NEW YORK -- Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he is going straight back to work after his record Election Day victory, and assured New Yorkers he has no interest in running for governor, president or any other public office.
"I couldn't make it more clear," he said Wednesday. "I will work, God willing, for the next four years for this city as mayor and then go into the world of philanthropy for my next career."
The 63-year-old billionaire former businessman said eight years in public office will be enough, and the charity work that follows will occupy him for the rest of his life.
Bloomberg appeared relaxed, if a bit tired, the morning after he steamrolled Democrat Fernando Ferrer on his way to a second term. His 20-point winning margin was the largest of any Republican over a Democrat in a New York mayoral race, beating Rudolph Giuliani's 17-point re-election triumph in 1997.
On the subway Wednesday morning, commuters stopped to congratulate the mayor, who said he has also been fielding numerous calls from well-wishers, including Yankees manager Joe Torre.
Bloomberg said his conversation with Torre was one of his favorites, as the two men shared a moment that "both of us have kept our jobs." Torre had considered resigning after the Yankees were eliminated during the playoffs this year.
Bloomberg won by a much smaller margin in 2001, boosted over the top by a last-minute endorsement from Giuliani less than two months after the World Trade Center attack.
"I love this city even more today, if that's possible, than I did four years ago," Bloomberg said at his victory celebration Tuesday night. "I will continue to lead it honestly and independently by always putting people's interests ahead of the political interests. That's why you hired me four years ago, and that's why you rehired me tonight."
Bloomberg's huge margin of victory gives him added strength to push an even more aggressive agenda during his next four years, starting with the more active role he plans to take in redeveloping ground zero. Bloomberg's win marked the fourth straight Republican mayoral victory in heavily Democratic New York City.
Ferrer conceded his loss with supporters at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel, where his grandmother once earned a living working in the kitchen. He often mentioned her and his rise from a poor neighborhood as an example of the "two New Yorks" he said he would unite and represent if elected -- a message that never caught fire.
"It was a fight worth getting into," Ferrer said. "Though of course I ran to win, I knew I could lose, so I ran first and foremost to raise a voice for those without one."
Bloomberg, a former Democrat, tapped his $5 billion fortune to bankroll his campaign and was on pace to equal his 2001 record of $74 million. He outspent Ferrer about 10-to-1.
The pile of money funded an avalanche of advertising -- more than $30 million worth -- that drowned Ferrer's skimpier airwave effort. Bloomberg's wallet also paid for an army of staffers and advisers who orchestrated a massive vote turnout and a precise campaign that was run like a business and managed to undercut Ferrer at every turn.
In another campaign appearance Wednesday, Bloomberg savored the victory at a Brooklyn bakery, keeping a promise to a man whom he first met on the campaign trail in 2001, and then visited the day after his first victory.
"He said, 'You guys come to our neighborhood ... and then we never see you,"' Bloomberg recalled of his meeting with Anthony SantaMaria. The mayor said he had replied: "Anthony, tell you what, whether I get elected or not, I will come back."
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