Trump, Clinton, Sanders dismiss Bloomberg presidential run

Christie said Bloomberg was a good mayor but refused to evaluate whether he would make a good president, saying until someone officially is in a race and offering policy ideas, there’s no basis on which to make an evaluation. “I think I’d do very well against it. I would love to see Michael Bloomberg run”.

“I haven’t spent a lot of time thinking about Mayor Bloomberg, or what he might or might not do”, Rubio said on “Fox News Sunday”.

Sen. Marco Rubio downplayed Bloomberg’s potential bid as just talk. He sits in third place in Iowa polls behind Donald Trump and Ted Cruz with 12.2 percent, according to averages of recent polling compiled by RealClear Politics.

While left-leaning on issues such as abortion rights and gun control, Michael Bloomberg crosses towards the right of the political spectrum when it comes to business and fiscal issues, positioning him somewhere between the two traditional parties.

Fading candidate Jeb Bush, for his part, praised Bloomberg as “a good man” and a “great mayor” but stopped short of anything kinder.

“The way I read what he said is if I didn’t get the nomination, he might consider it. Well, I’m going to relieve him of that and get the nomination so he doesn’t have to”, Clinton said in an interview with the NBC broadcaster’s “Meet the Press”. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Sen. The former first lady and US senator from NY is in a tight battle with Sanders going into the first nominating contests of 2016. Republican candidate Donald Trump remains confident of his chances at the presidency in view of a possible challenge from Michael Bloomberg.

“And the second thing is, I don’t think the people of this country want to give more power to billionaires at this point”.

Bloomberg’s deadline for making a final decision is early March, which marks the latest date that he could enter the race and still qualify to appear as an independent candidate on the ballot in all 50 states. And Bloomberg would have to actually launch an independent bid for president, something he threatened to do on Saturday. A confluence of unlikely events in the 2016 election, however, has given new impetus to his presidential aspirations.

Clinton acknowledged that Bloomberg had gotten her attention – but suggested the threat could be irrelevant.