Bharara out but may still be in the running

ALBANY — Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara’s firing Saturday immediately ramped up the rumor mill in New York’s political circles.

Bharara has long been the subject of speculation as a potential candidate for something. Mayor? Governor? It just so happens that his office — or old office if he really is not being brought back — has an ongoing investigation into the de Blasio administration and the mayor’s fund-raising operation.

He also has an open pay-to-play and bid-rigging case involving associates of Gov. Cuomo, including former top aide and close friend Joseph Percoco. De Blasio is up for reelection in November; Cuomo in 2018. Bharara has long denied an interest in running for public office, but few in New York’s political circles actually believe that.

There’s numerous examples of U.S. attorneys who went on to successful political careers.

One of Bharara’s predecessors in the U.S. attorney’s office is Rudy Giuliani, who served two terms as New York City mayor.

Chris Christie parlayed his position as a U.S. attorney into the New Jersey governorship.

No doubt Bharara would make a formidable challenger to anyone he ran against. He has the record and, for the most part, an adoring media. But does he have a political base and a way to raise money?

Bharara lives in Westchester County. A challenge against de Blasio, whom Bharara’s nowformer office is still investigating would be difficult as well as unseemly. The same could possibly be said for a run against Cuomo, of whom Bharara is clearly no fan.

“Now he’s just a a guy with a low name ID (in the polls), a lot of enemies, and is someone the editorial boards liked at one point,” sniffed one Democratic insider.

Even if he wants to challenge Cuomo, there are all sorts of road blocks. Cuomo has a $22 million head start and a political operation. Bharara does not. Many of the Democratic political establishment aren’t necessarily huge Cuomo fans but just as many, if not more, despise Bharara, whom they see as a grandstander.

Perhaps he would get a boost from his former boss, Sen. Chuck Schumer, who could lend his support and access to his vast fund-raising network. Schumer has not had the warmest of relations with Cuomo.

There’s no doubt that if he decided to take the plunge, he would do so by highlighting his corruption-busting record while promising to continue that work from the governor’s office.

But that’s easier said than done, as both Eliot Spitzer and Cuomo have found.

Spitzer, as attorney general, was branded as the Sheriff of Wall Street for his investigations into the financial sector.

Even without the hooker scandal that ultimately brought him down, Spitzer the governor quickly learned that being a steamroller matters less in Albany if it is not accompanied by the subpoena power prosecutors so enjoy.

Cuomo, too, ran on a promise of cleaning up Albany — one that has time and again proved difficult to deliver on, in part because of an entrenched Legislature and the prosecutions by Bharara office.

Cuomo, meanwhile, would likely try to paint Bharara’s probes into his office — one that yielded indictments, one that didn’t — as well as some of the jibes the prosecutor sent his way as politically motivated and designed to pave the way for a run for governor.

All eyes will likely now be on Bharara’s newly created personal Twitter account for hints of his future and whether he is, as his musical hero Bruce Springsteen sings, born to run. As Bharara himself likes to say: Stay tuned.