Saturday, November 30, 2019

Can Bloomberg Buy The Democratic Nomination?

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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.

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6 Comments:

At 1:45 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Stop and Frisk" Bloomberg has more than enough money to buy the nomination. He's already flooding the market with ads in greater numbers than anyone else can come close to matching.

Advertisers have known for 100 years that if you bombard your intended customers with ads which only promote the virtues of your product, you will convince large numbers of them to try it. Bloomberg's cash advantage means that no potential voter is likely to hear much from an opponent of his.

This situation is analogous to how the media only covered Trump for about 18 months, with Hillary getting in a few minutes once in a while when Trump didn't put out enough for the corporate media to cover and fill their time. Remember how that worked out for Trump?

Bloomberg is hoping that it works the same way for him. He is corporatism's White Knight charging to defend corporate rule from the counter-effort We the People are currently mounting no matter if it's Bernie, Warren, Yang, Tulsi, or Williamson a particular voter supports. Corporations have plenty to lose, and plenty of money to use in their own defense. It really is war.

 
At 7:32 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

@1:45

Money or not, I don't believe Bloomberg has enough personality to rack up much in the way of genuine support among voters (I would imagine that voter turnout for his 3 mayoral races in NYC was scandalously low as they've been for quite a while now). Disgusting as Trump is, his rallies represent something different in US politics - he goes onstage without much in the way of prepared material and just talks to his audience. Even if it's all bullshit and garbage, no other candidate is going to do that anytime soon.

Bloomberg may be planning a 3rd Party run if Sanders or Warren wins the nomination. He gets a head start in a primary he KNOWS he can't win, so that it doesn't look too obvious when he goes ahead and "tries" to win as an Independent (even though most people who aren't in the employ of mainstream media will see through this and understand that he's essentially running interference against Sanders or Warren).

 
At 9:02 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

So, 7:32, what makes Bloomberg think he has any attraction for the followers of Sanders and Warren? He can certainly attract a lot of mindless televidiots to his campaign, but can he win with their backing?

I can see Bloomberg actually pulling more from corporatists like Biden than from any of the other candidates to the left of Sleepy Joe.

 
At 10:04 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

7:32, then he's a moron. The DNC will not allow Bernie to win the nom. And if they allow Elizabeth to win, it's only because she will swear fealty to the money in some back room.

The DNC will get a second ballot where the money can unleash their superdelegates to push their candidate over the top. It won't be Bernie. period. It almost surely won't be Elizabeth either. If it looks like pete will be losing big demos and if biden keeps lighting himself on fire (if his campaign ever lets him out to play), The DNC may feel that Bloomberg is an acceptable substitute.

But it will not be Bernie. He ought to know that.

I've seen the first swing of his ads, as well as Steyer's. To voters who don't know them already, their ads would portray them as someone to consider. Only those who do know them do they seem like skeevy opportunists with money.

But if political parties know anything, it's that they can change a lot of the simple minds in the electorate if they just advertise properly.

 
At 8:39 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

@9:02

He won't be trying to appeal to Sanders or Warren supporters if he makes a 3rd party run - he'll be trying peel off moderate Dem voters who are turned off by "Socialism" and "Wealth Redistribution" and thereby enable Trump's re-election.

@10:04

Ads or no ads, Bloomberg isn't going to rack up nearly enough delegates to get away with having the nomination handed to him, no matter how things play out. Unless Biden is kind enough to die at some point, he's going to do reasonably well due to name recognition, especially among black voters who remain unaware of the whole "Greatest transfer of wealth OUT of the black community under Obama thanks to the foreclosure crisis and how little his administration did to mitigate it" story.

 
At 3:45 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

8:39, you may be correct. I've never been surprised at the limited thinking of black voters. Maybe all of them that were around when biden was ratfucking Anita Hill are dead now. Or maybe they feel that getting Clarence Thomas on the supreme court was worth one black woman's reputation.

But they MUST also be ignorant of biden's long, sordid record of racist leanings and lege support. Or maybe they just don't give a shit. It's impossible to figure.

They might as well support david duke. it wouldn't be that much worse.

 

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