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WHEN almost half of Amer icans say they're "mad as hell" at politics and politicians, you have the makings of an electoral groundswell.

When 81 percent of Americans say they'd be willing to consider voting for an independent candidate for president, you have the makings of a political revolution.

Okay, the rhetoric may be a bit overheated, but the American electorate is hot, angry and now, for the first time, afraid. We were always sure the future would be better than the past, but no longer.

The national mood is not just anti-incumbent, and it is not just anti-Republican.

Thanks to a whole lot of federal failures - Katrina, illegal immigration, wasteful spending, perceptions of economic stagnation and political corruption - we have become anti-Washington.

A credible presidential independent will be someone who is not tied to the Washington political establishment but can point to a record of results.

He (or she) will say "no" to the lobbyists and special interests but still have the financial means to run a serious national campaign. Such a candidate will attract considerable attention - and perhaps some serious votes.

There's only one person in America who fits the bill: New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg...

... Right now, Bloomberg would grab 17 percent of the vote in a hypothetical race against Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton. And he receives 21 percent of the vote in a contest against Sen. John McCain and Clinton.

He is coming to seem, more and more, like the Republican equivalent of Sen. Joe Lieberman: a man seemingly out of place in his own party.

Bloomberg, in fact, identifies strongly with the defeated Democrat from Connecticut. "I think what they're doing to Joe Lieberman is a disgrace," the mayor volunteered when I met with him in his offices in July, shortly before anti-war bloggers helped Ned Lamont beat Lieberman in the primary. Lieberman lost not because he supported the war in Iraq, Bloomberg insisted, but because "he's been willing to say what he believes even if it doesn't help the, quote, party." The mayor was as apoplectic as he gets - not quite angry, exactly, but deeply, deeply annoyed. "My point is that there are things you've got to stand up for," he said. "And when we are intolerant of opposing views, what does that say about us...?"

A few days later, Bloomberg was offering to campaign for Lieberman - and political observers wondered whether the move wasn't a calculated way to pull in support among centrist Democrats for Bloomberg '08. Although the mayor has frequently dismissed the possibility of a self-financed presidential run ("Which letter in the word 'no' do you not understand?"), he has recently turned more coy. At a dinner party this spring, he noted that he had half a billion dollars to devote to a bid for the White House, the kind of cash that would enable him to completely bypass the political parties. And in August, Bloomberg had dinner with Al From, the head of the Democratic Leadership Council and the centrist kingmaker behind Bill Clinton's run for the presidency. (Bloomberg, long a Democrat, switched parties to run for mayor.)