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Manhattan, NY - New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is the man who has everything and, as he heads to reelection this year, shows every sign of hanging on.

Billionaire, helicopter pilot, Wall Street whiz and near invincible city politician, the diminutive but intense Bloomberg eats the Big Apple for breakfast.

Election day is not until November, but Bloomberg, 67, faces no heavyweight opponent, making his progress toward a third four-year term resemble a coronation.

The campaign began last October when Bloomberg, ranked 17th richest person in the world by Forbes magazine, cajoled City Council into lifting a two-term limit for mayors, despite limits having been approved twice by voters in referendums.

Bloomberg's aides indicate he is ready to pour 100 million dollars into his campaign -- pocket change to the city's richest man, with a fortune estimated at 16 billion dollars, but enough to scare off several potential rivals.

He has already spent almost 20 million dollars, including on a blizzard of television commercials, while his only real challenger, the little-known city comptroller, William Thompson, is struggling to be heard.

The sense of inevitability is reinforced daily in an endless, almost surreal parade of endorsements.

Last week the plumbers pledged allegiance, then the Chinese-American Business Women's Association, the New York City Department of Correction Hispanic Society, and for good measure, the Upper West Side Jewish Leaders.

This week, supporters ranging from a Brooklyn bishop to the Heat and Frost Insulators Union joined the rush. On Friday it was the turn of a Grammy-winning Puerto Rican guitarist.

By all accounts, Bloomberg really does have plenty to crow about. Even critics say he's done well since narrowly winning his first election in 2001.

Crime, the great scourge of New York until the 1990s, continues to drop annually, while quality of life measures enacted under Bloomberg, like banning smoking in bars and restaurants, have proved popular.

Not surprisingly for the creator of the phenomenally successful news and financial data company bearing his name, Bloomberg has serious organizational smarts and a business-like, rather than ideological manner.

That's welcome to New Yorkers who grew tired of Bloomberg's polarizing predecessor Rudolph Giuliani.

Bloomberg's rule is also in welcome contrast to the dysfunctional New York state assembly and imploding leadership of state Governor David Paterson.

Pensioner Marlene Litwin, 74, echoed many New Yorkers when asked for her judgment.

"I don't like him and I'm tired of him, but he has done a good job," Litwin said, while visiting an elevated railway that has been converted into a park with Bloomberg's support.

Bloomberg's trouble in getting people to like him seems to be the one thing money can't resolve.

Part of the problem may stem from the mayor's notoriously disdainful treatment of journalists.

Two weeks ago he called a reporter a "disgrace" for asking about the term limits change, and he snapped that a question about his campaign spending was "ridiculous."

In perhaps the most excruciating recent episode, he gave a dressing down on live television to a handicapped reporter who accidentally pressed play on a tape recorder and interrupted the mayor's speech.

And although Bloomberg tries to come across as a regular guy in one of his commercials by wearing a leather jacket, few New Yorkers are buying that.

Last month he provoked guffaws from critics when he described President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama as having to visit New York "on a budget."

Bloomberg, who can afford to take a symbolic one dollar salary as mayor, apparently did not consider that Obama earns 400,000 dollars for being president and has made millions of dollars in royalties on his best-selling autobiographical books.

Eric Lane, professor of government at Hofstra University law school, said Bloomberg has "done a really good job" but that the personality problem could catch up with him in his third term.

"The cumulative effect of all this stuff -- the money, the aloofness, the shortness of temper -- people will get tired of it," Lane said.

"They'll run against him. I think toward the end we'll have some pretty interesting blow ups."