Can Bloomberg Buy The Democratic Nomination?

Since Bloomberg's $35 million TV blitz started this week, one friend of mine told me that he's considering him and another told me she had made up her mind and that she's all in-- 100%-- on Bloomberg.

Last week, journalist and activist Zaid Jilani penned a tweet storm about rich people buying elections that is very much worth reading. I'm putting the thread in narrative style while keeping it as close to his original as possible. (I think Jilani is supporting Elizabeth Warren, although I'm not 100% sure. I'm positive he isn't supporting Michael Bloomberg.) Jilani:

In 2011 I was working at the Center for American Progress, the main Democratic party-aligned think tank. I was at the weblog covering Occupy Wall Street. So obviously Bloomberg was a hot topic.

I wrote a story about how Michael Bloomberg's then-girlfriend was on the board of Zucotti Park which is where the protesters were. I noted she was drawing over $100,000 in compensation from them, which to me was a lot of money (money at that point my career I'd never seen).

It turned out CAP was soliciting money from Bloomberg. So its president, Neera Tanden, wrote some emails to me and my boss scolding me over the story. She asked if we were aware that CAP was soliciting money from Bloomberg. We said yup, we are. Then she said it was low to go after his girlfriend. I mean, she was pulling in $100,000 from the park he just ordered police to clear of protesters. He deployed riot police to do this!

It was a clear conflict of interest. Then she explained that December was always a tough time of year to be raising money for CAP... Bloomberg has given tens of millions if not more to liberal organizations, campaigns, nonprofits, I think over the course of his campaign you will find a lot of folks are hesitant to say or do anything critical towards him because he has so much money and he's a giver.

Let's remember he funds basically the entire gun control movement in the U.S. (Everytown, Moms Demand). He also finances...you know...an entire news conglomerate.

I don't think Bloomberg has much of a chance winning his race. It's extremely weird to try and win a Democratic primary by entering on Super Tuesday. He'd be better off doing a Perot-style independent run, provided he had popular issue positions (be he doesn't).

But he has more favorable position than anyone else who could possibly try this gambit because a big part of the liberal/Democratic sphere will just lay off of him because he has so much of his money in everyone's pockets. This kind of situation feels unique in American politics.

To some extent this is what the Bernie Sanders candidacy has been about since 2016. The idea that American politics is dictated by money and the need to raise it. Sanders is the first candidate in history to prove you don't need big money.

Money is how the Dem/Republican establishment operates, it's what Michael Bloomberg, Neera Tanden, Joe Biden, etc. know from working in politics for decades and I can hardly blame them for adopting this view given their experience. But Sanders proved another path is possible too.

It's the same reason only Martin Scorcese was willing to come out and say the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies are meh. Disney owns so much of the market you can't actually afford to offend Bob Iger.

...Will anyone ask Bloomberg to divest from all of his business interests and philanthropies as he runs for president? That was a real issue for Trump, Bloomberg is like 50 times richer than Trump... You'll notice there haven't been a lot of Congressional Democrats who have said much against Bloomberg in the past few days. Well, he spent $100 million on House Democratic elections in the 2018 cycle. They can hardly argue that Bloomberg's big TV spending on himself ($30 million over this week, whereas Bernie Sanders is slotted to spend $500,000) is undemocratic when a single man was allowed to spend so much money on them.

1) Michael Bloomberg spends $200 million on an initiative announced at US Conference of Mayors

2) Columbia, SC Mayor Steve Benjamin hosted by Bloomberg Philanthropies in 2018 initiative (he's head of conference)

3) Benjamin endorses Bloomberg

I'm not saying any of these people are endorsing Bloomberg because he spent some money giving them some trips around the country, I'm saying that the money helps build relationships which are part of how you get endorsements.

I doubt people in Augusta are clamoring to vote for Bloomberg. But through all his philanthropic giving he has built a relationship with the mayor.