Well, it’s about as official as it’s going to get. Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is running for the Democratic nomination. In a statement to… let’s just say his “potential supporters,” he declared that he’s not so much running against the other 2020 Democratic hopefuls, but against President Trump, who he describes as an existential threat to America and its values. (NY Post)
Billionaire businessman Michael Bloomberg ended weeks of speculation — marked by a stunning mea culpa for his past defense of ‘stop and frisk’ — and formally declared himself a Democratic candidate for the White House on Sunday.
The media mogul, New York City’s last three-term mayor, declared to supporters in a launch video and statement, “I’m running for president to defeat Donald Trump and rebuild America. We cannot afford four more years of President Trump’s reckless and unethical actions.”
“He represents an existential threat to our country and our values. If he wins another term in office, we may never recover from the damage. The stakes could not be higher. We must win this election. And we must begin rebuilding America. I believe my unique set of experiences in business, government, and philanthropy will enable me to win and lead,” said Bloomberg, who had ruled out a presidential run as recently as March.
I suppose this makes about as much sense as Tom Steyer running. (For the record, after months of effort and God only knows how much money, Steyer is polling at just over one percent in the RCP average.) And he certainly has enough money to fund a national campaign, assuming there are any decent staffers left out there to hire.
I can’t help but think that Bloomberg is totally misreading the tea leaves here, and perhaps lacks an understanding of the divide in the Democratic base. His history as a former Republican who was tough on crime in New York City places him far to the right of even the moderates in the field. Did he see how the primary voters reacted to Kirsten Gillibrand’s candidacy? They ignored her as if she wasn’t even in the race and she’s someone who only used to talk like a Republican. Bloomberg actually was one.
But as I was saying, his record puts him squarely in the right-leaning moderate category. That means he’s trying to crowd Joe Biden out of his own lane. Bloomberg’s recent apology for reducing violent crime in Gotham massively isn’t going to win over the socialist vote from Warren and Sanders. And while Uncle Joe may have stumbled a bit lately, he’s far from out of contention.
Being a 77-year-old cisgender straight white male doesn’t set him apart from his competition or win over the far left either. Of course, even if he were more demographically unique, that hasn’t done much for the other candidates who check off that box in terms of eating into Biden’s lead outside of New Hampshire and Iowa.
Is he planning on winning over the primary voters with better policy proposals? It’s tough to imagine what he could possibly come up with that hasn’t already been pushed forward to extreme degrees by the rest of the crowded field he’s entering.
In the end, all he’s really got to run on is the need to beat Trump (which every single one of the rest of the candidates is already saying) and perhaps some sort of electability argument. But judging by the numbers Warren, Sanders and Buttigieg are currently putting up, electability isn’t the draw that it once was. I can’t really even picture hoping that Bloomberg will provide any new entertainment value to the race. He’s not really prone to gaffes and is generally about as exciting as watching paint dry when he delivers a speech. But hey… it’s his money. If he wants to throw a billion of it away on what’s almost surely going to wind up being a pipe dream, that’s his business.
