So how much time do he and his senior aides actually spend on the project?

"He's the sort of person who always wants to believe the best about people," said a senior aide.

"He has a very personal view of what happened here," a senior aide said.

"This is what people want to hear about these days," one of his senior political aides said the other day.

"The issue is very simple," said one senior Democratic aide.

A senior Democratic aide said the measure would probably pass.

His senior aides still say he has no plans to change parties or become an independent.

"There's only so much you can tell people in that amount of time," said one senior aide to the general.

Two senior aides addressed those issues on television news programs today.

A senior aide said the Mayor had started working on the speech two weeks ago.