Does someone who isn't running for president really need a D.C. communications operation?

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg does.

He's recently hired a full-time public relations manager, Lindsay Ellenbogen, to join New York City's Washington office. Ellenbogen, who served most recently in the office of Sen. Mary Landrieu, Louisiana Democrat, is listed at the deputy director and public relations manager of New York City's D.C. office.

Even though the mayor told Dan Rather this week he's not running and won't be elected president (note: this is a rough, tough-to-read transcript of the program), he's stepping up his Washington presence.

The mayor says his goal is to "influence the dialogue" -- and next up on that account is an address to the Brookings Center on Children and Families' poverty briefing here in Washington on Tuesday.

To win the speaking slot, Bloomberg, who has an anti-poverty agenda for New York, even beat out presidential candidate John Edwards, a Democrat who has made combatting poverty the central theme of his campaign.

As Campaigns and Elections magazine reports, Bloomberg has a habit of upstaging the official candidates.

The Washington Times reported earlier this year Bloomberg was prepared to spend $1 billion on an independent presidential bid, and his interest in being part of the "dialogue" sounds an awful lot like another potential candidate, Newt Gingrich, the former Republican House speaker whose American Solutions project is his own attempt to keep in the mix.