Bloomberg Polling, Reaction Roundup

With his feet now firmly planted in the center of the political party divide, Mike Bloomberg looks like the obvious choice to lead the national third-party revolution during the 2008 presidential contest. If he's serious, he's going to need to bring up those local numbers.

A Qunnipiac Poll released this morning finds Bloomberg would finish last in a three-way race for his home state, behind Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani, 43-29-16. More [here].

"Bloomberg-for-President? Not in New York State. At least, not yet. He runs a distant third to Sen. Hillary Clinton and mayor Rudolph Giuliani, two New Yorkers who are declared candidates," said Maurice Carroll, Director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. "The neighbors would still sooner send their Senator to the White House than 'America's Mayor.' Giuliani loses to Clinton statewide and does even worse in the city that he led than in the state overall."

As for the party switch, Karol is not [impressed].

At Urban Elephants, [everybody is weighing in].

And Andrew Sullivan [sees this] as more evidence that President Bush is losing the conservative trust. But since no one would ever have called Bloomberg a conservative, and since he was initially a Democrat before he swapped his party affiliation to avoid 2001's hot Democratic mayoral primary, I think Sullivan is off base.