Andrew Grossman, a top-tier Democratic operative who founded an anti-Wal-Mart group is on board with Bill Thompson’s 2009 campaign. (Thompson is widely expected to run for mayor).

Grossman was described as a “political strategist” in this story about the comptroller's campaign spending, and a Thompson campaign aide explained Grossman’s role as “a general consultant", adding, "He’s helping put together the infrastructure of the campaign.” Grossman was paid $39,500 between March and July of this year, according to records with the city Campaign Finance Board.

Grossman comes to the campaign with considerable skills as an organizer. According to the bio on his company’s web site, Grossman worked at the Senate Democratic Campaign Committee from 1999 to 2003.  read more »

Doug Schoen, who worked on Michael Bloomberg's mayoral campaigns, is still making the case for him to be the running mate on someone's ticket. But yesterday on Chris Matthews' Hardball, some reporters weren't buying the argument.

Perry Bacon of the Washington Post said, according to a transcript:  read more »

Michael Bloomberg drew some fire last week for donating $500,000 to state Senate Republicans just as Eliot Spitzer is trying to help Democrats take over the Senate.

A minor-but-interesting side-detail about that working relationship: As late as 2006, the New York State Senate Republican Campaign Committee was paying thousands of dollars in consulting fees to the firm Penn, Schoen & Berland, which was co-founded by Hillary Clinton’s top strategist Mark Penn.  read more »

Michael Bloomberg's pollster Doug Schoen will appear on John Gambling’s WABC show at 10 a.m. tomorrow morning to talk about his new book, according to a source.  read more »

So here’s a great example of the elegantly compartmentalized P.R. strategy being employed on Michael Bloomberg’s behalf, where the official, earnestly delivered line out of the City Hall press office is that it’s New York-centric business as usual, even as the likes of Kevin Sheekey and Doug Schoen drop ever-stronger hints that it’s not.

During an appearance by Bloomberg’s spokesman Stu Loeser last night on NY1, the subject turned from the mayor’s State of the City speech to the ever-present presidential rumors, as host Rita Nissan pointed out that Schoen had told the L.A. Times that national polling is being done and “also, one of the mayor’s top aides confirmed to us that polling is going on to test voter sentiment across the country.”

“Is polling happening?” she asked.

Loeser responded, “You’ll have to ask Doug about what Doug said and you’re going to have to ask whoever your sources [are] about that. The mayor is completely focused on governing the city and that’s what we saw in today’s speech.”

Depends, I suppose, on what your definition of “completely focused” is.

Time columnist Joe Klein created a stir at the Council on Foreign Relations earlier today when he suggested that "an element of unwitting sabotage" may be behind Bill Clinton's series of apparently off-message comments while campaigning on behalf of his wife.

Klein speculated: "He's worrying, 'Maybe she's going to be a better president than I was'."

He also suggested that Clinton was ambivalent about his wife’s candidacy because, alongside those fears, "Consciously, I think that he sees her [possible] election as president as the final validation of his presidency."  read more »

Michael Bloomberg is conducting polls in all 50 states, the most concrete sign of his interest in running for president, reports the AP.

"They want a hard-headed sense of their chances,'' said Doug Schoen, who spearheaded Bloomberg's voter database efforts, known as microtargeting, for his two mayoral campaigns.

In November, Schoen told an audience at Baruch College, “Let me just say at the outset I don’t think he is going to run.”

What changed?

I got scooped on posting my own video of Michael Bloomberg (yet again) blowing off steam over another 2008 question.

At a press conference this morning, I asked Bloomberg about the upcoming book from Doug Schoen, the pollster employed by Bloomberg during his two mayoral campaigns. The book's title seems to fit Bloomberg's message perfectly: “Declaring Independence: The Beginning of the End of the Two-Party System.”

Although he called it a ridiculous question today, the mayor was more forthright when Brian Lehrer asked him about it earlier. "I don’t think that either national party stands for anything," Bloomberg said in that interview, which you can see here.

My ridiculous hunch (to go with my ridiculous question) is that a Huffington Post story about Bloomberg's use of a tutor for national and international issues was a signal of sorts that it's okay to ask him about policy now -- and that we should probably stop wasting our time seeking new sound bites of him beating up on the national parties.

Doug Schoen, a noted pollster Michael Bloomberg has relied on for two mayoral elections, and who may be called upon again should Bloomberg enter the presidential race, is coming out with a new book entitled “Declaring Independence.” [via Steve M.]

The subtitle of the book is “The Beginning of the End of the Two-Party System.”

Schoen wasn't interested in talking about the book when I reached him on his cell phone. (It was out of character that he even answered). When I asked about his book, he replied “Thanks so much,” and hung up on me.

More after the jump.

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