* What does Michael Bloomberg imagine is his constituency outside of New York? Maybe: “People who want a billionaire president, but not a populist billionaire, the other kind, the kind with contempt for non-billionaires.”
* I’m sure all five of Bloomberg’s supporters are excited.
Maybe one of the Koch brothers or Haim Saban can run too. Heck, make it like the California recall election against Gray Davis. Everyone from a porn star (look alike “Mary Carey”) to Ahnuld to Gary Coleman ran.
* “Why shouldn’t I run for president?” muses Michael Bloomberg. “Michael Dukakis was 5′ 8″ too, and he ran for president.”
* I wonder how Trump would campaign against Bloomberg. Bloomberg is the one guy I can imagine Trump holding back against and being deferential towards in the campaign. Bloomberg is a lot richer and more powerful than Trump, and specifically in Trump’s own home base of NYC. If Trump really pissed him off, Bloomberg could make business a lot harder for Trump. Moreover, Trump’s family all went into the same business in NYC, so falling out of Bloomberg’s good graces would impact their prospects as well.
* Trump is more famous for the Apprentice, his books and media persona than for being a developer. There are lots of very wealthy, but little-known real estate developers. So if Trump wins, he’ll really become the second celebrity president after Reagan. There’ve been lots of other celebrity pols – Jesse Ventura, Arnold, Sonny Bono, etc. I have a question: was Reagan the first celebrity politician, meaning the first person to win an election who got famous in entertainment or sports?
* George Murphy was elected U.S. Senator from California two years before Reagan became governor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Murphy
Davy Crockett?
Playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan (“The School for Scandal”) became an M.P. and famous orator in Parliament.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Brinsley_Sheridan
Clare Booth Luce went into the House in the 1940s after her play “The Women” had been a big hit on Broadway and on screen in 1939.
* Bloomberg is one of the most impressive entrepreneurs ever. He basically started an Internet company in the early ’80s, while raising so little outside capital that he still owns ~85% of it today. He was also a good mayor. But he’s more suited to running Singapore than America.
* I’ve seen Bloomberg a few times in NY, he’s more like 5’6”. Really small guy.
He won’t run. He’d split the anti-gun, open borders, and liberal elitist vote, which could quite literally turn the entire electoral map Red. We’re talking over 500 electoral votes could go Republican.
He’s smart and pragmatic enough to realize that after he does some polling, so he won’t run.
His lane is very narrow: the fiscally efficient liberal authoritarian. Can’t win the White House, but he was actually a decent mayor.
* “The other 49 states”
You can thank George W Bush for that. He was a truly transformative president! Before he came along, rural Southern Real ‘Muricans were the authentic voice of the nation. As late as 2004, after Kerry’s loss, Nick Kristof was telling Democrats that they need to nominate a Southerner, like John Edwards, to win.
W almost single-handedly destroyed the Real ‘Murica brand. Its macho posturing is now associated with “Bring It On” stupidity. Its talk of values reminds people of wide stances and meth-fueled orgies with gay hookers. Its claim to sober, down-to-earth competence reminds people of Great-Job-Brownie, the Iraq occupational authority and the Great Recession.
* Sounds to me like Bloomberg is trying desperately to save his legacy.
1. He only got elected on the basis of 9/11 .
The NY Mayoral election was in the fall of 2001. Rudy Giuliani was term-limited out, and Mark Green was leading the polls, despite Rudy stumping for Bloomberg. NY, after having their carrots-and-peas with Rudy, were done, and wanted the dessert with a good commie like Green.
But 9/11 happened, and Rudy went from “eh, we needed him” to National Hero. NYC paid homage and elected Rudy’s chosen successor just a scant time later.
2. Bloomberg’s policies didn’t rankle too many feathers because the money was flowing. He had an amazing ability to avoid scandal, despite some really bad slip ups. Out of town during the worst blizzard (at the time) on record and the city falls apart? Not a big deal! All your deputies from out of town and actually live and work in DC? Not a big deal! Slashing through term limits? Not a big deal!
Dude was immune because he knew the rules: keep the streets safe with Broken Windows and keep it all clean and paved with Wall Street money.
3. But then, Bloomy tried to step outside NYC with gun control and failed miserably. The NRA loves having his Mayors Against Guns around—they are the Washington Generals. They are a perfect example of insular urban left-wing blue-state thinking that doesn’t play in 90% of America. It must really kill Bloomy that he’s so rich and respected in NYC but outside of it he can’t just buy himself the gun laws he wants. The nerve of the hoi polloi having different opinions from him!
Please run Bloomy! I want to see a Trump landslide!
* Bloomberg consistently loses local elections across the nation despite greatly outspending his opponents. The colorado recall elections for two state senators or the recent state elections in Virginia are examples of how unpopular Bloomberg is. In colorado, bloomberg outspent the pro recall side by a seven to one ratio in two districts that had gone for obama the year before by roughly twenty points – and his candidate narrowly lost one race and got blown out by double digits in the other.
As said above, bloomberg could possibly deliver all but maybe four or five states to the GOP. If I was a republican, I would do my best to insult and anger bloomberg into losing his temper and running third party.
* I think we’re all aware that what’s really been ailing this nation these last 20 or 30 years has been insufficient p0litical attention to the needs of Wall Street billionaires.
* He was a decent mayor because he wisely continued the law and order policies regarding crime that were initiated by his predecessor, Rudy Guiliani. This after the fact “he was a good mayor” well yeah, and he also inherited all the goodwill post-9/11. Let’s not forget that his first term started in Jan. of ’02.
He happened to inherit a NY that had very low crime rates, mainly due to Rudy’s superb policies and the fact that the city had come back from the dark days of Denkins’ single term. All he had to do was not fix what wasn’t broke. And thankfully he had the good sense to do that.
But running for president? Why would he want to do that? For what? To confiscate guns? To ban soda nationally? To, to…..do what exactly? Sanders already supports most of what he wants to do from a domestic policy perspective so they basically would cancel each other out. Would be a devil of a time for libs nationally. “Which hard leftist quasi socialist candidate do you really want to vote for?” If only Ralph Nader could be persuaded to make a comeback and then they’d have the triple crown.
Unless privately behind the scenes, Bloomberg’s people are quietly reaching out to Clinton to persuade her to drop out, but why would she do that? She’s been waiting for nearly ten years and its finally her time, and her turn.
Lets see: Bloomberg = 74; Clinton =ca.70; Sanders=73. Yep, not for nothing are those Dems known as the party of the future.
Oh, maybe Ralph’s angling to be Sanders’ running mate. And Sanders-Nader would be the ideal leftist ticket.
PS: As Ralph will be 82yrs old on Feb. 27, that definitely would make Bernie the youngster with the bold, new, fresh ideas. Yep, a Sanders-Nader ticket could be just what the nation needs at this crucial time, right at the crossroads for deciding the direction for its future.
* How could Bloomberg possibly obtain inside information about anything? It’s not like he owns a vast network of communications devices that he rents out to important people.
* Trump is a long time economic nationalist.He was spouting off about China and free trade 20 years ago. I’ll bet his books might mention it. Against illegal immigration goes along with against awful trade deals.
* I suspect some grifting consultants have told him that in the event of a Trump or Cruz vs. Sanders match a moderate route opens. Except Trump isn’t that conservative and the other two would have deep sizable support of their own. The GOP vote would remain relatively intact while Dems would be more split.
Since the GOP controls the House & the most state legislatures around the country they’d pick the winner in event of no one picks 270.
There’s some conspiracy theory floating around that the House would actually pick Bloomberg in this scenario.
* Bloomberg will run if Trump and Sanders are the nominee. He can then go ‘moderate’ and pick up some votes. Since Trump is seen as far-right due to his ethnic views and Sanders as far-left due to his economic views, Bloomberg then becomes the reasonable candidate. He does seem more serious/boring/mainstream than Sanders and Trump in many ways. The 2nd amendment people are likely going for Trump anyway.
It’s not that Americans are hungering for blue-state billionaire presidents, it’s that a blue-state billionaire might seem a better pick than a self-described socialist with funny hair and, well, Trump. If you’re not boiling mad about immigration as many people here are, Trump doesn’t seem that presidential. I enjoy his poking political correctness–I’d love to see him get a late-night show– but what if we get into a spat with Putin or Xi Jinping and he flies off the handle?
BTW, this would give us a race between two Jews and a guy who let his daughter marry one.
As everyone here has said, he is basically just to the right of Hillary and essentially represents the interests of the elite class. So he won’t run if Hillary wins. And he’s smart enough to know that.
* Bloomberg has made it clear that his plan is to run if it appears neither Rubio nor Clinton will be nominated. There is little doubt, then, about the why: he wants to make sure there’s a Wall Street/Bankster/Cheap Labor Lobby candidate running.
He’s pro-abortion, pro-gun control, and pro-open borders. While his candidacy would quite likely hurt the Democrat more than the Republican I doubt that would factor into his calculations, since Sanders would almost certainly lose to Trump or Cruz anyway.
* I remember when he floated this idea last time and all his buddies in the media peddled soft articles in favor it. One editorial-posted-as-news said Bloomberg is “the kind of outsider Washington needs” I think it was Glen Greenwald who quipped “Yeah, a pro-Iraq war, Pro-Israel open borders billionaire from Wall street- just the sort “outsider” Washington needs”.
* “W” was a terrible president who did incalculable damage, but one thing I don’t blame him for was the Federal response to Hurricane Katrina. That was just a demonstration of how poorly government handles any emergency. The government response to tropical storm Sandy was no better, but the media chose not to highlight that.
Bush got savaged over Katrina so that the media could avoid talking about the appalling, anarchic behavior of blacks when the system breaks down for a few days. That topic must be avoided at all costs.
* The vote is usually about 50/50 Republican/Democrat. If Bloomberg can peel off about half of Dems it’s possible he could get enough Republican voters to make it a competitive race with Trump or Cruz. I don’t think there’s any scenario where a Bloomberg candidacy helps Sanders.
The non-establishment Republican candidates combined are currently polling around 70%. It’s pretty clear that a non-establishment candidate is what the GOP voters want. At best maybe 30% of them could be swayed to vote for Bloomberg, but after they see where Bloomberg stands on pretty much everything the best he can hope for is 20-25% of GOP voters, and I think that’s being very generous. So the national popular vote could go 37-37-25, with Bloomberg and the Republican tied. If that’s what the polls are showing a week before the election do Democrats abandon Bernie in droves? In that case you can sum up the race with two poll numbers: the % of Democrats who stick with Bernie vs. the % of Republicans who hate Cruz/Trump enough to vote for Bloomberg. I think at least 20-30% of Democrats would remain loyal Bernie voters no matter what, and it’s possible, but unlikely, that many Republicans would abandon Trump or Cruz.
The presidential election is really 51 separate races, though, and on a state by state level I don’t see how Bloomberg pulls it off.
* The media uses a lot of unflattering shots of Trump, and he does have kind of a rubbery face and is over-expressive in speeches. But no, he has loads of physical presence when he needs to turn on the gravitas.
* Haven’t you previously noted that we haven’t had many short presidents since James Madison (5′ 4″)? The most recent president as short as 5′ 8″ was William McKinley. According to Wikipedia, the average height of presidents in the last 100 years has been six feet.
* I can’t think of any town in American history other than NYC where its mayors think that their office automatically makes them a national figure. Chicago comes close, but that’s it. L.A. has cultural influence, but its political power has never appeared to me to be all that strong. It’s symbolic power seems to me to have been reflective of California’s as a whole during the postwar boom through the 1990′s, not really as an independent entity. I wonder if some of this may have had to do with what Steve has been pointing out: Southern Cal’s small govt, low regulation strategy turning out to be ineffective in the face of more interventionist government that actually keeps things in favor an a elite that has a progressive veneer.
NYC’s role in national politics may have been small in the early days of this country, but since the Civil War it has been tremendous.
Even with Portland and Seattle emerging as strong cultural centers, the reassertion of the East Coast over the West Coast is really remarkable.
