ABC News has a detailed article about sexual harassment allegations against Bloomberg: Bloomberg's sexist remarks fostered company culture that degraded women, lawsuits allege - ABC News
We’re getting a lot of Bloomberg ads here in CA as well. My question - he says “…the wealthy pay their fair share…” What does that mean, exactly? I know there is always that “sock it to the rich” mentality but I am not clear on what he is signalling, and it goes against what some have posted here in this thread.
Also, I wish Bloomberg woulda run as a Republican in order to Nader the Trump voting block.
For that matter, just like Trump.
I would support Bloomberg in a heartbeat. My only beef with him is his nanny state ideas, but that doesn’t really apply to national politics anyway.
It means he is only running because he is afraid of Bernie and Warren’s wealth tax proposals.
Someone did the math once, Bloomberg has spent a small fraction of what he’d pay in one year in wealth taxes on his political ads. He spent something like 35 million on ads which is a small percent of what he would pay annually under a wealth tax.
He is just trying to prevent a wealth tax from passing into law. That’s probably his sole motivation.
I highly doubt that. He’s smart enough to know that the wealth tax is DOA in the Senate along with most of the Warren/Bernie fantasies.
True, a wealth tax won’t pass. But I think Bloomberg, Steyer, the starbucks guy, etc are trying to hold back the rising tide of wealth taxes that are being proposed.
Even if the dems win the presidency and senate we won’t get a wealth tax in 2021.
But we may get one down the road, and I think they know it.
Unlikely. the wealth tax is a proposal that is designed to fix a political problem(voter resistance to taxes), rather than an actual revenue problem. Such things don’t tend to remain problems for long. 10 years from now either voter resistance to taxes will subside, or the poiltical class will have resigned themselves to working within the limits of actual revenue streams rather than trying to get cute and creative.
In addition, wealth taxes have an extensive empirical history in other countries and have been utter disappointments in every one. While I realize that the progressive true believers are immune to empiricism, the Democratic base believes in science and doesn’t tend to tolerate ideas that are proven failures for long. Once the smart folks at Vox and Think Progress and Brookings spend enough time ripping apart the wealth tax idea it’ll lose favor among the educated class that runs the Democratic Party pretty fast.
The Betfair market currently shows Bloomberg as 18% to become the Democratic nominee and over 10% to be the winner in November! (Sanders is 35% and 15.5%; Biden is 16% and 7%. All three front-runners are in their late 70’s.)
Wow! Am I the only one flabbergasted by this?
Bloomberg doesn’t appear at all in some polls, and does poorly in several others. But he polls 14% in one nationwide poll, and 17% in a recent Florida poll.
I assume this is due almost entirely to his advertising barrage, right? Or is there something else I’m missing? Do the people saying “Bloomberg” even know he’s Jewish? (He’s not very religious, but does attend his Reform synagogue on High Holidays.) Do they know he’s only 5’8" tall? (If elected he’d be the shortest President since William McKinley. I am not prejudiced against Jews or short people, but I think many “Undecided” voters might be.)
I’ve expressed my own views several times: The three key features I look for in America’s Dem champion against Donald Trump are electability, electability and electability. Is Bloomberg electable? I wouldn’t have thought so, but today’s whole political landscape has me utterly confused and increasingly dizzy.
Why do people assume you can just walk all over the democratic base and voter turnout will not change?
Most will still vote. But they may not donate money and they may not volunteer. And some will stay home sadly.
I mean, we are in an age where people are getting tired of oligarchs. Trump ran as the anti-oligarch when he talked about how he offered money to politicians and he couldn’t be bribed. Granted when he won he governed as a typical GOP plutocrat, but still.
If Bloomberg buys his way into the position, especially if Sanders wins more delegates but Bloomberg buys the nomination, then that is going to cause quite a fight within the democratic party. In an age when people feel plutocracy and oligarchy are behind many of the biggest problems we face as a nation (climate change, unaffordable housing, health care, wealth inequality, lack of good paying jobs) for the democrats to let someone buy their nomination is going to cause a lot of ruckus.
I’d still vote for Bloomberg because he is vastly superior to Trump. But its just going to energize the democrats liberal base to work independently of the democratic party in the future.
I’d like to see a Bloomberg-Abrams ticket.
She’s expressed a strong desire to be president, and attaching herself to Bloomberg wouldn’t be a bad potential path. And she recently appeared with him on stage at a voting rights event in Georgia. Plus he gave her gubernatorial campaign a half million in 2018, and her Fair Fight voters organization $5 million in December.
I could see this being a good pairing, mutually beneficial, and a good ticket to beat Trump
I’ve been relatively complimentary to Bloomberg on here … but I’m not ready to give him the green light.
While it’s great he trolls Trump and gets that man really insecure, the fact is Bloomberg2020 is propelled by digital ads and self-funding. He is building a big team on the ground which is key but the man himself has yet to appear at a debate, yet to participate in a town hall, has given limited TV interviews and has largely been able to campaign in the Super Tuesday states outside of the media glare while everyone else has been in Iowa.
Bloomberg2020 is still a theory. It may never be needed if Biden picks up and wins Nevada and South Carolina ahead of Super Tuesday. And if it is needed then there’s still that prospect where he will be in the line of fire for the first time and will have to defend himself.
Abrams seems to me the logical front-runner for the Democratic vice-presidential nomination, so long as Buttigieg isn’t the presidential nominee. I think he’d need to have someone on the ticket with Washington experience.
Abrams’s experience as minority leader of the Georgia House of Representatives should be considered highly qualifying for national office – more qualifying than being a member of the U.S. congress who isn’t in leadership. However, the optics are that Abrams wouldn’t balance Buttigieg’s lack of conventional qualifications as, in some sense, Pence did for Trump.
I think that Bloomberg would reduce both Democratic and Republican turnout, while Bernie would juice both.
I much prefer Bloomberg to Trump, but both have big business-related conflicts of interest, impossible to fully get away from. Bloomberg could have a formal blind trust, but he would still know how Bloomberg the firm was doing.
As for electability – a major concern for me because, I think, a reelected Trump will be worse – Bloomberg has the moderate box checked but little else.
While not my first choice, Biden has a significant electability advantage because voters have pretty much made up their mind about him. This reduces his susceptibility to the vile but skillful character assassination campaign Trump is sure to wage against any opponent. Also, my Trumpist relatives don’t seen worried about Biden destroying their way of life the way they seem concerned about Warren and Bernie. Maybe with any of the Mr. B. candidates, one or two would see the long lines at the poll and turn around.
Are his tax returns under audit?
Bloomberg is increasingly picking up mayoral endorsements, and that’s potentially a really big deal. Having mayors of major cities, particularly if they’re popular, could have major impact in terms of organizing local voter movements in areas that Hillary whiffed on in 2016. The mayoral endorsements include the current mayor of DC, the former mayor of Philadelphia, the former mayors of Flint, MI, Fresno, Anchorage, and Los Angeles. It’s a racially diverse group of local organizers that cross a political spectrum. Also, consider that the fiercest resistance to Trump is occurring at the local levels, and these are the warriors who are often right on the front lines, talking with people in their communities every day who are eligible to vote and deciding whether to vote or stay home, or vote independent, or vote green, or vote, God for fucking bid, for Trump.
I think Mike Bloomberg is still a long shot. I can’t recall a time when someone waited so long in the modern era to decide to run and pulled off a victory, but in this crowded field and with so many lingering doubts between campaigns and constituencies, Bloomberg might be in a unique position to bring some of these groups together under a tent.
Bloomberg’s campaign could be well funded even if donations aren’t so numerous.
The contrast between Trump and Bloomberg is hyuge, and his positions are very much in line with much of the base. His biggest track record of activism, backed up with many hundreds of millions of dollars spent, are climate change (half a billion there alone), gun control, and public health (from decreasing tobacco deaths to the opioid crisis to obesity). His bona fides on immigration reform go back a ways, before 2016’s election. Class warfare is not what all of “the base” cares about.
Me too! Although I also see Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin as good match. (Albeit we need her seat and a special election is no sure thing. But Pence debating and getting destroyed a gay woman would be so much fun! And she both appeals to rural voters and can shift a percent or two in Wisconsin that could matter mightily.) Or Castro.
Not sure.
Bloomberg would possibly juice Trump’s base. Trump would run hard on the Big Gulp tax and Bloomberg’s work to shut down coal plants. But he’d win over the business Republicans and likely sweep the burbs.
I’ve written before about how he doesn’t hit a first choice for optimizing Black turnout, or winning over rural voters, or exciting the class warfare brand of progressives. But if the choice in a contested convention comes down to him or either Sanders or Buttigieg (with Biden and Warren both having faded in that scenario) well I think the majority of D voters and delegates are going to be center left not hard progressive and of the biggest delegate getters in the center left will prefer Bloomberg’s experience over Buttigieg.
On preview:
He’ll show his taxes which will demonstrate how much he gives away (more than Trump has ever earned I think).
And his waiting was his best shot. Iowa style coffee shops hands on politicking is not his strength. He does have the huge advantage of advertising to the unsure voters in a Super Tuesday contest in a way that no one else will be able to afford to do. Watching tv in those states will be hell!!
I think nobody running can beat Trump except Bloomberg but I only give him around 40% chance of beating Trump. But we have 9 months until we vote and that might change.
I think he’s a narcissistic horse’s ass who should fuck off out of this election along with Tom Steyer. He doesn’t have a shot in hell at the presidency.
I pretty much agree, but it’s not fair to put him in a group with Tom Steyer. Bloomberg served three terms as Mayor of NYC, while Steyer has never run for anything before in his life. He may be a narcissistic horse’s ass, but he at least has a credible resume for a Presidential candidate.