Trump registered as a Republican in Manhattan in 1987 and since that time has changed his party affiliation five times.

In a 2004 interview, Trump told CNN's Wolf Blitzer: "In many cases, I probably identify more as Democrat."

"Every four years someone announces for President and says 'This will be a different kind of campaign.'

It never is.

There is a proven method of organizing a Presidential campaign and no matter how they think it will work when they are in planning meetings at their summer home, when it comes to putting it together it ends up looking pretty much like every other Presidential campaign.

It's like an airliner. You can say you are going to build a 'different kind of commercial airliner' but, in the end, one airliner looks pretty much like every other airliner.

You would never confuse an airliner with, say, a bulldozer."

I said this for years with a great deal of self- confidence for having been doing this for many years and a great deal of self-satisfaction for being able to state it so succinctly.

Then Trump came down that escalator and flew a bulldozer right into the Oval Office.

When people say it is impossible for Bloomberg to skip all four of the February States: Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada and jump into the fray in time for Super Tuesday on March 3, I say "Oh, yeah? Keep your eye on that big yellow machine with the treads and that blade in front and see if it takes off."

Let me state that I am not a Bloomberg fan. Nor am I a Bloomberg critic. I don't know much about him, not having lived in New York for a single day while he was Mayor.

Bloomberg is worth approximately $55 billion, which is about 18 times more than Trump's $3 billion (via both Forbes and Bloomberg).

Bloomberg made his money building a company called Bloomberg, L.P. (Limited Partnership). When I was running around the Middle East in the mid-1990s, any hotel that had a prayer of catering to Western businessmen needed to have a Bloomberg terminal in the lobby and, if they were serious, another in the executive lounge.

Bloomberg recognized that access to solid, real time financial information was something people would pay a great deal for. Those terminals cost upwards of $20,000 per year.

Each.

Bloomberg has given donated some $8 billion to charities, and has signed the Bill Gates/Warren Buffett "Giving Pledge" in which the wealthiest Americans promise to give away at least half their wealth to good causes. It is not clear to me who decides what a "good cause" actually entails.

Bloomberg has already bought $30 million worth of advertising and it has had an effect. Since he announced he was running only about two weeks ago, Bloomberg is already at about four percent in the RealClearPolitics.com aggregate of national polls.

That puts him fifth place behind Joe Biden (27.8 percent), Bernie Sanders (15.6), Elizabeth Warren (14.2) and Pete Buttigieg (11.4).

He is ahead of Yang (2.6), Klobuchar (2.4), Booker (2.0), Castro (1.4), and Steyer (1.4).

Unlike Trump, Bloomberg has successfully run for public office and served 12 years as Mayor of a major American city.

As we know, well-known politicians from California, New York, and Massachusetts have traditionally believed they have a divine right to be President of the United States.

Can Michael Bloomberg do it?

I don't know, but I hear the mighty engine of a bulldozer starting up in the distance.

On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: Links to Trumps political history, to Forbes' thumbnail of Bloomberg's wealth, and to a discussion of what Bloomberg's company actually does.

The Mullfoto is of a sign on the side of a building in Alexandria, Virginia that seems suspicious to me.