Fueling the presidential fever, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg lately has crisscrossed the country in high-profile stops, among them pitching public works projects with California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
While Bloomberg is jetting about, Suffolk and State Independence Party chairman Frank MacKay, complete with his rattail coif and earring, is also on the road, but to far less notice.
Since September, MacKay says he has driven to 35 states and dropped 35 pounds along the way. His mission is to stitch together a patchwork of ragtag reform, independent and enviro-third parties to try to clear the way to the ballot for a potential Bloomberg presidential run.
While Ross Perot's former campaign manager Clay Mulford last week in Texas warned Bloomberg of the "terrible impediments" to getting on the ballot, MacKay has no doubt about the mayor's prospects.
"I guarantee you if he runs, he will be on the ballot in all 50 states," said MacKay. "What we're doing is laying the groundwork and we'll get him three-quarters of the way there with volunteers."
"Bloomberg would be our ideal candidate," said MacKay. "We're about giving the public another major choice who can speak directly with the public."
MacKay added he "doesn't give a damn about social issues" like school prayer and abortion because they have skewed the public debate. "The right wing and left wing have interfered so heavily with the candidates, you don't know where the real person is any more."
Within New York, MacKay has made himself a force by the relentless strategizing that he freely imparts to all sides, from Gov. Eliot Spitzer to Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno. Statewide, his party has 344,000 registered voters, though party officials admit many have no idea they belong to an organized party.
Locally, MacKay first made a mark helping Thomas Spota win his Suffolk district attorney's job and still exerts influence that far exceeds his party's numbers.
"No one should ever underestimate Frank," said Edward Walsh, Suffolk Conservative chairman. "If you look at his rattail and earring one minute, the next thing you know he's five steps ahead of you."
MacKay has also made missteps - his largest was failing to back Suffolk's Democratic County Executive Steve Levy in 2003. His bid to float Donald Trump's name for president also sunk like a stone.
Undeterred, MacKay last September went national, forming the Independence Party of America and making himself chairman. It's a vehicle he hopes Bloomberg will use in a potential run. MacKay, however, emphasizes that he is working separately from the mayor, though he admits frequent contact with top Bloomberg operative Kevin Sheekey.
MacKay has also become executive director of the Reform Party of America, another remnant of Perot's presidential runs in 1992 and 1996, which will give MacKay's new party instant ballot access in Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Kansas.
Just last week, MacKay also drove cross country, holding meetings in seven states on his way to Minnesota, where the state Independence Party elected professional wrestler Jesse Ventura governor in 1999. That party voted at a state convention yesterday to join MacKay's new organization.
At first, Diane Goldman, a Minnesota party vice chairwoman, said she thought MacKay was "a Don Quixote chasing windmills." But now, she has come around: "He's a real go-getter, a salesman and very capable."
While billionaire Bloomberg may still have to finance massive petition-gathering operations in states including California, Texas and North Carolina, MacKay's efforts, backers say, will assure not only far easier ballot access, but better positions on November's ballot.
"In Florida, it's the difference between having the fourth spot on the ballot or the 26th," said Thomas Connolly, the new party's director for ballot access. "If you're that far down, you're only going to be elected mayor of Munchkinland."
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