With Barack Obama due in town to start raising cash in Senator Clinton’s back yard, with Mayor Giuliani, Senator McCain, Mitt Romney and a few others slugging it out, and with the election a year and a half away, it struck us that it has been hard to remember this much election coverage so far in advance of the actual election. We haven’t done a double-blind study, but that’s our impression. And it raises the question of whether any of the frontrunners — or all of the contenders in this race — are in danger of coming down with a kind of popularity fatigue. And whether, by the time Mayor Bloomberg announces his independent candidacy, he will be received as a positively refreshing figure in the race.

Well, call it the mere wish of New York newspaper editors, who would like nothing better than an Empire State trifecta with Mayor Giuliani as the Republican nominee, Senator Clinton as the Democratic nominee, and Mr. Bloomberg as an independent candidate. But we’ve covered Mr. Bloomberg enough by now to know that he’s not someone one wants to underestimate. It wouldn’t surprise us in the least if his low-key, only-his-mother-wants-him-to-run strategy turned out to be carefully calculated to maximize the power he has — as a billionaire who could run a one-billion-dollar campaign without breaking into a sweat — on timing.

The mayor made a point of keeping the guessing game alive this week, catching the attention of the Associated Press, which reported on Monday that he had “a different answer” for that “same old question” he’s already dismissed over and over. “I don’t think so and if I was going to do it, I don’t think I’d announce it right here,” the AP quoted him as saying during a brief appearance Monday morning on Fox News. The AP’s account said a host of the program noted that “the billionaire businessman had a similar answer when asked, years ago, if he planned to run for mayor. “And then fast forward, here you are,” she said.

Responded Mr. Bloomberg, an Eagle Scout who is one of the most careful planners in politics: “You never know.” The AP noted that the scenario floated by one of the mayor’s aides, Kevin Sheekey, and “other supporters” has Mr. Bloomberg “waiting until next year, when the front-runners for both parties are clear.” It said that if one candidate is way on the left and the other far to the right, some “envision room for Bloomberg right down the middle as an independent.”

Our own attraction to an Empire State trifecta — or what we call around the office “The New York Central” — is not motivated only by our delight as newspapermen and women at the prospect of an all-New York field. It’s also that on the issues, we believe Mr. Bloomberg has a lot to offer this race. His obsession with trans fat and cigarettes and guns we could do without. But his comprehension of the fundamentals of the immigration debate is superb, his appreciation for America’s engagement with international markets, and his challenge to the knee-jerk partisanship of our current political scene, these are enormous assets at a time when these very issues loom large. And at the rate things are going, a new and major figure entering this race a few months hence, why it would be refreshing indeed.