Supermayor Michael Bloomberg is going to poo-poo on such petty tyranny as "term limits," and run for the posish for a third time. Okay, weird, but not that weird, Ed Koch did it, and NY was just as scary in 1985 as it is now.

But while Bloomberg wants to abolish term limits all together, he's found an unlikely ally in Ronald Lauder, the guy who spent all of the 90's imposing those very same limits to begin with.

And of course, the puppet master behind it all will be the PR guy, Howard Rubenstein, who has an interest in keeping all his clients happy:

"Considering what's been going on in the economy, I felt it was my obligation," (Rubenstein) told us this morning. "It was a confluence of things," he explains. "I had clients, dozens of my clients, all wanting the same thing." Especially the big ones: developers Jerry Speyer and Steve Ross, chairman of the ABNY Bill Rudin, Rupert Murdoch, etc.

"Ronald has been a client off and on for years," Rubenstein said. He organized a breakfast between Lauder and Bloomberg, where Bloomberg was able to sway him by writing a "sunset provision" into the law.

Question: Does Rubenstein still count as a dark, shadowy figure if he's talking to the press about his role in Bloomberg's run? Eh, might as well put it all on the table now, so the tabloids with have less to gossip about in the upcoming months. Damn, just as it was getting good, too.