We caught up for a few minutes today with Bradley Tusk, the campaign manager for New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Bloomberg, like Charlie Crist, was initially elected as a Republican.

Bloomberg dropped his party affiliation in his second term and was elected as an independent. Crist is expected to keep his Republican registration, but wants Florida voters to elect him to the U.S. Senate as an independent. (Background on Crist’s announcement today here.)

Bloomberg also considered running for president as in independent candidate in 2008.

There are many differences between Crist and Bloomberg, but the biggest has to be cash. Fundraising has never been a political calculation for Bloomberg, who pays for his own mayoral campaigns and could finance a presidential run if he wanted. Crist is famously cheap, but could not be considered wealthy.

“When you don’t raise a penny from anybody, you can really govern independently. You’re inherently seen as independent,” Tusk said. “When you change affiliation on the last possible day, you may not get that benefit.”

Bloomberg has helped other independent candidates, who he identifies on an issue-by-issue basis. Tusk said they haven’t considered helping Crist.

Tags: Bradley Tusk, Charlie Crist, independent, Michael Bloomberg, Republicans

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 29th, 2010 at 1:44 pm and is filed under 2010 campaigns. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.