New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said today he was not a candidate for the post of US president in 2008 despite speculation that he quit the Republican party to prepare to run as an independent.
A day after announcing he was no longer a Republican, Mr Bloomberg (65), said - as he has before - that he intended to serve as mayor until the end of his term in 2009.
"I think they are wasting their time. I am not a candidate," Mr Bloomberg told reporters when asked about his name coming up in presidential opinion polls. "They should get down to polling on people who are candidates."
"I have said that my intention is to be mayor for the next 925 days," said the billionaire founder of financial data and media firm Bloomberg LP., insisting that remained his plan and he wanted to pursue more philanthropy when his term ended.
Mr Bloomberg said yesterday he was leaving the Republican party to bring his affiliation into alignment with how he led the city. But with the November 2008 vote more than 16 months away, not all New Yorkers were taking him at his word.
Mr Bloomberg was a Democrat who became a Republican to run for mayor in 2001 in a city where the Democratic nomination is viewed as harder to win. He was re-elected as a Republican in 2005 and is barred from seeking a third term in 2009.
"If you are independent it just gives you a flexibility and the more I thought about that the more I think it felt right," Mr Bloomberg said today.
The mayor has governed on economic issues as a fiscal conservative but is more liberal on social issues such as gun control and gay marriage as well as the environment.