US News

MIKE’S SECRET BID TO RUN VS. SPITZER

A top aide to Mayor Bloomberg has secretly contacted one of the state’s best-known Republican strategists about helping Bloomberg run for governor – against Gov. Spitzer or anyone else, The Post has learned.

The aide, Deputy Mayor Kevin Sheekey, told former state GOP Chairman William Powers late last month that Bloomberg was “open” to running for governor in 2010, sources said.

“Sheekey told Powers that he’d like to talk about the governor’s race, and they’re going to do it,” said a source.

“I think it’s also fair to say the mayor wasn’t happy with the governor’s recent attack on him over driver’s licenses and, partly because of that, it’s also fair to say he’s open to running against Eliot,” the source added.

Spitzer raised eyebrows in late September when he blasted Bloomberg for being “morally wrong, ethically wrong” in opposing the governor’s controversial plan to give driver’s licenses to illegal aliens.

Sheekey has long been associated with steering Bloomberg – who must leave office at the end of 2009 because of term limits – toward entering next year’s presidential campaign as an independent.

But the mayor himself has publicly insisted he has no intention of running for president.

A recent Siena College poll showed Bloomberg, who quit the Republican Party earlier this year to become a political independent, easily defeating Democrat Spitzer, 50 to 37 percent.

Bloomberg’s margin of victory over Spitzer was even more impressive in heavily Democratic New York City, where the poll showed he’d defeat the governor, 59 to 31.

Powers, an Albany-based lobbyist since 2001 and currently co-chairman of Rudy Giuliani‘s New York presidential campaign, was the hard-charging GOP leader who took the reins of a then-struggling state Republican Party after the disastrous gubernatorial campaign of Pierre Rinfret in 1990.

Under Powers’ aggressive leadership, the party recovered quickly, re-electing then-Sen. Alfonse D’Amato in 1992, helping elect Giuliani as mayor in 1993, and, in his greatest coup, helping then-little-known state Sen. George Pataki defeat then-Gov. Mario Cuomo in 1994.

Powers’ son, Jason Powers, has conducted polling research for Bloomberg’s mayoral campaigns.

The Post revealed earlier this year that Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno (R-Rensselaer) had told political associates that he was convinced that Bloomberg – a strong political ally – was interested in running for governor in 2010.

Bloomberg, however, responded at the time that he wasn’t interested.

Hizzoner, a multibillionaire with a 75 percent job-approval rating, is widely described by Republicans and Democrats alike as the most formidable potential candidate against Spitzer in 2010.

fredric.dicker@nypost.com