Posted on 02/19/2020 10:10:55 AM PST by Kaslin
Bloomberg is rising in polls and just qualified for the debate stage in Nevada, but a question nags: who really wants Bloomberg to be president?
Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s massive campaign spending—hundreds of millions of dollars and counting—appears to be paying off. One poll this week showed Bloomberg tied with Sen. Bernie Sanders in Virginia, each with 22 percent, and after garnering 19 percent in a national poll released Tuesday, Bloomberg has qualified for the Democratic presidential debate tonight in Las Vegas.
At first glance Bloomberg’s poll surge suggests the New York billionaire has a real shot at challenging Sanders, the current Democratic frontrunner, for the nomination. That in turn has prompted some pundits, including my colleague David Marcus, to speculate on whether Bloomberg should be taken seriously—not just as a contender for the Democratic nomination, but for the White House.
Don’t let these new polls lead you astray. Not only is Mike Bloomberg not going to be president, he almost certainly isn’t even going to be the Democratic nominee.
Why? For one thing, polls can only tell us so much (just ask Joe Biden). But the most straightforward reason is that much of politics is about charisma and likeability, and Bloomberg is excruciatingly bland and unlikeable. In that way he’s like an anti-Trump—a male version of Hillary Clinton, or a Joe Biden with all the baggage and none of the charm.
Consider one version of the pro-Bloomberg argument, that he’s a no-nonsense billionaire who can get things done. He’s even more successful than Trump!
This misapprehends Trump’s appeal. Trump didn’t just bring a billionaire businessman persona to the 2016 election, he brought charisma and an entire media brand. He was a household name, a TV celebrity and an entertainer in his own right, and had been for decades.
Trump could dismiss CNN and MSNBC because he personally had a bigger platform than those outlets. Millions of Americans didn’t just know him as a successful businessman but also as a showman and an entertainer who is good, if not great, with a crowd—funny and even weirdly charming at times.
Bloomberg has none of that. Until recently, most Americans likely knew him as the New York City mayor who tried to ban Big Gulps. Before long, they’ll know him as the billionaire who bought his way into the Democratic primary, or as the guy who couldn’t explain the information economy without insulting farmers and factory workers, or explain health care without arguing it’s a waste to give health care to old people. Or maybe as the boss who told a female employee to kill her baby.
Style and personality aside, Bloomberg’s candidacy has no coherent narrative, a fact attested to by his almost comically vapid campaign slogan, “Mike will get it done,” as meaningless and uninspiring as “Make America Great Again” is brilliant. Get what done, Mike? A soda ban?
The absence of a rationale for his campaign stems from the plain fact that in the current scheme of American politics, a socially liberal fiscal conservative like Bloomberg has no natural constituency. Think of it this way. Trump has more or less reshaped the GOP into a socially conservative, fiscally liberal party. (For all intents and purposes, fiscal conservatism has no home in American politics right now. You don’t pass a $1-trillion-and-a-half tax cut and then run up a $1-trillion-and-a-half deficit and still get to call yourself a fiscal conservative.)
On the other side, the increasingly socialist post-Obama Democratic Party is both socially and fiscally liberal. Sanders, for example, wants to spend he doesn’t even know how many trillions on universal health care and socialized college, along with whatever other spending a Green New Deal might call for. The other leading Democratic candidates are more or less on board with this, as they must be in a party now ruled by identity politics and the promise of free stuff.
Bloomberg doesn’t fit in either camp. His appeal is to the socially liberal, fiscally conservative voter—an increasingly rare species in American politics but one that nevertheless preferred Trump over Clinton in 2016. So far, Bloomberg hasn’t been on a single ballot or earned a single vote. His momentum, such as it is, consists mostly in social media ads and media hype.
Maybe, as my colleague Christopher Bedford has argued, Bloomberg isn’t really running for president, and his campaign is really just a super PAC masquerading as a campaign to buy him influence over the eventual nominee. At this point, that would make more sense than the idea of a candidate who repels almost every category of voter having a serious shot at the White House, let alone the Democratic nomination.
Or maybe it’s worse than that. Maybe the point of “Mike can get it done” is nothing more than a meaningless, astronomically expensive exercise in vanity.
Bloomberg: 78
Biden: 77
Sanders: 78
Bloomberg and Sanders apparently have stents, and Sanders’s stent came post mi.
Biden doesn’t have a heart nor a brain.
Democrats - The Real Party of Old White Men
He’s got a good chance to win. Professional pundits are clueless.
A lot rides on this debate. If Bernie comes out blasting away and Bloomberg delivers a marginal performance, then I think Bernie has the inside track to have enough delegates to carry the first round, and walk out of the convention as the candidate.
Funny how soon ole Joe's star has plummeted.
“She may say she doesn’t want to be POTUS, but in reality...”
Can you imagine zero running around the White House un-tethered?
“Millions of Americans didn’t just know him as a successful businessman but also as a showman and an entertainer who is good, if not great, with a crowd—funny and even weirdly charming at times.”
“Good ... weirdly charming” with a crowd? I think this writer sells DJT short.
Honestly, is there any statesman since Reagan who connects with regular Americans like Trump?
Don’t rule out plain old bad strategy. That happens all the time. Bee Bee is like the altTrump—a white rich guy from NYC. Of course, that’s where the comparison ends. But this just might be a poorly conceived campaign strategy. Sort of a “fight Trump with a Dem version of Trump” tactic. Fight fire with fire, and so forth. I wouldn’t underestimate the Dems capacity for stupid ideas. It’s the one area in which they gloriously excel.
American women will not vote for a short stature d man as President
My suggestion for provoking him into self-defeating anger:
Bloomberg's obvious Achilles heal is that he is a real life "Mary Poppins" without the ability to levitate via an umbrella. What distinguishes him from other totalitarians is the obsession with imposing "Nanny State" behavioral values on the rest of us. We should focus on his lack of proportional judgment by referring to him as a "Mary Poppins" without the "teaspoon of sugar."
Try it.
Mike may be the best of a bad bunch.
Biden is suffering from dementia.
Mayor Pete has trouble running South Bend.
Amy has trouble managing help.
Big Liar has small chance.
Never Was never will be because she appears to be a phony.
‘Bloomberg: 78
Biden: 77
Sanders: 78’
and in June Trump will be 74...
Trump’s career as businessman is so 2016. It’s already been “litigated”.
Interesting to see who the superdelegates were in 2016 and how so few supported Bernie, most all supported Hillary. Click on the state to see who they are and who they supported. Hillary probably still controls many superdelegates and not a one will vote for Bernie. https://ballotpedia.org/Superdelegates_and_the_2020_Democratic_National_Convention
If the impeachment thing hadn’t come along and all that Hunter stuff hadn’t come out....I think Joe would still be in the race. But that swallowed up Joe entirely....he’s finished off and might not even get a chance to give a speech at the convention.
Really funny, twenty-odd people throughout all last summer, and it’s really down to a down-and-out millionaire communist, a kid-mayor who has a 3x5 inch index card resume, and a billionaire whose biggest appeal is that he’ll have Hillary Clinton as his VP.
The kid mayor is polling in last place bringing up the rer, you can cross him off the list. It’s Bernie and mini-mike
‘American women will not vote for a short stature d man as President’
they love mayor Pete...go figure...
Every time I see headlines like this, I flash back to headlines like “Why Rick Perry is Going to Be the Next President”.
Dykes and such + queers
Everyone is missing what is really going on. The DNC and the swamp in particular is being squeezed from both ends of the political spectrum. Antifa Bernie Bots and The Squad on the left, and true conservatives that back Trump, even with all his faults, on the right. The Swamp through the DNC has tried to take out Trump and failed repeatedly. So they are going to take out the Angry Berd and his supporters. It is the only way they can stop the attack on the swamp.
2020 is all about the swamp protecting itself. It is not about winning the prez. The DNC is doing everything to keep at least 3 viable candidate running to the end. That is why Soda Boy came in. He has the money to go to the end no matter what. The DNC and Hitlery failed in 2016 because there were only 2 candidates, and Bernie won the majority of votes, but was screwed by the awarding of delegates...specifically super delegates that rigged it for Hitlery. They can’t allow this fraud to be so obvious again, especially after Iowa, or the Antifa Bernie Bots will bern down the convention.
A 3-way split of delegates means no one wins on the first ballot, so the super delegates choose. That is when you get a brokered convention. The DNC is going to purge the Antifa Bernie Bots and The Squad from the party. Pelonium only went with impeachment because of The Squad, and it has blown up in their faces. This is the payback. Bernie and his supporters are going to be purged. And just like last time, the Angry Berd will be paid off under the table, and will wimp out and support the “nominee”. His supporters will never be fooled again, and this will be the permanent split from the DNC that the swamp wants.
Bloomberg is here because he has the money to remake the DNC into a “centrist” party. The Clinton machine is winding down, and 0zer0 is not stepping up. So Bloomberg is filling the void. He has the money and contacts to remake the DNC and get control of ALL that donation money. He really doesn’t want to be prez. He wants to be kingmaker.
The DNC will target Rinos and Dinos and Never Trumpers. There is a reason why Pierre Defecto did what he did. You can already see they are recruiting. They will use their money in a hail marry bid to hold the house, retake the senate, and control as many state govts as possible. Then they can keep Trump mired in endless investigations, impeachments, and state sanctuary revolts. This is a grand realignment of american politics taking place. Far Radical Left. Swamp Middle. True Conservative Right. I don’t think their plan will work, mainly because you never get a winner by combining two losers. But they don’t have any other option, so they have to try. The Swamp is going all in on staying alive, so they can regain total control in 2024.
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