Who's Fixing Bloomberg's Little Term Limit Problem? Don Rubenstein, Naturally

After spending years of his life and over four million of his dollars to impose term limits on NYC politicians, cosmetics heir Ron Lauder has had a sudden change of heart, giving a major boost to Bloomberg's plans to run for a third term as mayor. As late as last Friday, Lauder's organization, New Yorkers for Term Limits, was fighting any change to the city's term limit laws. Now Lauder says the financial crisis convinced him there should be a one-time-only term limits change to accommodate Bloomberg. The Daily News marvels at his sudden reversal, and looks suspiciously in the direction of elite insider Howard Rubenstein, who brought the two billionaires together for a meeting last week. In a New Yorker story last year, Lauder's older brother Leonard said Rubenstein is "like an absolutely one hundred per cent legitimate godfather."