Posted on 02/21/2020 5:13:02 AM PST by Kaslin
Wednesday night in Las Vegas, Mayor Mike Bloomberg learned what it is like to be thrown up against a wall and frisked.
At the opening of the Democratic debate, his first, Mayor Mike was greeted by his nearest neighbor on stage, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, with this warm welcome:
"We're running against ... a billionaire who calls women 'fat broads' and 'horse-faced lesbians.' And, no, I'm not talking about Donald Trump. I'm talking about Mayor Bloomberg."
Bloomberg was not only charged with misogyny and sexism but racism for his stop-and-frisk policy, which the NYPD pursued during his three terms as mayor. By Bloomberg's own admission, stop and frisk singled out black men between 16 and 25.
Undiscussed were the positive results of the policy.
Gun homicides in New York fell to levels below those attained by his predecessor, Rudy Giuliani. And if those most often frisked were black and Hispanic men, the lives saved and the woundings prevented were also mostly those of people of color.
Yet, a question that remains after this debate was one that was puzzling even before the debate.
Why did he do it? Why did Bloomberg, who is not on the Nevada or South Carolina ballot, decide to join the debates before these contests?
Today, the mayor's campaign is probably buying tens of millions of dollars in ads to undo the damage done to him under the remorseless fire on his character, campaign and record from his rivals Wednesday night.
These attacks were predictable and predicted. Why did he submit to this? Who counseled Bloomberg to climb into the ring?
By investing $350 million in ads in primary states since November and crafting scheduled appearances while avoiding adversarial talk shows and candidate debates, Bloomberg had propelled himself from nowhere into the top tier of candidates in every state on Super Tuesday.
Why did he abandon a winning strategy to walk out, unprepared, onto a stage full of enraged and exasperated rivals who think he is buying and stealing a nomination for which they have fought for a year?
Why did he volunteer to enter a forum where he had to know his rivals would become a flash mob before he answered his first question? This was campaign malpractice of historic dimensions.
It is going to take hundreds of millions of dollars in new ads to undo the damage done to Bloomberg's reputation among the millions of voters who got their first impression of the mayor from the debate.
Where does the race stand before Saturday's caucuses in Nevada?
Sen. Bernie Sanders, his energy restored after his heart attack a few months back, his lines honed by a year's repetition, was at the top of his game Wednesday night, fending off attacks and fighting back with a passion and ferocity that Bloomberg never exhibited.
With his popular vote victories in Iowa and New Hampshire, five national polls showing him taking the lead from Joe Biden, and contributions pouring in from his huge army of small donors, Sanders is the favorite to win in Nevada and man to stop.
But after Super Tuesday, March 3, he may be unstoppable.
A new Washington Post poll Wednesday shows Sanders with a huge lead among young voters and in a statistical tie with Joe Biden among African Americans. And he is flush with cash.
March 4 could see Sanders with an almost insurmountable lead that could have him enter the Milwaukee convention with a majority of delegates or a plurality so huge as to make it politically impossible for his adversaries to gang up on him and take the nomination away.
For who would be the beneficiary of such a robbery on the convention floor? The same Bloomberg his rivals described Wednesday night as a misogynist, sexist and racist.
Bloomberg's campaign is sounding the alarm that Sanders could soon amass an insurmountable delegate lead if the Democratic field stays split, and is urging the other candidates to drop out.
Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Vice President Biden are being told that if they do not get out of the race and clear the lane for the mayor, they will get a socialist as their nominee, and the party will deserve the fate November will bring -- a second term for Trump.
Bloomberg's strategist Kevin Sheekey was pointedly warned by staffers on Thursday:
"If Biden, Buttigieg, and Klobuchar remain in the race despite having no path to appreciably collecting delegates on Super Tuesday (and beyond), they will propel Sanders to a seemingly insurmountable delegate lead by siphoning votes away from (Bloomberg)."
As the other candidates cannot beat Sanders, Bloomberg's campaign is saying, they should step aside and clear the field for Mayor Mike. This would call for a spirit of self-sacrifice and measure of esteem for the mayor not evident on that stage Wednesday night.
Hah........good one.
He should have defended stop and frisk and would have won the debate.
The media proved that trump’s past is irrelevant. For the Democrats it is a different situation. Republicans are not caught up in the Cancel Culture and Republicans believe that the past is past. Democrats insist on absolute purity from the moment of birth. One cannot gain absolution for past sins in the Democrat Party.
So those Suburban women are going to go for a guy who talks about “fat broads” and “horse faced lesbians”.....a guy who had numerous sexual harassment claims against his company that he bought off and who told one of his female employees who announced she was pregnant to “kill it”? Isn’t this the exact same thing they claim to hate about Trump?
Blacks are going to support a guy who said “throw them (minority males) up against the wall and frisk them”....who advocated putting all the cops in minority neighborhoods and busting them disproportionaly for smoking weed?....who told one of his female employees to get “some Black” to be a nanny for her kid so she could spend more time at the office? A guy who said lots of Black and Latino males “don’t know how to act in the workplace”? Isn’t this exactly the kind of thing they would SCREAM racism about if it were any Republican?
That’s to say nothing of the Bernie Bros....billionaire, buying the election in very crooked smoke filled room fashion at a brokered convention after their hero got more votes than anybody else?
This is EXACTLY what several core groups of the Democrat coalition claim to hate.
That’s not the point I am making... Bloomberg’s stated goal is to defeat trump and make sure the democrats have a “moderate” candidate.
I do not think Bloomberg wants the job.. he wants to play kingmaker.
He is not there to take out anyone else but Bernie and Warren if that is his goal. Even though the rest are whackadoos as well.
Bernie Bros arent going anywhere. They are a cult, but making sure the other 2/3 of the party have a option means you have to attack him at everyone opportunity.
The non radical lane needs to coalesce around someone, the problem is, honestly there isn’t anyone worth coalescing around. Petie the boy mayor started out moderate and has since embraced every far left idea.. let’s not even get into the facts that he wouldn’t win state wide in his home state and the fact he likes to lecture others about morality while living openly defining of thr scripture he claims as his own. Klobuchar is not ready for prime time.. Gabbards will never see a debate stage again. Biden is about as exciting as mud.. who can the non Bernie get excited about?
None of them. Biden was the default and impeachment destroyed him, which was its intended purpose in my mind.
I have said this for months. The Dems are intentionally throwing this cycle they are going to hand the nomination to a radical. Get crushed in the general and knee cap the far left with with it so they can moderate for 2024.
Bloomberg just isn’t aware that’s the plan... but as long as he’s self funded a poor debate performance will never end his campaign.
Once again, POTUS TRUMP has been proven correct.
He shared with WTP the poor debating skills owned by Mini Mike. Has our POTUS ever lied to us?
After the debate, poor debating skills is no longer an assumption. It’s a fact.
Those ads are going to be seen 100x more than the debate clips. The remarks by Bloomy saying derogatory things about black and latino males in the workplace are true in some cases. Stop and frisk lowers crime. All the independent voters know that and are not going to hold those statements against the NY mayor.
That assumes they are strategic thinkers. Also it would throw the House and more of the Senate so they would not get the House Dem elite to sign on. I'm sure Bloomberg is not aware of any such "plan" but I agree Bloomberg is only in this to fund a moderate who will beat Trump. The question is whether enough Dem primary voters are swayed by his ads to vote for him overwhelmingly on super Tuesday. I think it is within the realm of possibility.
Of course democrats are strategic thinkers. No, not every elected democrat is a great strategic thinker nor is every rank and file member of the party but to make a statement that The oldest political party on the planet cannot or does not engage in strategic thinking is just flat out foolish.
Folks on here seem to think that the democrat party just is, and through some fluke of fate keeps operating is ludicrous.
Folks that say that are committing one of the gravest sins of conflict.. underestimating their opponent.
Democrats know the radical left wing of their party cannot win outside of some very limited geography. 2020 is a loss for them for the White House and they know it... incumbent President with a strong economy is getting re-elected. They know it. They can’t admit it, but they know it.. their best counter to keep the down balllot from being a crushing is to run a moderate.. however if they run a moderate and get beat they radical wing screams see we should have gone further left and gains even more power and influence going into the 2024 cycle which will be an open race which favors the non incumbent party.
If Dems do not stop the radical left, they will wind up with a radical left candidate in a cycle they should win and will lose.
So sinc 2020 is a loss anyway best move is to use it to knee cap the far left of the party and moderate for 2024.
The impeachment was all’s out this, as was pelosi’s Staged “temper tantrum”. Impeach over Ukraine because it taints Biden, taking out the moderate... it angers the Trump base so they are fired up to 11... it angers the middle because it was nonsense and partisan and the know it..
So you clear the way for a radical to be the nominee and make sure they will lose and lose big.
And Pelosi’s little temper tantrum just adds more flame to the anger against the eventual dem nominee as well.
The Dems are throwing this election on purpose... classic rope a dope.
And if you believe other wise, I ask you this simple question.
If yo were a democrat strategists and the kingmakers came to you and said, I want you to devise a strategy by which we will lose this election by the biggest margin possible... tell me, what would you have them do differently than what they are doing right now?
I have a hard time buying the notion that those groups would just shrug off all those things. Since I have a couple suburban professional women in my family who I know hate Trump for his various statements about women they have long complained were derogatory......I will personally make sure those two are not allowed to forget Bloomberg’s various derogatory statements about women should he get the Democrat nomination.
eg “so Sis....Niece.....how ya feel about “fat broads” and “horse faced lesbians”? How would you feel if your boss told you to “kill it” when you informed him you were pregnant and would take maternity leave in the future?, etc etc” I will make it damn uncomfortable for them if they try to sweep any of that under the rug. :^)
The MSM will say “NO” just so they can keep him in the game SPENDING his MONEY!
Yeah, the latest one showing here is the Obama ad. Talk about TWO people I can’t stand!
If Bloomie does manage to buy the nomination people are going to be at the point of hurling at the mention of his name long before election day.
. . . but they’ll lose a lot of prestige if the result just proves that unlimited ad budgets can’t win the presidency.
What amuses me about the ad with Obongo is Mikey Mouse makes all these promises and Trump has already done everything he’s promising.
Too bad so many don’t even know it.
LOL - great one!
He thinks his ‘money’ will take the White House away from Our President but forgets it’s WHO is behind Our President that makes him who he is..
* * *
Yes, yes. They are diametrically opposed leaders. Mini-Mike a bureaucratic loner. Trump is a man in touch with the common people — and who has a very uncommon skill at achieving RESULTS for his supporters.
Agreed. He is SO much of a turnoff in person that I was astounded when he manipulated the DNC into allowing him to appear in the debates. Kamikaze comes to mind.
Very true. The power of advertising. It’s something Warren knows nothing about. Trumps knows it like the back of his hands. He’s a living example of the power of publicity. He earned $2 billion of FREE advertising in 2016.
Mini Mike is a very inefficient user of publicity. He spent $500 million. But Mike knows a ton about selling tens of billions of dollars worth of trader computer terminals.
...poor [Mini Mike] debating skills is no longer an assumption. It’s a fact.
* * *
True, and Mini Mike is still in the running. Super Tuesday will tell us a lot about his long range chances of sinking Bernie and his Bots.
With a big Trump win the far left like AOC will stay in the House but the fake moderates from swing districts will get swept out. Those leftists and Pelosi types will remain. The far leftists will undoubtedy say the party sabotaged Bernie (maybe through a moderate VP pick) and stick to their dogma. Granted it will be hard to accuse Bernie of not being leftist enough, but remember the media lies about everything and will lie about that too.
If yo were a democrat strategists and the kingmakers came to you and said, I want you to devise a strategy by which we will lose this election by the biggest margin possible... tell me, what would you have them do differently than what they are doing right now?
Get rid of Warren, since she's stealing votes from Bernie. Keep Bloomie out of the debates, also any candidates who "take money from billionaires" (i.e pro-business). Throw all the coin tosses for Bernie instead of Boot Edge Edge (e.g. Iowa).
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