Posted on 11/27/2019 1:02:54 PM PST by robowombat
Bloomberg bets 2020 campaign on unprecedented strategy BY JULIA MANCHESTER - 11/27/19 03:32 PM EST
Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s unconventional campaign strategy is panning out to be one of riskiest experiments in primary politics, testing the limits of personal wealth and name recognition.
Bloomberg, who officially threw his hat in the Democratic primary ring last week, will not accept donations nor fund his own campaign, automatically disqualifying himself from the primary debates.
The billionaire politician also says he plans to focus on the Super Tuesday states, and won’t compete in the crucial early contest states of Iowa and New Hampshire.
Operatives acknowledge Bloomberg’s game plan is risky, but are not dismissing his chances given that he is backed by his enormous personal wealth.
Bloomberg is worth roughly over $50 billion and has long championed liberal causes like combatting climate change. But he is also a former Republican, an affiliation that is expected to draw scrutiny during the primary.
The former mayor is hoping his history in politics and advocacy on issues such as gun control could be key in building a coalition of moderate and liberal voters.
That's a feat none of the existing candidates in the race have been able to pull off so far in a race that has featured four leading contenders: former Vice President Joe Biden and South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg from the party's centrist wing, and Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) from the progressive camp.
Whether Bloomberg can emerge as an alternative without spending time in early states or facing off on the debate stage remains in doubt.
“I think skipping the early states and skipping the debates could definitely be a problem,” veteran Democratic operative David Brock told The Hill.
“Both of those are opportunities to speak more directly to voters.”
Other strategists, however, argue that Bloomberg’s absence from Iowa and New Hampshire may not be critical because of the states’ lack of voter diversity.
“I have to say it'll probably piss people [off] in Iowa, New Hampshire, who are used to almost two years of slavish devotion,” a Democratic strategist told The Hill. “But is it a bad thing to move beyond those small, white, rural, under-representative early states?”
Another former New York City Mayor, Rudy Giuliani, similarly skipped the early states for the most part to focus on Florida and the Super Tuesday states. The strategy ended badly, and he was forced to withdraw after finishing third in the Sunshine State and never even making it to Super Tuesday.
Despite being a billionaire and former mayor of New York, Bloomberg will similarly have to work to put his name out in a number of the Super Tuesday states where he is less known, such as those in the South.
But unlike Giuliani, Bloomberg has deployed a $31 million ad buy across 98 local media markets, as well as on some national cable outlets -- an unprecedented level of spending for a candidate who has just joined the race.
Whether that can be enough remains to be seen. Warren attacked Bloomberg for using "bags and bags of money" to buy his way into the race, while Sanders declared himself "disgusted" by the spending.
“His name ID his significantly less than Biden or Warren or Sanders in any of those states in the middle [of the country] of the South,” Michael Gordon, a Democratic strategist and principal at Group Gordon, said. “His money can help there but he doesn’t have the longstanding credibility."
In order to be competitive in the South, Bloomberg will need to perform well among African-Americans, a potential hurdle given the scrutiny on his record as New York City mayor.
The billionaire this month apologized for his “stop and frisk” policing strategy during his tenure as mayor, saying he did not understand “the full impact that stops were having on the black and Latino communities.”
There are also few signs that Bloomberg has built-in support from other critical Democratic constituencies such as Latinos. Sanders, for example, has avidly courted Latino voters since his 2016 campaign.
“The political reality is, I don't think he will do exceptionally well with Latino voters because I don't think they know who the heck he is," Moe Vela, a Democratic strategist and former adviser in the Clinton and Obama White Houses, told The Hill.
“I’ve never seen Michael Bloomberg do anything to connect with the Latino community,” he continued. “So all of the sudden you’re going to come into Texas and California and Super Tuesday states and you’re going to pump in a bunch of money.”
Bloomberg’s absence on the debate stage could also prove to be a hurdle in his efforts to familiarize voters with his name.
A number of candidates like Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and businessman Andrew Yang are scrambling to ensure they get a spot on next month’s debate stage under toughened criteria.
But other strategists believe Bloomberg can afford not to take part in debates given that he is better known than some of the lower-polling candidates in the race.
“So many of them are fighting for oxygen that they are looking for a clip that can go viral, they're looking for a mention or maybe even a seat around the [morning news shows] table,” another Democratic strategist said. “He doesn’t have to do that. Michael Bloomberg doesn’t fight for oxygen.”
Others say Bloomberg could even benefit from being absent from the primary debates, and avoiding the likely on-stage attacks from candidates such as Warren and Sanders.
“Why would you want to stay in a place where your opponents could beat the devil out of you?” veteran New York strategist Hank Sheinkopf, who has worked with Bloomberg, told The Hill.
Despite the doubts about Bloomberg's strategy, few are willing to dismiss his chances in an unusually fluid race that has seen candidates such as Buttigieg vault from obscurity to top contender in the matter of months.
“Six months ago, there was a guy with a name no one could pronounce from a state with a low population, from a city that very few people go to to visit,” Sheinkopf said, referring to Buttigieg. “He is now one of the top four competitors in public polling.”
“This is 2019,” he said. “Anything can happen.”
His strategy is to buy off everyone in the Democrat Party to give him the nomination. — there simple. That’s how he operated in NYC he bought off EVERYONE.
Skipping Iowa and New Hampshire is unprecedented. I think it won’t work.
He sounds like Klobuchar.
It's OK to be white.
Sure, Rick is smothered in swamp.
What he lacks is appeal.
Trump will filet him in any debate.
Pick the shortest.
Physically or mentally.
Oh fudge... I thought it was going to be a cake walk... If he won’t line up with the dwarfs, it makes him a more mobile target.
Skipping Iowa & New Hampshire is an incredibly smart move - unusual for a liberal. Why kill yourself hunting for just a scant few electoral votes when a) super delegates is everything and b) Super Tuesday includes California, and they start voting before New Hampshire and on the same day as the Iowa Caucus.
Smart moves by liberals isn’t something I’d like to see. But on the flip side, you got the dunce move of ANNOUNCING these things ahead of time, so at least they’re not totally into the game yet...
Sounds like he wants to be a spoiler. Who is he attempting to help, who to hurt?
What a funny article. Bloomberg the chipmunk will appeal to retrogrades in mommy’s basement who chew on baby blankets and own sippy cups.
He. Sees to sell the newspaper
iPhone messed up
What a pile of explosive blooey.
“He started strong with that $31.5M buy this week, but he has over-saturated the market. Too many ads make people turn off (Think Flo on Progressive - she is slowly being phased out and the ads switch up much more often now).”
equally as bad, the ad was extremely uninspiring, consisting mostly of generic platitudes and recycling the biggest political lie of the century, namely he states as part of his “plan” to give everyone health insurance, he ads: “but if you like you insurance, you can keep your insurance” ...
“He isn’t a serious candidate. He is becoming a self funded candidate so he can avoid all FEC rules and essentially donate a ton of cash to the DNC. He will run a ton of Trump hating ads that in effect will benefit whoever the dem candidate is...while pretending it’s his campaign. No matter how low he drops in polls, he will remain in the race. And that is why. Its an end run on campaign contributions.”
nonsense. bloomberg could fund all the ads for Dems, the DNC, Dem candidates, and anti-Trump ads he wants simply by establishing a PAC and donating a few billion of his dollars to his PAC ... he doesn’t need to run a pretend-campaign to do any of that ... the real money for candidates, including President Trump, isn’t the money that goes directly to the candidates, which has relatively small donation limits per individual, but the big bucks that are donated to a variety of PACs which have no limits at all for individual contributions ...
“IA and NH no longer matter AT ALL in the nomination process.”
they totally matter to non-bloomberg candidates that have to raise money, and can do that only by proving that they’re top tier candidates worthy of donating to ...
(Think Flo on Progressive - she is slowly being phased out and the ads switch up much more often now).
Flo is boring
Allstate Mayhem are funny, the cat one, car thief, St. Bernard ones were hilarious
> If he promises to spend every penny he owns I promise to
> vote for him.
I wouldn’t vote for that filthy, authoritarian, totalitarian, globalist pig under any circumstances.
I hope he does spend every penny he has and will ever have.
He’s as despicable as that other billionaire, Herr Steyer, that wants to eliminate the free market that enriched them at our expense.
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