Right now, I think about Michael Bloomberg as this kind of shadow presidential candidate.

He's always sort of around, but he's never quite there.

He hasn't turned up on a debate stage.

He won't be on a ballot for weeks.

But if you watch TV or open up Facebook, you cannot

avoid this guy. It is a national crisis. Maybe you caught the ad he bought for the Super Bowl,

the one about his campaign against gun violence. When I heard Michael S stepping into the ring,

I thought, now we have a dog in the fight.

Or there was that ad trolling President Trump ahead of the State of the Union.

The real state of the union? A nation divided by an angry, out-of-control president.

Bloomberg has even made an ad featuring endorsements from dogs.

I like Mike. I lick Mike.

There are Mike Bloomberg ads everywhere.

I'm Mike Bloomberg's dog. I approve this message.

Isaac DeVare says the thing about being a billionaire is that someone like Mike Bloomberg can be the center of attention before he says much of anything.

It's not just the ads.

No one before he was running for mayor or even now would describe him as like a natural politician.

He just knows that he's the most important person there, at least in his mind, right?

Isaac has covered Bloomberg's political career for more than a decade.

I mean, like I've had a conversation with him, for example, where he ran through all of his favorite movies with me.

That conversation is small talk, I guess.

But like, it was his favorite movies. He wasn't asking about yours.

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