The Other Thing About Michael Bloomberg

Writing about the possibility of a 2012 presidential run by Mayor Bloomberg, yesterday we said, "he can't be bought by the special interests." The New York Post has an article today on the flip side of that, which is that in the marketplace for interests, Mr. Bloomberg is a buyer, not a seller. The Post reports: "A $750,000 payment from Mayor Bloomberg's campaign was delivered to a mysterious Albany company that wasn't even created until one month after the November elections, The Post has learned. In an unusual transaction, Bloomberg's campaign last month sent a $1.2 million check to the state Independence Party -- and the party in turn transferred $750,000 to a previously unknown firm called Special Election Operations. The Independence Party appears to have kept the remaining $450,000. Special Election Operations has no Web site, isn't found in any Internet or database searches, and was incorporated with the state on Dec. 3, about a month after Bloomberg won re-election as an independent."