"I am not a candidate," Mike Bloomberg reiterated yesterday before having lunch with Ross Perot's former campaign manager, an expert on ballot access, the Dallas Morning News reports. Asked whether his presence in Austin, Texas was a sign, the New York mayor sniped, "I just said I'm not a candidate—it couldn't be clearer," the AP reports.
He may be feeling deadline stress: If he wants to be on the presidential ballot in Texas, Bloomberg would have just a week in March to collect more than 74,000 signatures—a tall order for anyone, especially someone who isn't running. His lunch date, Clay Mulford, is also Perot's son-in-law, and was a top official in his 1992 and 1996 presidential campaigns. (More Michael Bloomberg stories.)