Mayor Michael Bloomberg insists it’s “too early for a campaign,” but his is up and running. The team moved into its midtown Manhattan headquarters this week and the billionaire businessman is already making quiet moves to weaken his competition.

The Democrat-turned-Republican-turned-independent has just snagged Democratic strategist Basil Smikle, a former aide to Hillary Rodham Clinton who until a few months ago was working for one of Bloomberg’s chief opponents, Democrat Anthony Weiner. Smikle joins a growing team of left-leaning campaign staffers who might have gone to work for other Bloomberg opponents if the mayor hadn’t snapped them up.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg is doing everything he can to avoid looking preoccupied with politics while the city grapples with devastating budget cuts and the financial crisis worsens by the day.

“At the moment, it’s much too early” for campaigning, Bloomberg said this week. “I’ve got to do a good job, and if I don’t do a good job I have no chance of getting re-elected.”

By this time in 2005, Bloomberg already was planning a lavish $100,000 campaign launch party for mid-February, had received his first endorsement, and had spent more than $3 million on office space, staff and building his expansive polling and advertising operations.

The former CEO would go on to spend $85 million by November, compared with $10 million spent by his opponent.

He insisted this week that his re-election operation wouldn’t even be operational until summer.

But Bloomberg 2009 has begun — and hiring potential foes is just one winning tactic that Bloomberg is replicating from his past mayoral bids.

He also is assembling a database to tailor his messages, like he did in 2001 and 2005. The idea is to create a profile of every New York City voter by compiling a range of data: whether the voter owns homes, what kind of car he drives, what type of computer she uses, what magazines he reads.

The practice, known as microtargeting, is common in presidential campaigns — and Bloomberg has tapped President Barack Obama’s guru, Ken Strasma, to head his effort. Bloomberg’s trusted pollster, Doug Schoen, who has worked for President Bill Clinton, also will be back on board.

Bloomberg has been known to spend tens of millions on polling and microtargeting, and he is expected to do the same this year.

(Source: WCBSTV)