Mayor Bloomberg ‘s commanding win in yesterday’s election immediately set off a wave of questions about the future of the city’s Democratic Party and the political possibilities that might emerge for a Republican mayor who won a double-digit victory over his Democratic opponent.

Yesterday, leading Fernando Ferrer by 20 percentage points with nearly all the votes counted, the mayor was exceeding Mayor Giuliani’s landslide 1997 victory, when Mr. Giuliani beat Ruth Messinger by 17.3 percentage points. Before a roaring crowd of thousands of sign-waving fans, mayor vowed to lead the city “honestly and independently,” putting New Yorkers’ interests ahead of political and special interests.

Now, Mr. Ferrer, who has run unsuccessfully for mayor three times, seems to have reached the conclusion of his political career, and Mayor Bloomberg has no clear successors. That leaves the field wide open in 2009 for high profile Democrats including Rep. Anthony Weiner, who shot up in the polls right before this year’s Democratic Primary election, the newly re-elected Comptroller William C. Thompson, Jr., who received 92% of the vote, and the president of the Bronx, Adolfo Carrion, who was re-elected yesterday with 86% of the vote. Bloomberg appointees, including Schools Chancellor Joel Klein and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly are also said to be in the mix. It’s unclear if they would run as Democrats or Republicans.

In the minutes after Mr. Ferrer conceded to Mr. Bloomberg last night, the buzz at the Ferrer “victory party” was mostly about how the Ferrer campaign at least maintained its dignity, even as the under-funded Democrat faced a daunting challenge from a self-financed billionaire.

Standing on a small but packed stage at a ballroom at the Waldorf Astoria, Rev. Al Sharpton said: “The Republicans shouldn’t get comfortable. We’ve got more people than you’ve got billionaires.”

Mark Green, who lost to Mr. Bloomberg in 2001, said, “What Democrats should do in future elections is don’t run against multi-billionaires.”

But already, some Democrats were starting to talk about what they could do to brush off the party and prepare for 2009.

Mr. Weiner, who talked about party reform throughout his primary challenge, said the lesson learned from this year’s campaign was that campaigns must be “grounded in ideas on how we’re going to govern.”

He said Mr. Ferrer “got snowed under,” and said, “Voters need to know not why they should fire the other guy but what you’re going to do once you enter the door.”

He said he was planning to continue emphasizing his 2005 campaign theme of serving the middle class.

Not everyone was sure, however, that last night was for learning lessons. Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, a likely gubernatorial candidate, said, “Tonight is not the time to be talking about lessons.”

A Bloomberg adviser, Mitchell Moss, a professor at New York University, said the election proved that the Democratic Party is “self-destructive.”

“The Democratic Party continually surprises New Yorkers because it finds new ways to lose mayoral elections, regardless of the candidate,” he said. He added that Mr. Bloomberg’s message of “300 neighborhoods” appeals more to New Yorkers than Mr. Ferrer’s old fashioned “two New Yorks” mantra.

Now, with a hefty mandate in hand, Mr. Bloomberg thanked his supporters and told his cheering volunteers and staff members last night that he would start working right away to implement the goals he has set for his second term.

“I asked for four more years to create a city of opportunity for our children and our children’s children,” he said.

Standing on stage with more than 80 supporters at his victory party packed with volunteers, city employees, and family, the mayor said his win would “send a message that you can make the tough decisions and be reelected as long as they are the right decisions for the people you serve.”

Mr. Bloomberg’s party had an open bar, as well as two of the mayor’s favorite snack foods: hotdogs and popcorn. Mr. Ferrer’s party also had an open bar – something that wasn’t available at his Primary Night party. He also offered heaping servings of pasta as well as plates of cheese, olives, and deli meats.

Mr. Ferrer’s SS-party didn’t rival Mr. Bloomberg’s in terms of its size or energy. Mr. Bloomberg’s supporters spilled out of the party room, which was in two interconnected ballrooms at the Sheraton Hotel. People who attended both events said Mr. Bloomberg’s was 10 times the size and had 10 times the energy of his opponent’s. One felt like a cocktail party, the other like a U2 con cert (down to the live Salsa band at Mr. Bloomberg’s fete).

While the mood at Mr. Ferrer’s party was not downbeat, it wasn’t jubilant either. It seemed like most partygoers had been resigned to a defeat for more than a month, as Mr. Bloomberg’s lead in public opinion polls rose to 38 points. Notably absent were both of New York’s senators. Their staffs said they were in Washington.

Mr. Bloomberg’s first and most sweeping campaign goal, which he reiterated in his victory speech, involves placing the city’s police commissioner in charge of emergency response at the airports as well as on trains, bridges, and tunnels. Currently the Port Authority and the MTA take the lead in those situations.

Mr. Bloomberg has also said that education reform remains his top priority. In his second term he has vowed to focus on improving the city’s high schools by creating more vocational and selective options for students. He also wants to focus more attention and financial resources on early childhood education for the city’s youngest pupils and eliminate the cap on charter schools so that the mayor has the authority to create as many of the untraditional public schools as he wishes. Currently, city educators are limited in charter school creation by a statewide cap of 100.

Mr. Bloomberg’s supporters say the next four years are very important – both for the mayor and for the city.

“He has an opportunity to take the city back from Albany, which I’m very much supportive of,” the former City Council speaker, Peter Vallone Sr. said. “If he’s successful at that, the world is his oyster.”

Mr. Vallone said the mayor is now ideally positioned to secure more education aid from Albany and convince the Legislature to reinstate the commuter tax.

While the mayor’s unprecedented win yesterday has set off speculation about Mr. Bloomberg’s political future, the mayor has repeatedly denied that he is interested in seeking higher office at the end of his second term, and most of his supporters take him at his word.

“Chairman Minarik and Mayor Bloomberg have been in constant communication and the mayor has consistently indicated that he’s interested in being mayor and nothing else,” the executive director of the State Republican Party, Ryan Moses, said.

The party is already discussing who will represent Republicans in next year’s gubernatorial election, and Mr. Bloomberg has not asked that he be considered for the job.

The chairman of the Conservative Party, Mike Long, who endorsed Mr. Bloomberg’s Conservative rival, Thomas Ognibene, in the mayoral election, said Mr. Bloomberg will have “more power to do his own agenda” as mayor as a result of his big win. But, he said, “I’m not going to comment on the possibility of him running for statewide office when he’s already said very clearly that he’s not running.”

As for national office, Mr. Long said, “Absolutely not.” Asked why, he said, “He’s not in step with the Republican Party nationwide…I don’t suspect that he would change parties. He’s already done that once.”

The mayor switched to the Republican Party from the Democratic Party before his 2001 race. He supports abortion rights and gun control. Although Mr. Bloomberg vowed not to raise taxes as mayor, he hiked sales taxes and property taxes.

A professor of American politics at Emory University, Merle Black, said Mr. Bloomberg would have little chance at national office.

“The New Yorker the Republicans would be more interested in is Rudolph Giuliani,” he said. “Mayor Bloomberg would not be on the radar of most Republican primary voters. Plus, his positions on some issues would be far too liberal for most Republicans.”

He said if the mayor ran as a Democrat, he “would be starting from dead zero” on the name recognition front, and he would be “way, way, way behind Hillary Clinton.”

In recent decades, senators and governors become presidents – not mayors. If Mr. Bloomberg wanted a precedent for a presidential run he would have to look back to Hubert Humphrey, who was elected mayor of Minneapolis in 1945 before he became a senator, a vice president, and then the president in 1968.

“It’s hard to imagine a mayor of New York City running for president and winning,” a political consultant, Hank Sheinkopf, said. “It’s not likely that he would be elected president and it’s not likely that he would be nominated by his party.”

Last week, when asked if he was interested in running for president, the mayor said: “I think at my age, I’ll be very happy to spend the next four years in the city, working for this city. I have no interest in running for governor. I’ll send my mother a copy of a letter that suggested I had an interest in running for president, which I don’t. She’ll be very pleased that anybody even mentioned my name.”

The mayor has said he wants to give away his multi-billion dollar fortune after he is finished being mayor.

Mr. Bloomberg is 63 years old, and often brags to senior citizens that he is a card-carrying member of the AARP. His mother is 96 years old and was in New York from her home in Medford, Mass., yesterday for Election Day.