But that doesn’t answer my question: Were there ever any NYC mayoral debates with multiple people on stage? I’m just curious if this was his first time in a debate with multiple opponents.
I dunno. I have never lived in New York and had no interest in New York elections.
I would imagine he did. It is a common thing to do.
Not quite the same stage and audience as this is though. Kinda like a high school debate and a national debate championship debate stage. Stakes are a bit higher and, at this point in his life, he has less reason to be bothered.
Uh, ok…thanks? You said this was his first time on a debate stage with this many people initially, I was just trying to clarify that.
Incidentally, does anyone know the answer? I don’t have a point I’m trying to prove here, I’m just curious about his debate history.
Not really.
In his first run, Bloomberg defeated Herman Badillo, a longtime, undistinguished NY pol, in the Republican primary, and beat Mark Green, a Democratic machine pol. Not much of a debater. And he won pretty narrowly, if I recall correctly.
For his second term, he beat Fernando Ferrer, a Democratic non-entity, resoundingly.
For his third term, he made a shady deal with shady City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who had been expected to run for mayor, and was the favorite to succeed Blooomberg, to amend the city charter to let him run for a third term. He also essentially bought a couple of third-party lines. He won, running against the city controller (whose name escapes me at the moment) but not by that much. Basically, he bought the election, which is what he’s trying to do again.
Thanks!
nm
I’m going against the grain: Bloomberg may come off as rich jerk, and he said ho gives a shit. This a manager job. Kept to brand.
The protests were against the Obama-Biden immigration policy.
Gotta sorta agree. Did anyone expect anything but an uncharismatic rich data-driven asshole who’s run things but done some regrettable shit in the past when Bloomberg walked on stage tonight? In a normal situation, much of Bloomberg’s history and personality would be deal-breakers. But in a one-on-one with Trump, I’m still sorta chewing on the possibility that those may be assets.
I didn’t think Bernie handed the attacks about socialism very well. His words were okay-ish, but the seething anger underneath his voice is off putting.
I’m not talking about a presidential sort of anger that voters want to see as it shows the candidate cares. But it’s a nasty sort of anger like your grandfather jawing at you as he goes to get the belt to spank you with.
If that is how he handled Bloomberg, Trump will eat him for lunch and just toy with him as he continues to come unhinged.
I felt very similar on Bernie. He sounded more like the “socialist” (the evil kind, like the pubs define it) to me while sort of trashing the rich, and seemed to be pushing the economic equality points. And as passionate as he gets, yeah I agree with UV here. I was really waiting for a fainting spell while the belt came off.
I liked it when Bloomberg called him out. That was about the only thing Bloomberg did that I agreed with.
Overall… what the hell? It’s still a battle ground shit show. Yelling and interrupting and egos abound. After Super Tuesday, I hope they decide on which two or three will remain and the rest bow out and SUPPORT the remaining candidates.
In addition, his “there shouldn’t be any billionaires” as it is “immoral” to have that much money while people are homeless is simply frightening. He hasn’t proposed it, but it seems that he would be fine with taking every dime of wealth from someone in excess of $1 billion and redistributing it.
How would that work? I’m wildly successful in business and I notice that my net worth is $986 million. Am I going to keep expanding? Hell no. I’ll cash out to stay out of Bernie’s confiscation system, put my money in the Bernie bank and fire tens of thousands of employees. We wouldn’t have Apple, Microsoft, or Amazon just to name a few companies we all use if this absolute government thievery was in place. I thought we learned these lessons from socialism and communism last century.
And he statements have no limiting principle at all. Surely nobody needs $999.9 million when people are homeless, nor do people need $1 million. Indeed, why should I have $10k in the bank when there is a homeless person down the street who needs $10 for dinner tonight? How do his comments not suggest that the $10k should be taken from me? Why should I be able to save for a rainy day when its raining on people right now?
It is really the most extreme form of economic thought that will send all but the very far left running for the hills once it is fully fleshed out in the general election.
Warren’s 2% wealth tax would be outrageous in any election cycle, but Bernie takes that plan and gives it a line of crank.
Ha. And I was thinking he was like a horrible great-uncle who everybody avoided like the plague at the family reunion.
Income disparity is a huge problem in this country. That doesn’t mean there is anything inherently wrong with being a billionaire. I’m all for hitting those guys up for beaucoup taxes, but to say they shouldn’t even exist? No, that’s not going to play well in Peoria. What’s he going to say next? Lottery payouts should be capped?
It’s galling to see people like that WeWork asshole get super-rich because they’re failures. But to dick on Bloomberg for being rich? That’s just nuts.
It struck me last night that Bernie sounds like Jerry Stiller doing Frank Costanza - both the voice and the persona. “I got a lot of problems with you people!!!”. 
And now I can’t un-hear it.
It’s taken until now for you to hear that? 
I like the Bernie anti-billionaire hyperbole. It’s a positive thing for society if insanely wealthy people are afraid that the rest of the population might rise up and take their stuff. With that fear, they’ll be more willing to make the necessary sacrifices to help ensure no one is so starving and desperate that they might bring out the guillotines.
And that’s really the main reason why I support Bernie and his policies – I’m relatively affluent, and I want to make sure that the rest of society doesn’t rise up and take my stuff. So I want to make sure that society does everything it can to ease poverty and ensure working people have enough to live comfortably and pass on a decent life to their children.
If inequality continues to grow, the inevitable end result will be violence. There’s never been a society with extreme inequality that didn’t have violent revolutions by poor and working people.
Let’s see how long CNN keep transparently pulling for a “moderate” candidate like Biden, Buttigieg, or Bloomberg.
There’s a reason I stopped getting my news from television 30-plus years ago. It’s garbage.
Bloomberg is like a lot of people who have become enormously wealthy by doing exactly one thing well. He thinks that makes him an expert in everything else. Unfortunately, a lot of people, including voters, also believe that.
I just listened to a podcast about the Onecoin scam. One of the duped investors said something to the effect of—we went to their house and they had lots of nice stuff so they must know what they’re talking about. (Dude, why wouldn’t you consider the possibility that they got all that stuff by taking it from people like you?)
I was confused by the discussion of non disclosure agreements with respect to Bloomberg. These lawsuits weren’t against Mr. Bloomberg personally, right? I would think it would be impossible for him to personally nullify such an agreement. But then why didn’t he just say “Sorry I can’t do that”?
