath to admit it, we also had other motives. We may be against him on guns and the nanny state. He may drive us nuts by coming out against, say, the confirmation of Chief Justice Roberts or endorsing President Obama for re-election. But Hizzoner was an outstanding voice on at least some of the issues where few others are making a stand — particularly immigration, but also taxes and Israel — and we think he gets certain elements of the glory of New York. So we’d like to see him enter the lists.

In 2008, after he finally decided against running that year, he spread the word that he just didn’t think he could win. We always thought that was a lame excuse. Polling maven Douglas Schoen, who works for Mr. Bloomberg, insists in the Wall Street Journal that the former mayor can win. If he runs as an independent, which seems to be what he has in mind, our guess is that he’s more of a threat to the Democrats than the Republicans. His overlap with Secretary Clinton is greater than with, say, Senator Cruz or Donald Trump. That’s not our reason for egging him on, but it’s an ancillary benefit.

As for the business about banality, what Mr. Bloomberg told the Financial Times is this: “I find the level of discourse and discussion distressingly banal and an outrage and an insult to the voters.” The FT quotes him as saying the American public deserves “a lot better.” We have little doubt that a voice like Mr. Bloomberg’s, backed by his own op-ed page (known as the Bloomberg View), would make for a livelier debate. But the way to make that happen is not to lurk in London and complain. It’s to get in the race once and for all.