National League of Cities Conference

Myself, a few other ULCT staff members, and around 70 Utah local elected officials and staff are currently in Washington, DC for the Annual National League of Cities Congressional Conference. This morning four different US Senators shared their thoughts regarding the role of local government; Senators Norm Coleman (R-Minn), Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.), Christopher Dodd (D-Conn), and Joe Biden (D-Del). To be honest this turned into a session of 'campaign speak', with a lot of flattery and little substance.

The more interesting NLC speaker was George Stephanopoulous, host of ABC Sunday morning news show This Week. George spoke for 50 minutes without even hardly taking a breath, mostly addressing the national political landscape related to the upcoming presidential race. One interesting scenario mentioned by George is possibly the emergence of third party candidate...he suggested that maybe New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg might throw his hat in the ring as an independent candidate. Bloomberg, one of the wealthiest individuals in the world, has the advantage of financing his own campaign. And as Stephanopoulous suggested, if a crazy Ross Perot can get 19% of the vote in 1992 think what an articulate intelligent Michael Boomberg can do. Interesting possibility.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg for President? Stephanopoulos said he wouldn't be too surprised to see this occur.