I don’t know. On the one hand, how heavily do we want to bet on the message discipline of a guy who somehow talked his way into riffing on “Parasite” versus “Gone With the Wind” at a rally last night?
On the other hand, yeah, if I were Trump I wouldn’t worry overly much about this person’s communication skillz:
Trump had a rally in Phoenix this week. We made sure there was a nice gift waiting for him! 😍 pic.twitter.com/a8juK5ATIM
— Team Bloomberg (@Mike2020) February 21, 2020
— Team Bloomberg (@Mike2020) February 21, 2020
I repeat what I said yesterday: How many times in the past 20 years have we seen a presidential candidate perform so badly at a debate that his team had to apologize for it afterwards? The apologies are still coming.
Howard Wolfson, one of Mr. Bloomberg’s closest advisers, on Thursday shouldered the blame for the outcome of the debate.
“I led the debate prep and I accept the responsibility for inadequately preparing him,” Mr. Wolfson said.
Several people close to the Bloomberg campaign, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private concerns, said that the former New York mayor’s advisers had quietly acknowledged that Mr. Bloomberg would have to take a wholly different approach to the next debate, in South Carolina on Tuesday night.
There’s lots of idle chatter, some of it fueled by Trump himself, that POTUS might skip one or more of the presidential debates this fall, at least unless the commission that hosts them is “fairer” to him. But what if Bloomy continues to crap the bed at the next few primary debates yet somehow manages to buy himself the nomination anyway? If the Bloomberg ad machine continues to take two steps forward while Bloomberg the debater continues to take one step back, it stands to reason that he might concoct some excuse to duck having to face Trump in October. “He’s unfit for office, beneath the dignity of a traditional debate” Bloomberg might say while turning and running in the opposite direction.
Or maybe he’ll just buy the debate commission and shut it down. Or make Wolfson the lead moderator.
He could always try offering Trump a fat envelope to just back out of the debates himself. No worse than a 50/50 chance that he’d accept.
A Trump/Bloomberg debate would be fun, though, if for no other reason than to watch them tu-quoque each other into oblivion. Team Trump has no qualms about attacking Bloomberg for racist and sexist things he’s said even though Bloomy has lots of ammo against Trump on the same subjects. Who’s the sleazier mega-rich Manhattan septuageniarian? On such questions does the fate of the republic hang.
Or it would, I should say, if Bloomberg still had a chance against Bernie, which he doesn’t. Instead of “chewing up and spitting out” Mike at the debates, Trump and the GOP will have to content themselves with devouring Democrats downballot after centrist Dems in red districts are forced to align themselves with the old red in the clip below. I’ve been skeptical of the GOP’s chances of retaking the House, but between Trump’s rising approval, the state of the economy, and Democratic voters saddling themselves with the socialist label coast to coast, those chances are a lot better than they should be.
“I think it’s quite likely that Trump [would] chew him up and spit him out,” Bernie Sanders tells @andersoncooper after Michael Bloomberg’s debate performance.
60 Minutes talks with Senator Sanders, Sunday. https://t.co/o74y9o6PHD pic.twitter.com/dxxEs3ad7w
— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) February 21, 2020
