The Revolutionary

There is little staff turnover in the Bloomberg administration; he is a tough but deft boss. "There was a moment where the budget director and I were literally screaming at each other," says Martha Stark, New York City's Finance commissioner. "All of us care tremendously about the work we're doing, and at times like that your temper can flare. The mayor learned about this and summoned us all, the budget director, me, [supervising] deputy mayors, to a meeting at his house … What I will say about that meeting is the mayor's smart. He was incredibly able to zero in on what the issues were. It was all pointed toward, 'You guys need to get along'."

Stark said Bloomberg was also aware of the underlying dynamics in the room. Stark was the only woman present. "He was very insightful in zeroing in on some of the power dynamic, some of the gender dynamic," she says. "He said something along the lines of, 'All right, guys, we're not going to gang up on her now, are we?' "

Bloomberg is hardly the most sensitive guy you will ever meet, but he has learned a lot in his city-hall years. "I always try to get to the hospital first when we have a cop shot or a firefighter killed, and I like to tell the family myself," he says. "I am older than the clergy, and more experienced, and older and more experienced than the chiefs, and I think it is my job. I believe you hug them, and don't try to be something you are not; you have to understand that it is their tragedy, not yours."

To call someone authentic usually means he has carefully manufactured an image of authenticity, but with Bloomberg what you see does seem to be pretty much what you get. On the first day he began campaigning for mayor in 2001, he found himself on South Beach in Staten Island, and an elderly woman swooned over him, saying, "And I am so glad you are pro-life!" As Bloomberg recalls it, "that immediately presented me with a political problem right there on day one. Should I let her think what she thought, or tell her the truth? And I told her the truth. 'I'm sorry, ma'am, but I'm pro-choice,' and then I explained why. And I'll bet you anything I got her vote."

Bloomberg and his circle are counting on candor and centrism to set him apart from the presidential field. (He is open about almost everything except his presidential ambitions, which he cloaks, for now, with humor. In speeches last week, he joked that he had gotten a warm greeting from fellow trick-or-treaters in New York who said they wanted him to run for higher office. The punch line: "I have to confess that I was wearing a Stephen Colbert mask at the time.")

For months the chatter in New York political and social circles has centered on whether tensions between Bloomberg and his mayoral predecessor may be driving Bloomberg's interest in the presidential race. Publicly, everything between the two men is sweetness and light, but the Giuliani-Bloomberg relationship is fraught. Giuliani's people believe Bloomberg is taking too much credit for successful New York City government policies—on public spending and crime in particular—that were undertaken by Giuliani, and they fear Bloomberg's potential $1 billion bid for the White House. "You can be sure that Rudy's not happy that Mike keeps toying with a run for the presidency," says Herman Badillo, a former congressman and city official who once was a prominent Democratic power broker and who is now a Republican. "I know Rudy quite well. He feels that Mike wouldn't have been elected without his endorsement."