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Big Gulp: Scott Brown Snags Key Michael Bloomberg Endorsement (JWF)

As much as I detest Michael Bloomberg, keeping shrieking banshee and 0/32 Cherokee Lizzie Warren out of the United States Senate is imperative. But this is difficult to stomach.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, one of the most outspoken defenders of Wall Street, has sided against one of the financial industry’s biggest critics in a hotly contested Senate race in his native Massachusetts.

Mr. Bloomberg has agreed to host a fund-raiser at his Upper East Side town house for the re-election campaign of Senator Scott P. Brown, a Republican, who is being challenged in the November election by a fiery consumer advocate, Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat who is also a professor at Harvard Law School.

Naturally, none of this is about Brown, who's apparently happy to sacrifice his pride and self-dignity for the money sure to roll in for what's expected to be the most expensive Senate race in the nation. It's all about the Tiny Tyrant and his anti-gun obsession.

Mr. Bloomberg, through a spokesman, said his endorsement was not about Wall Street at all, but about his desire to reward Mr. Brown for voting against his party and the National Rifle Association on a gun control measure.

“If you take a tough stand and buck party orthodoxy that helps the City of New York, the mayor would like to support you,” Mr. Bloomberg’s spokesman, Stu Loeser, said Thursday.

Mr. Bloomberg has long been a supporter of more restrictive gun laws, and founded, along with Mayor Thomas M. Menino of Boston, the group Mayors Against Illegal Guns. Mr. Bloomberg has been emphasizing the need for gun control in the wake of the mass shooting last week in Aurora, Colo.

The need for gun control? What need? New York City has some of the most prohibitive gun laws in existence. A lot of good that does in cities such as New York or Boston.

I'd suggest criminal control, but that would be racist.

The Boston rag has a unique twist on Bloomberg.

Bloomberg, an independent, has made a career of shunning party orthodoxy.

He has infuriated Republicans by banning the sale of large sodas, pushing for stricter gun laws, and seeking to impose congestion pricing on motor vehicle traffic into the city. At the same time, the mayor has angered Democrats by defending Wall Street and refusing to endorse President Obama.

New York is a city of 8 million that includes about 12 registered Republicans. It's not just the GOP that sneers at the Nanny State King over his ridiculous calorie-counting measures. I'm not sure how they lump in congestion-pricing either. When the folks affected are overwhelmingly Democrat voters, it's safe to say gouging drivers is a bipartisan annoyance.

Unfortunately, Bloomberg wields influence and pols of both parties will alienate supporters by getting in bed with him. For what it's worth, despite his professed independence of party orthodoxy, Brown would probably gain more support nationally telling Bloomberg to take a hike. It's his misfortune he got to pander to a lot of Massholes.