Dean Barnett writes, "Michael Bloomberg is not an electrifying presence". Nevertheless, Dean believes Bloomberg could steal a few votes away from the only slightly more charismatic Hillary Clinton:

Students of the leftwing blogs know that the progressive community can’t stand Hillary. What’s more, they know that a Hillary presidency will banish the Nutroots to four years in the wilderness. At least. There’s a real chance that if the Clintons take back the Democratic Party, there won’t be a chair for the Nutroots when the music stops playing.

For some progressives, this is a worst scenario than President Romney, Thompson or Giuliani would be. The Nutroots’ top priority has always been accruing more power for their “movement.” A Hillary ascendancy would be their worst possible scenario. So will the most progressive of voters abandon Hillary for a third party candidate who has no chance? It’s a definite possibility.

Meanwhile, Jonah Goldberg explores the technowonk utopian nanny aspect of Bloomberg:

Bloomberg’s dream of a New Politics transcending partisan bickering is deeply seductive. [Especially to Bloomberg's chief constituency, the media--Ed] Who wouldn’t want to live in a society where government just did good things without interference from special interests and other forces of selfishness? A big part of John F. Kennedy’s appeal was his claim to represent a New Politics based on what Bloomberg now calls “managerial competence.” As JFK said: “Most of the problems ... that we now face, are technical problems, are administrative problems,” best left to the best and brightest, starting with JFK himself.

That was nonsense then, and it’s nonsense now. Calling it “managerial competence” won’t make political decision-making any less political.

No--but by using such language, Bloomberg essentially casts himself as a billionaire version of another passionless northeast liberal with onetime presidential aspirations whose first name is also Mike: Michael Dukakis--which seems pretty accurate to me.

Update: Hear about Napoleon? He had a Bloomberg complex.