Opinion: And you thought Hillary was polarizing

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New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s flirtation with a presidential bid has had a dreamy-eyed media playing effeuiller la marguerite. He’ll run! He won’t. He’ll run! He won’t. Will he?

But that daisy may have already wilted under the California sun. According to the Field Poll, one quarter of the state’s registered voters said they’d consider voting for Bloomberg — but two thirds said they’d definitely not.

Why so disenchanted, and so soon? It may be that Bloomberg inadvertently fell into the Thompson trap, by not entering early enough to capture the public’s imagination. And left-leaning Californians (including the ever-growing population of decline-to-staters) might feel their choices among the Dems are more than ample, thanks all the same.

Unfortunately for a Bloomberg bid, politics this season has been fun. At Monday’s Democratic debate in South Carolina, the audience gasped, laughed or cheered at nearly every jibe the candidates threw at one another. No matter how they felt about each contender, they weren’t going to let favoritism get in the way of having a good time.

If Bloomberg was ever planning to run, he was probably looking to walk into a race that needed a little shaking up. But starting with Iowa and New Hampshire, the ground has shifted so often that it’s hard to believe the mayor could ever get solid footing on his own.