Michael Bloomberg

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg gave the inaugural Presidential Lecture at Dartmouth yesterday.  It was a very engaging hour, spent roughly half in lecture mode and half in Q&A.  I think mayors are fascinating people to put in front of students.  Most public policy issues have a local dimension, and in many cases -- health, education, the environment, for example -- local actors will play very important roles.  And mayors are the people we elect to get things done.  According to Bloomberg, what's the most important public policy issue facing the nation?  Immigration.

Enjoy!

I grew up in New York City, worked as an intern at City Hall for John Lindsay, and later joined his campaign in Florida. So as I read the ABC News blog last night quoting former Mayor Ed Koch talking about Rudy Giuliani's impending exist from the Republican presidential race and saying that being the CEO of NYC is a political dead end, it brought back memories of my father telling me the same thing when I was about 11 and I indicated I wanted to be mayor.