Mayor Michael Bloomberg (Ind.) has had a pretty good month.

The economic crisis shoved him into the national spotlight and gave him the opening he needed to make a bid for a third term. As lawmakers negotiated a bailout deal in Washington, Bloomberg stayed in close contact with the key players. Both Barack Obama and John McCain turned to him for his economic advice.

This is something of a change of course for them, after largely ignoring Bloomberg's key concerns-the environment, gun control, infrastructure and education reform.

Back in February, when he formally ended his own quest for the presidency in a New York Times  editorial, Bloomberg wrote that he would support whichever candidate would end the partisan bickering in Washington and who best embraced "a new urban agenda."

They have not. And now, with just weeks to go, Bloomberg is yet to make an endorsement.

For the Obama campaign, Bloomberg is just one of many influential voices.

"Senator Obama has been speaking with a number of knowledgeable people about how to fix our economy, and believes that Mayor Bloomberg has established himself as a significant voice in our national debate on this topic," Obama spokesperson Blake Zeff wrote in an email.

There was one instance of Bloomberg being asked to validate McCain's assessment of the economy. While addressing the crisis on Wall Street, Bloomberg was asked if he agreed with McCain's statement that the fundamentals of the economy were strong. Bloomberg said he did, citing the country's strong work ethic.

Until September brought the collapse of several major Wall Street firms, Bloomberg had played almost no role in the presidential race, said Robert Shapiro, a Columbia University political science professor who specializes in public opinion and presidential elections.

"I haven't seen any particular indication of that," Shapiro said. "I think he's been drowned out by Sarah Palin, the financial crisis and the conventions."
If he intends to change that in the little time remaining, Bloomberg needs to make an endorsement, something Bloomberg seems unwilling to do.

"I've listened to both candidates and I want to make sure that, for as long as I can, I have a good dialogue with both, that I can give them my views and the perspective of New York," he told Tom Brokaw recently on Meet the Press.

While in London, Bloomberg told reporters he knew who he would vote for in November, but still declined to endorse either candidate, saying he would not want his personal choice to jeopardize New York's chances of receiving help from the federal government if the financial crisis deepens.

Even though urban issues are largely absent from the campaign trail, Obama's website includes a link to the candidate's stance on "urban prosperity," which includes detailed approaches to issues like poverty, homeland security, education and housing. McCain's website does not include a specific link but addresses many of the same issues.

Robert Shrum, a Democratic consultant who was the senior strategist to the 2004 presidential campaign of Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, agreed that outside of being sought out for his expertise on the economy, Bloomberg has played almost no role. Big cities mostly vote Democratic, Shrum said, which may explain the candidates' reluctance to even talk about urban issues.

"The city is going to be carried by Obama," Shrum said. "It's not that Bloomberg is mayor that makes him so influential. It's that Bloomberg is Bloomberg."
Shrum agreed that Bloomberg should endorse a candidate if he wants more of a role. Shrum, an Obama supporter, suggested his candidate, since the Democratic nominee hails from Chicago and actually has an urban agenda.

"A lot of the stuff Bloomberg cares about, Obama's been talking about," Shrum said. "I think when McCain has to talk about anything other than foreign policy or national security, he has the expression of a five-year-old going to the dentist."

When talking about the economic crisis, the candidates have shifted the focal point from Wall Street to Main Street in an attempt to connect with voters in battleground states. They are, in a sense, ignoring New York, which will feel the sharpest effects of the crisis, said Ed Rollins, the former Reagan aide who was national chairman of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's (R) unsuccessful campaign for the Republican nomination.

"I think certainly a city like New York is going to have far more problems than they ever thought, especially with layoffs," Rollins said.

Bloomberg could try bringing some of the focus back to New York, but he is too embroiled in his own efforts to amend the city's term limit laws, Rollins added.
William Cunningham, Bloomberg's former communications director, admitted that the candidates have been addressing some urban issues, but only peripherally. What they seem to forget, Cunningham added, is that urban issues can also be of interest to voters outside of major cities.

"If you were to discuss the issues of New York City, you would have tremendous impact on Westchester, Nassau, Suffolk, Northern New Jersey," Cunningham said. "Here's a way to talk about urban issues and realize that suburban and urban interests are many times the same."

Of course, McCain and Obama can be forgiven for not including environmental sustainability and infrastructure repair in their stump speeches, given the distressing financial news of the day, Cunningham said. Like it or not, this is where Bloomberg is finally getting his chance to have a substantive impact on the campaign.
"It's not that he doesn't want a chance to talk about the falling bridges," he added. "It's that, you know, there's something much bigger that's falling."