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Kevin Sheekey, the wunderkind deputy mayor and the shrillest, most relentless cheerleader for the abortive Bloomberg '08 campaign, had his dreams of riding Bloomberg's coattails to a more prestigious job dashed when the Mayor ultimately decided not to run. But now he's aggressively pursuing another course to get his foot in the White House: hyping Bloomberg as the ideal VP choice for both McCain and Obama. Sheekey has been fanning the Bloomberg veepstake flames "like some kind of meth-addled pyromaniac," as John Heilemann aptly put it in New York. His blunt argument for why Bloomberg is such a perfect pick for the candidates? Because he's loaded. Sheekey went on NY1 recently and proclaimed that Bloomberg would be able and willing to contribute as much as a billion bucks to any ticket he might end up on, a naked attempt to entice the McCain and Obama camps with Bloomberg's fortune. Sheekey learned his lesson from Bloomberg's called-off presidential campaign: while even the most incessant attempts at persuasion can fail, bribery's always a safe bet.