New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a potential independent candidate for president, has scheduled a meeting next week with a dozen leading Democrats and Republicans, who will join him in challenging the major party contenders to spell out their plans for forming a "government of national unity" to end the gridlock in Washington.
Others who will be at the Jan. 7 session at the University of Oklahoma say that if the likely nominees of the two parties do not pledge to "go beyond tokenism" in building an administration that seeks national consensus, they will be prepared to back Bloomberg or someone else in a third-party campaign for president.
Conveners of the meeting include such prominent Democrats as former Sens. Sam Nunn of Georgia and Charles Robb of Virginia and former presidential candidate Gary Hart. Republican attendees are to include Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, former party chairman Bill Brock, former Sen. John Danforth of Missouri and former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman.
Bloomberg, a former Democrat who was elected mayor of New York City as a Republican, left the GOP this past summer to become an independent. While disclaiming any plan to run for president in 2008, he has continued to fuel speculation by traveling widely and speaking out on both domestic and international issues. The mayor, a billionaire many times over, presumably could self-finance even a late-starting candidacy.
WASHINGTON POST
