Well like Trump he is a billionaire.
Like Trump he is engaged in the process of taking over a party on the way to the presidency.
Like Trump his history with political parties is inconsistent.
Like Trump his history with regard to cultural war issues is all over the place
Like Trump he is dogged with charges of racism and sexual abuse.
Like Trump he has been closely involved and very familiar with the media
He has more of his own money to spend on this project than Trump
and a lot more employees with a lot more skills relevant to political campaigns,
He is hiring many talented people with salaries twice what otherr candidates can offer
and he is hiring them through the election even if he does not win the nomination,
which says he is interested in controlling the Democratic party
The New York Time has a lot of articles about him, but Ross Douthat sums up the question:
The Bloomberg Temptation
Will the Democrats try to replace Donald Trump with a power-hungry plutocrat?
"In our era of congressional abdication, all presidents are prodded or tempted toward power grabs and caesarism. But Bloomberg’s career, no less than Trump’s, suggest that as president this would be less a temptation than a default approach. And the former mayor, unlike the former “Apprentice” star, is ferociously competent, with a worldview very much aligned with the great and good, from D.C. to Silicon Valley — which means that he would have much more room to behave abnormally without facing a Resistance movement of activists and journalists and judges.
To choose Bloomberg as the alternative to Trump, then, is to bet that a chaotic, corrupt populist is a graver danger to what remains of the Republic than a grimly-competent plutocrat with a history of executive overreach and strong natural support in all our major power centers.
That seems like a very unwise bet. Democrats who want to leverage Trump’s unpopularity to move the country leftward should support Bernie Sanders. Democrats who prefer a return-to-normalcy campaign should unite behind a normal politician like Amy Klobuchar. Those who choose Bloomberg should know what they’re inviting: An exchange of Trumpian black comedy for oligarchy’s velvet fist."
I would never vote for Bloomberg in a primary (and if I'm being honest, not for Bernie either) But if I have to choose between him and Trump in November, I'll go blue. Third party candidates are a wasted vote.
ReplyDeleteAs we say:
DeleteNo Matter Who
Vote Blue!
Hmmm. Looking at the trump administration, and at his donors, it seems the velvet fist of oligarchy is already holding the country hostage. Given a choice of oligarchs, I’ll take the one who seems at least somewhat more sane, and who may realize that running a campaign based on hate for “the other” is not a good thing. No more stop and frisk based on race. I prefer Amy, but she may be too normal for Americans these days.
ReplyDeleteBloomberg also evicted Occupy Wall Street from Zuccotti Park. Add this to stop-and-frisk and you can see the authoritarian mindset of the man. He has a dozen times the intelligence of Trump but he has no magic with the masses which is Trump's scariest characteristic. I would vote for him versus Trump knowing he doesn't have a googly-eyed army behind him.
ReplyDeleteWall Street made Bloomberg his fortune. Those hedge fund traders are his customers and, I expect, his friends. He's not going to be too sympathetic to the Occupiers.
DeleteExactly, Jim. The Wall Street people are real to Bloomberg. The rest of us, perhaps as a blurry mass. But at least he understands the climate problem. But it will take more than technofix to fully address it
DeleteFWIW, Trump didn't spend his way to the presidency. Among his political skills (which shouldn't be underrated) is that he is sort of a publicity savant. At one point during the 2016 campaign he bragged about how under-budget he was for the campaign, because the media kept giving him oceans of free publicity.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if that is better or worse than Bloomberg's approach, for whom the phrase "spend his way to the presidency" seems a good deal more apt. I do think Bloomberg would be considerably more competent in office, and I believe he would have considerably less drama. I agree that his background is less than pristine. The other candidates don't have perfect backgrounds, either. Neither do I, for that matter.
All he has really done so far is spend a few truckloads of money on ad buys. Let's see how he does on a few primary ballots. Jean said something once to the effect that Democratic voters need to fall in love. If there are voters with a crush on Bloomberg, I haven't seen evidence of them yet.
"Democrats fall in love, Republicans fall in line" is an old truism that didn't originate with me. There may be a kernel of truth in it, which doesn't exactly speak well of either party's mentality.
DeleteAs a woman who expects women to be treated with respect, I might have to cut off my voting hand after pulling the lever for Bloomberg.
"Republicans fall in line"
DeleteWe've seen the truth of that part since 2016.
Let's not go over the top in derogatory assessment. Bloomberg has successfully run a major corporation and a major city. Trump has blown an inherited fortune, stiffed lenders and contractors large and small and run several departments of government into the ground. As a private citizen, he was down to Deutschebank to subsidize his stupidities, and now it appears he has even lost that. He conceivably could go from presidency to homelessness before he is through.
ReplyDeleteBloomberg is a long plunge away from "another Trump." He is not my first choice, nor is he my fondest desire, but if he is the nominee, I am not going to get a stomachache if I vote for him.
My oldest son, who works in the financial services industry, has said that Bloomberg actually made his fortune by inventing something useful, the Bloomberg Terminal. My son is one of the "ABTs". I believe that crowd is growing, which is a good thing, if they can just unite around a single candidate after Super Tuesday.
DeleteBloomberg has an electrical engineering degree. And he made a lot of money with it, advancing data presentation and organization for Wall Street. One relative told me that she was going to vote for Trump to see what a businessman could do. However, I can think of one very successful engineer/businessman who became president, Herbert Hoover.
DeleteCheck out this column by Clarence Page. I didn't expect him to say anything kind about Bloomberg. But he contrasted him favorably with Trump.
ReplyDeletePage is always worth reading. Thanks.
DeleteP.S., The link didn't work for me. Maybe this one?
https://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/ap_news/clarence-page-trump-vs-bloomberg-more-than-a-twitter-battle/article_82d149f2-091b-56ac-bda8-b0864a36abe2.html
For a counterpoint to Page, see Helaine Olen in WaPo: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/02/14/mike-bloomberg-isnt-anti-trump-juggernaut-he-seems-be/
DeleteInteresting how many sentences about Mike start with "At least Bloomberg ..."
Jean: unfortunately that article is behind a paywall.
DeleteJimmy, sorry. I'll stop trying to be helpful and just give author, source and title from now on and let people go google if they want. If it's behind a payroll or people have shot their max number of articles, at least they can't blame me for a problem with the link.
DeleteAnother sign of Democratic brain deadery: The non-Mike candidates, led by Bernie Sanders -- who is old enough to know better -- hollering that Bloomberg is trying to "buy the election." Bloomberg, who is running against Trump in his ubiquitous ads and not against Bernie or Amy, has pledged to spend all it takes to beat Trump no matter who the Ds finally end up with. And Trump, citing the likes of Bernie, will keep tweeting (and the media will keep reporting) the Democrats "are trying to buy the election."
ReplyDeleteBecause they always play into his pudgy, short-fingered hands. Because they are too brain dead to make friends with the mammon of iniquity.
I'm not hearing many who don't have a selfish reason to want Bloomberg sidelined squawking about him "buying the vote". The ones who have a selfish reason (and I'm not saying they may not also have unselfish reasons) would be the candidates seeking their own nomination, and the news outlets (I'm looking at you HuffPost and Vox) which thrive on keeping the pot stirred. I feel that there are a lot of people on the ground who are serious about denying Trump a second term. And who will unite around a candidate once they have someone who is the front runner.
DeleteBloomberg gets the competence prize, and the doesn't-suffer fools gladly crown.
ReplyDeleteRudy Giuliani preceded him as mayor (aka "America's mayor"), who was a show boater then and is now a deranged show boater.
Bloomberg was followed by DeBlasio who seems totally incompetent and foolish, but is not a show boater.
One of the curiosities of NYork crime politics (which doesn't mean stop and frisk was a good idea) is that African-Americans are as keen on being safe as all other Americans, and they often support policies that include tough enforcement, longer sentences, etc. They may not have been "woke" then, but they are still alive. I keep thinking generational shifts are at work on this issue as so many others.
Chicagoans: Note the NYTimes story today on African-American Chicagoans: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/16/us/black-families-leaving-chicago.html
I had a problem getting past the "rectangular house" in the suburbs in the first paragraph. Most houses are rectangular. Sometimes there is a rectangular addition to a rectangular central area. Rectangles are easier to vacuum, sweep and hang pictures on. Marina City condos don't seem to be rectangular, but those are condos. Marquette University had a round Sandburg Hall, but that was a dorm, and they tore it down. Indians have teepees that were not rectangular, and neither are igloos, but you don't see many teepees and igloos in suburbs. Now, what were we talking about?
DeleteI was a bit off-topic there with the Chicago story--distracted.
DeleteBut... Did you notice that the 10th para...which is: why did this exodus happen:"They have been driven out of the city by segregation, gun violence, discriminatory policing, racial disparities in employment, the uneven quality of public schools and frustration at life in neighborhoods, whose once-humming commercial districts have gone quiet....."(and so on).
Notice the family that is the center of the story: one daughter moves for better suburban school, father follows because wife has dementia, two daughters buy and still live in the family house in Chicago, and one granddaughter moves to Houston where she has a good job. How exactly did all the awfulness described in para.10 move this family (or some of it) to the suburbs. And the father drives back everyday to admire the city house he left on Laporte Avenue!
I guess that explains the focus on the "rectangular house." The house they left and the house they moved to--both rectangular! Deep.
Peggy, thanks for that link to the NY Times Chicago story. Even though it was about an African-American family, it seems to me that the reasons they have for leaving or staying aren't rooted very strongly in racial identity or racial discrimination. I've known white families who have left for similar reasons.
DeleteWe moved to the suburbs because we thought a suburb would be safer for our children, and the schools would be better.
The granddaughter in the article who moved to Houston is part of a macro trend; I hope her story exemplifies that African-Americans are sharing in the prosperity in other parts of the country.
I understand the grandfather's desire to drive through the old neighborhood. I like to go back to places I've previously lived in, look at the houses that used to be home, and see how the neighborhood has changed. Maybe that's a common feeling for people who have been uprooted.
Bloomberg's viability depends largely upon his ability to attract African American and young voters. If either or worse both of those groups have many people who are not inspired to vote for a candidate, the Democrats are in trouble. We should get a good picture of the extent of this problem on super Tuesday.
ReplyDeleteI don't know, Jack, if you are seeing Bloomberg ads, which run fore and aft of the evening news on all stations here (and many other times), but one of the major ones features Obama more than it does Mike. Obama has all the best lines, too, except the one that ends "and I paid for this ad."
DeleteTom, we're getting the Obama/Bloomberg ads here in Illinois, too. Viewers may be forgiven for concluding that Obama has endorsed Bloomberg.
DeleteTom,
DeleteLike Pope Francis, I no longer watch Television. Gave it up after Trump. I see American's addiction to TV as laying the foundation for Trump.
I did read Bloomberg's op-ed in which he claims he too is for doing something about wealth inequality.
Did anyone else read the book, "Climate of Hope: How Cities, Businesses, and Citizens Can Save the Planet", that Bloomberg co-authored with Carl Pope?
ReplyDeleteCharles Blow has reasons that Bloomberg shouldn't be president. First two paragraphs:
ReplyDelete"It is truly a devastating sight to watch liberals who have winced for years at Donald Trump’s issues on wealth, race and women allow fear, propaganda and influence mercenaries to push them into supporting a man who has his own issues concerning wealth, women and race.
"It is jaw-dropping to see people who have long centered morality and conviction as their guiding light willfully say that they are willing to forgo all that. How many of them relentlessly chastised the religious right for supporting Trump, who openly disregards many of their tenets? Some of these very same people are now willing to do exactly the same thing as Trump."
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/16/opinion/michael-bloomberg-2020.html?te=1&nl=david-leonhardt&emc=edit_ty_20200217&campaign_id=39&instance_id=16054&segment_id=21350&user_id=7bba122dbc8acf5289c69a5c9f2867a2®i_id=8740796120200217
Jim, I get the reasons not to vote for him in the primary (which I'm not even eligible to do). But in the hopefully unlikely scenario that he gets the Democratic nomination, one has to balance him against Trump, and he comes out ahead.
DeleteI hope Bloomberg was sincere when he said he would support whoever does get the nomination if it isn't him.
I'll tell you what is a truly devastating sight: It's seeing so many NYTimes liberals line up against anybody who isn't Amy Klobuchar without saying what it is about Once in Love with Amy, whom they barely know, that makes her, and only her, acceptable.
DeleteWho are all these liberals you guys keep talking about? Goes for Charles Blow too...The liberals I know (who don't consider me a true-blue) are all over the map.Were Biden...now okay with Pete or Amy. Could live with Bloomberg, but not their favorite. Honestly one of the younger ones still in for Gabbard or Yang (now gone--but is thinking of running for mayor of NYC--didn't even know he lived here!) Only Commonweal editors are still on for Bernie!
DeleteSo are any of them still for Warren? Sad that she flamed out early, or so the narrative goes. Don't know that she is down for the count yet, though.
DeleteI read Blow as saying that Bloomberg isn't virtuous enough to be a Democratic candidate. Then who is sufficiently virtuous? That is the logic that leads to a candidate like Barack Obama: someone who is too young and inexperienced to compile a track record with disqualifying public blots/sins. To be sure, Obama worked out just fine for Democrats. I guess there have been a few similarly young/inexperienced candidates on offer this cycle (Yang? Gabbard? Booker?). Buttigieg has the youth; but the resume, though thin, seems to have one or two blots on it already.
DeleteThey're dissing Klobuchar too for something that happened when she was a prosecuting attorney. Apparently someone was convicted on sketchy evidence given by witnesses who changed their story. I've got news for them, prosecuting attorneys prosecute. I doubt if any of them have a totally pristine record.
DeleteIt's unfortunate that the longer someone has been in public office the more ammo there is for their opponents to use against them.
Unless Wednesday's debate "clarifies" things some more, I may skip the Michigan primary. Or pick Someone-Not-Biden-Or-Bloomberg.
DeleteI don't expect Dems to carry Michigan in any case. Trump has held at least two rallies here since December, and no Democratic candidates or their minions have bothered. As a swing state, you'd think Warren could at least send her dog while she's busy losing in South Carolina and Nevada.
Jim: "I read Blow as saying that Bloomberg isn't virtuous enough to be a Democratic candidate."
DeleteThis may sound a teeny bit cynical, but can anyone who gets to be a presidential candidate claim to be virtuous. Consider our presidents:
Slaveholders: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Monroe, Jackson (who else did ethnic cleansing of the Seminoles),Van Buren Harrison, Tyler, Polk, Taylor, Johnson (our first impeachable), Grant....Jefferson owned 600, Grant owned 1.
How many adulterers? Well there's FDR, JFK, LBJ and who knows who else.
Probably a few thieves and murderers who have gone unrecorded.
Peggy, yes -there are no angels on the ballot. But some things are showstoppers and some aren't. When Hillary appeared on the general election ballot in November 2016 she was spattered with mud, perhaps due in part to James Comey, and it is thought that may have contributed to her defeat. Yet nobody is muddier than Donald Trump, the Original Pig (c). Why did Hillary's mud fail the purity test but apparently Trump's didn't? It's a mystery.
Delete"Why did Hillary's mud fail the purity test but apparently Trump's didn't? It's a mystery." Jim, I don't know, but it seems possible there might be some sexism involved!
DeleteRepublicans don't look at morality as much as what a candidate can do for their business, labor issues, and taxes. I suppose Republicans have to claim to be for Jesus and against abortion as a matter of course. But a candidate keeping his pants zipped up and his head out of the Richard M. Nixon Book of Dirty Tricks isn't high on their list of important stuff. George W. Bush also showed that brains don't matter much as long as you can do.what you're told.
DeleteI don't think Warren should be counted out. I saw a lot of enthusiasm for her in the caucuses to choose delegated here in Lake County, Ohio. She could easily pick up the Bernie people. She has made clear she is a capitalist even though she also has proposal like include labor representation on boards, and a wealth tax. And she would be our first woman president. I think she could unite the party.
ReplyDeleteI could go for her. Time will tell.
DeleteIrrelevant factoid, my niece has met her dog.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteAs it happens, the following text popped up on my Android phone earlier today:
ReplyDelete"Hi I'm Rhonda from Mike Bloomberg's campaign. With so much at stake, Americans deserve a Democratic candidate who can beat Donald Trump. Will you support Mike?"
I think this is the first time a campaign has ever texted me directly. Naturally, I'm wondering if this conversation somehow gave the Bloomberg campaign the idea that I'd support it; that would mean that they can take my ID from this blog, correlate it with my cell phone number, and blast out a text. I suppose that is Kindergarten stuff for the social media marketers these days.
They're in our thoughts, stealing our brains!
DeleteJim,
DeleteDon't get paranoid. I got a letter a few weeks ago from him. A friend of mine got a text. Neither of us have much of any relationship with Bloomberg. I suspect he is sending out a lot of these, not very targeted.
The text bombardment is ramping up. Apparently, sending unsolicited mass texts is illegal, so politicians assign a squad of volunteers to click numbers individually to get around the loophole. Yet another reason to be cynical about Bloomberg and his ability to buy the media coverage he needs.a
DeleteHere's a pretty good round-up of what's happening: https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/elections/2018/10/26/political-text-messages-during-elections-and-they-legal/1754424002/
My phone is rigged to accept calls only from numbers in my "contacts" list. Raber takes any and all calls because they might be prospective customers and gets more unwanted messages.
For what it's worth, my Facebook feed is full of Bloomberg stuff today as well.
DeleteI texted back a message saying, "Please remove me from your list." I figure the two most likely reactions are a complete ignore or a guffaw.
DeleteOh, you lucky people. This close to March 17, and I haven't has my annual robocall from Beeeel Clinton yet. Rs are rushing to change their registrations to D so they can vote in the Democratic primary. I don't know who they favor, but watch which D carries Jacksonville, and that's who it will be.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting about the Rs switching to D. I know a few of them as well. Wonder how many "never Trumpers" are going to flip.
DeleteOn a couple of occasions I've requested a Democratic ballot on primary voting day, in order to weigh in on a local or statewide race. Republicans are so irrelevant now in Illinois that, for purposes of affecting statewide race outcomes, voting in the Republican primary is like voting in the Flat Earth Party primary.
DeleteJim, The law in Florida is that party primaries are closed to all but registered party members -- but if the winner of a primary will be unopposed in the general election (win the Democratic primary, and you win the election because there is no Republican running), then everyone can vote in that primary. This has led to phantom candidates who file in the other party or as independents but never run, which keeps the party primary closed. It has also led to a lot of people who change their registration (allowed up to two weeks before an election) for fun or to make trouble for the people they hate. Which means the party members can't control their parties.
DeleteWhen I was working in Kentucky, two Republicans decided they wanted to run for the state Legislature. The county was so Democratic that they may have been the only two Rs in it. But they were opponents. When the sheriff saw them on the sample ballot, he was so indignant about them "butting into our primary" that he was going to arrest the both of them until a judge and I convinced him their presence was OK.
If Bloomberg wants to connect with flyover states and rural America, he needs to get better informed. I don't know, maybe he doesn't want to connect, and thinks the east and west coast tech world and financial sectors will carry him to victory. I don't know if it's a case of hubris, or just a case of not thinking outside his particular box.
ReplyDeleteDemocracy Now had almost an entire show on Bloomberg. He is not only buying commercials but donating to progressive organizations and stifling or muting criticism. His enormous fortune is being used skillfully by a team of very savvy gamesters. A section on his targeting of Muslims was dropped from a report following a big donation to the preparing organization. Democracy Now has these interludes with video and music. Videos of Bloomberg were accompanied by the theme music from Goldfinger. Hilarious. Question is: even if Bloomberg can spend his way to be the Democratic nominee, will his money machine be able to turn the Trump faithful?
ReplyDeleteHe has a big problem with rural America, which supported Trump. See above link.
DeleteYes, that's a very ignorant and arrogant statement Bloomberg made about farmers. But, at some point, will Bloomberg buy off or even buy the Omaha World-Herald? But would Bernie say something like that? I'd expect him to consider the gobbling up of small farms by agribusiness to be a bad thing. And Vermont has farms, too.
DeleteStanley, the World Herald has been sucking swamp water for a long time. It just got sold by Bershire Hathaway to Lee News, a large conglomerate. Kind of bad when Warren Buffet sells his hometown newspaper. One of my sons used to work there. But he couldn't afford to stay there with a growing family. They held raises for something like five years. Maybe they're still holding them.
DeleteYes, Bernie would be better for farmers and ranchers. I actually don't think Bernie is wrong about many things. I just think with that socialism albatross around his neck he can't beat Trump.
Hi Katherine.
DeleteSorry to hear about local newspaper woes. TV and the internet are not good substitutes.
I wonder sometimes if midwesterners know how much farming is done in northeastern states. NY, PA and even NJ (the Garden State) have lots of farmland. I just took a little weekend trip to Gettysburg and Lancaster. And, in the Poconos where I live, still a lot of farmland. One evidence of change are the mega warehouses that support Amazon et al. Always built on nice flat formerly productive farmland.
A pretty simple and straightforward explanation for a Bloomberg win:
ReplyDelete"To say that Bernie Sanders and Michael Bloomberg are different is one of those statements that is at once both entirely true, yet woefully insufficient.
"For all the differences that separate the Vermont senator and the former New York mayor, though, the most profound one is very simple: They offer divergent theories of what the 2020 presidential election is all about. Mr. Sanders believes Democratic voters are ready to overthrow the system. Mr. Bloomberg thinks they merely want to overthrow President Trump."
Gerald Seib, Wall Street Journal, 2/18/2020, p. A4
Seib goes on in the column to line up various reasons and pieces of "evidence," that the Democratic electorate is more interested in getting rid of Trump than getting rid of the health-care system.
This makes a lot of sense since most discussions on best candidate end with: Can he/she beat Trump?
Sorry no link.
I can't remember any elections involving an incumbent in which beating him wasn't a primary goal of the out party. The only wrinkle this time is that no one has a line on how to beat someone who, by all rights, beats himself almost every time he tweets but has a strong following.
DeleteJoe Biden thought the answer was name recognition. It appears that maybe D voters know Joe too well. Bernie Sanders says the answer is to mobilize the too dumb, too lazy and too hopeless to vote. We will know how well that works by two weeks from today. Mayor Pete thinks the answer lies in acing all the tests. Doubtful, but he is still viable. Mike Bloomberg thinks the answer is money. It never hurts. Amy Klobuchar thinks the answer is Minnesota Nice. How will that play in South Carolina? Answer coming soon. Elizabeth Warren thinks the answer is delivering the right message with passion. It's too soon to say if it's the message that isn't right or a case of not enough passion, but she has been fading. We will know more about that two weeks from today.
Any of them should give Trump a run for his money. Democrats need to settle on one of them without inflicting too many cuts on whomever is the last candidate standing.
Delete