Photograph of Mayor Bloomberg and British PM David Cameron from the NYC Mayor's Office

Watch out, America—Mayor Bloomberg is suddenly super chatty. Yesterday, the NY Times published an article about his presence in various political races across the country—it was his "first extensive interview with a newspaper in several years"—and today the NY Post has a feature on his shoes (okay, two pairs of work shoes that he apparently loves so much that he's been wearing them for the past 10 years). This smells a lot like groundwork for 2012!

The NY Times notes, "New York’s billionaire mayor, whose flurry of activity is stirring a new round of speculation about his presidential ambitions, is supporting Republicans, Democrats and independents who he says are not bound by rigid ideology and are capable of compromise, qualities he says he fears have become alarmingly rare in American politics." However, he doesn't think the Tea Party is going to stick around ("Look, people are angry. Their anger is understandable...[But] Anger, however, is not a government strategy. It’s not a way to govern"). And he's into interested in a job in the Obama White House, "I don’t know what the next thing is... I am not an adviser; I am not an analyst. You know, I am a doer." Oh, and he didn't say whether he'd endorse President Obama, and mentioned how his business friends feel "vilified" by the president's policies.

The mayor didn't comment directly on the Post's shoe job ("both [pairs] are so well worn, with labels so long gone, that even Hizzoner himself can't remember what brand they are"), but mayoral spokesman Stu Loeser did: "The mayor owns only two pairs of work shoes... One day he'll wear one, the next the other -- and when they get worn down, he has them resoled... He could buy any shoes he wanted, but he likes these. They are comfortable, and they work, so he says there's no need for a new pair." The Post thinks that one pair is a discontinued style from Cole Haan and one cobbler says, "A pair of shoes like that could go 18 to 20 years if you put cream on them, shine them up, resole them every eight to nine months, and depending on how much you perspire, use cedar trees on the inside."