A cross-section of the city’s top business executives, foreign policy leaders, and journalism celebrities say Mayor Bloomberg would be a strong president if he were promoted from the CEO of the city to the CEO of the country.

Leaders from the head of Time Warner Inc., Richard Parsons, to the ABC newswoman Barbara Walters said Mr. Bloomberg would be uniquely qualified to take over at the White House should he overcome the long shot odds and win the 2008 presidential election.

While nobody outright endorsed Mr. Bloomberg, the enthusiasm from the city’s heavy hitters offers an indication of just how seriously the mayor would be taken if he ran. Mr. Bloomberg is still insisting he is not running, but his decision to drop his Republican Party affiliation last week is being interpreted as a precursor to an independent bid.

Yesterday, a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll found Mr. Bloomberg would garner 17% of the vote in a matchup against Senator Clinton, who would get 41%, and Mayor Giuliani, who would get 38%.

The president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, Leslie Gelb, a former New York Times correspondent, praised Mr. Bloomberg, saying the mayor has shown that he “masters issues” and adding that “he 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.”

Mr. Gelb said the candidates who have already declared their campaigns are “not saying much of anything.” And while he was not convinced that Mr. Bloomberg would ultimately enter the race, he said the mayor would likely bring a high-quality group of cabinet members and staffers to Washington.

Mr. Parsons, who is being named as a possible 2009 mayoral candidate, said Mr. Bloomberg would make a “very good president.”
“He is a talented executive, he knows how to manage and run things, complicated things,” Mr. Parsons said. “What’s more complicated than New York City?”

Mr. Parsons — a Bloomberg ally who served as the head of Mr. Giuliani’s 1993 mayoral transition team — also noted that Mr. Bloomberg, a billionaire, would be “unencumbered,” because he would not have to raise campaign money.

“He is free to do what is right, which would be a blessing for the country,” said Mr. Parsons, who has donated to a number of politicians over the years, including to Senator McCain, a Republican presidential candidate, in March.

Ms. Walters, a friend of Mr. Bloomberg’s, called the mayor “brilliant.”

“I think Mayor Bloomberg would make a very good president,” Ms. Walters said on a voicemail message. “He is brilliant and honest and decent.”

A number of other New Yorkers, including the senior chairman and co-founder of the Blackstone Group, Pete Peterson; the CEO of the private equity firm Lightyear Capital, Donald Marron, and a former senator from Nebraska, Robert Kerrey, also praised Mr. Bloomberg.

Mr. Peterson, the 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.”

Mr. Kerrey, a loyal Democrat who has relationships with a number of the 2008 candidates, is president of the New School and was a member of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. He ran for president himself in 1992. Mr. Kerrey praised Mr. Bloomberg in a conversation before the mayor announced that he was dropping his party affiliation. He said “there is no question he would be a good president,” and noted that the mayor has set up “probably the best counter-terrorism force in the country.”

When contacted after Mr. Bloomberg’s announcement that he was leaving the Republican Party, Mr. Kerrey offered a little more skepticism. “Nobody should doubt his capacity to be president, but I think there is more that I need to know, which is, what are you going to do?” Mr. Kerrey said.

Mr. Kerrey also said that the partisan gridlock Mr. Bloomberg regularly criticizes Washington for is often simply the result of diametrically opposing views.

A professor at Cooper Union, Fred Siegel — the author of a book on Mayor Giuliani and who served as an adviser to him in 1993 — called Mr. Bloomberg’s record “mediocre” and criticized his revamp of the public schools. Mr. Siegel, who was appointed by Mr. Bloomberg to a commission on charter reform, said he’s never been on Mr. Giuliani’s payroll.

In talking about Mr. Bloomberg, he said: “Here’s a guy who imposed the largest property tax increase in city history, increased all sorts of fees, increased spending at more than twice the rate of inflation. There is nothing that Bloomberg has done, other than give Ray Kelly a lot of authority, that would suggest that he could be an even moderately competent president.”

One challenge that could be thorny for Mr. Bloomberg if he defies the odds would be dealing with Congress. A political consultant, Daniel Gerstein, an adviser to Senator Lieberman, said Mr. Bloomberg has the skills for the job, but would have to deal with the fact that he’d have no “natural base” in Congress.

“Without a base of allies to rely on to move his agenda, he’d be starting from scratch,” Mr. Gerstein said.

“It’s more likely he would succeed in governing than that he would actually get elected, which is one of the reasons why our system is so screwed up,” Mr. Gerstein said.

Mr. Marron, the former CEO of PaineWebber and president emeritus of the Museum of Modern Art, said Mr. Bloomberg has the combination of skills needed to succeed.

“We all talk about how there should be someone who could combine business leadership and political leadership and who is not beholden to any group on either side,” Mr. Marron said. “That is definitely Mike Bloomberg.”