Republican billionaire John Catsimatidis hasn't shut the door on another longshot run for New York City mayor.
"I hope Bill de Blasio does a good job next year so I don't have to think about running," Catsimatidis, who ran a losing
mayoral campaign in 2013, told the
New York Observer.
"Look, I'm interested in our city, I love our city, and maybe Bill de Blasio runs for president and there will be an opening."
The unorthodox candidate suggested the Rev. Al Sharpton is trying to persuade President Barack Obama to get de Blasio involved in a 2016 presidential run.
"I think Al is trying to influence Obama to run de Blasio," he told the Observer, which notes there's no other evidence to support Catsimatidis' theory.
The newspaper reports Catsimatidis privately says he'd be a strong candidate against liberal Democrat de Blasio, but in his interview with the Observer, he was anything but confrontational.
"I think Bill de Blasio has his own ideas about things and is trying to govern according to his own ideas," he told the Observer. "There's only one very, very large item that me and Bill de Blasio disagree on: I'm a New York Yankee fan and I think he's still a Boston Red Sox fan."
Catsimatidis funded his own 2013 mayoral run, losing the Republican primary to Joseph Lhota, a former aide to Mayor Rudy Giuliani,
The founder of the Gristides supermarket chain and realty company the Red Apple Group would face long odds if he decided to take on de Blasio, the Observer notes, given the Democrat-heavy demographics of New York City.
The last incumbent to lose was Democrat David Dinkins in 1993.
Castimatidis has kept his hand in politics, however. He hosts a
radio show on Sunday mornings on which he often interviews elected and appointed officials from both Republican and Democratic ranks.