Bloomberg’s campaign spent $57 million on advertising in his first week in the campaign. I don’t know about you, but I haven’t seen a single Bloomberg ad.
I probably don’t need to tell a politically sophisticated audience how stupid this is, but I’ll just hit the high points. First, he’s running in a primary, and the early primaries especially are won on organization and field work, not ads. Second, we’re in an environment where free media and social media sharing is just as important – if not more important – than paid ads. That kind of organic media has more credibility with the sophisticated primary voter audience it’s trying to reach.
Here’s an open thread.
The DOJ Inspector General’s Report on the Origin of the DOJ’s & FBI’s Investigation of the President’s 2016 Campaign Has Been Released
Major Major Major Major
I saw some Bloomberg ads last night, on the TV that was playing in the bar we were at.
But yeah, very dumb, and absolutely the sort of thing he would think might work.
Kylroy
Clearly, he saw the bang-up results Steyer’s spending has gotten him and decided he wanted in.
Jay C
What media market (geographical) do you live/view in, mm?
Here in NYC (Mayor Mike’s old bailiwick) we’ve been “treated” to numerous TV ads: mainly on the broadcast networks (i.e. old-line media). Chez us, we’ve ignored them, like we do most political ads, but they have been on.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
On You Tube every other add is a Bloomberg add. According to my parents broadcast TV is almost the same way.
Baud
I saw one this morning during the Today Show.
Kelly
I saw a Bloomberg ad during the PAC 12 football championship game. I’d already muted before I saw the ad and didn’t bother to listen.
scav
I don’t know, does he get some kind of tax break this way? Sort of a vanity hobby with benefits?
Baud
Maybe Bloomberg is secretly staring in a remake of Brewster’s Millions.
Patricia Kayden
I’ve seen Bloomberg’s ads several times. You’d think he was a progressive from how he’s portrayed.
hedgehog the occasional commenter
Rough guess–I’ve seen about a half dozen in the Denver market (IIRC usually during the MSNBC Rachel/Lawrence block). Stupid amount of money to spend when he could spend it on, I don’t know, voter registration/voter protection efforts…not enough egoboo in those efforts.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
I hate ads, so I watch TV only in ways that allow me to skip them – DVR for sports, streaming or DVR for series and movies – and not much of any of it. I use ad blockers online and reflexively nuke any video that makes it through. I suspect there are a LOT of people like me who are almost unreachable with ads.
TL;DR: Bloomberg who?
15 flush mistermix
I live in Rochester but don’t watch broadcast TV and I have YouTube premium so I don’t see pre-roll ads. So maybe I’m a bit of an outlier for my age, but not for people under, say, 30.
Sab
I’ve seen about a half dozen in Cleveland OH market, and I don’t watch much TV. I think it was mostly MSNBC.
Juju
I live in NC and I see them more than I care to on local, cable and network.
The ads are at odds with what I have thought him to be. He comes off as rather progressive.
Jay C
@scav:
Probably the latter: $57M is about 1/100 of 1% of Bloomberg’s reported fortune: “tax breaks” probably don;t figure into it.
TaMara (HFG)
Lucky you…they are relentless here. And he was in Colorado last week. Ugh.
Mike in NC
Seen the Bloomberg ad several times in the past few days. Pretty insipid stuff on the whole. He’s nothing but a rich hack with money to burn.
?BillinGlendaleCA
Boomberg has an ad on the 11pm news here in LA every night.
Ryan
I catch MSNBC on TuneIn, and the Bloomberg ads are running here. They’re pushing off the Steyer ads.
Capri
I saw one when I was in Florida over the weekend. Pretty standard stuff with high production values. I’ve heard he’s skipping Iowa and New Hampshire and concentrating on Super Tuesday states.
Guessing he has near 0 boots on the ground right now. Looks like a giant waste of money.
Sloane Ranger
Watching the Impeachment hearing. Why do Republicans have such shrill and harsh voices?
And are there any who can ask a question in anything other than hectoring tones?
Getchen
I saw one yesterday in Kansas City during the Chiefs game. First one. I’m glad he’s wasting his money here, and sad that he spent as much on ads as Kamala raised on her entire campaign.
MomSense
It’s such bullship that the new DNC Debate rules, ironically because of the 2016 Sanders operatives, have given a major advantage to billyonnaires. Representation by POC has suffered as has the quality of the candidates.
Mainmata
@Kylroy: I’ve seen quite a few Steyer ads. As political ads go, they’re fine in presentation but also obviously ineffective. However, he is at least out there also doing som retail campaigning. I haven’t seen a single Bloomberg ad but then again I don’t watch Bloomberg TV.
dnfree
We have seen ads in the Chicago suburban area, but I can’t even tell you what stations they’ve been on because I’m not watching the TV per se (just in the same room). I think they’re on sporting events, like football.
debbie
I’ve seen his ads maybe 10 times. Interesting that when they began, they were all about Bloomberg. They weren’t favorably compared to Steyer’s ads, which called Trump out by name and called him a fraud and a failure. The Bloomberg ad has now been edited a bit, with a reference to Trump at the very end
ETA: I don’t have cable; what I’ve seen, I’ve seen on broadcast stations, often during the 11pm news.
zzyzx
I saw one this morning at the gym. Bloomberg is basically a vaguer Elizabeth Warren according to them.
Chris T.
I’ve seen a ton of Bloomberg ads on YouTube.
JPL
If I were to vote for a billionaire it would be Tom Steyer because he knows who the enemy of democracy is. I’m not but just sayin
Gin & Tonic
@Jay C: 1/10 of 1%, not 1/100. But it is roughly like spending $100 for the median US family.
Baud
@JPL: Agreed.
TomatoQueen
A Bloomberg ad has played every morning since he announced on the CBS local affiliate morning show, in which he is portrayed as a short guy in khakis who has too much money. It’s low key enough to tune out. Steyer ads turn up from time to time too, and always fail to impress. Nothing else at this point, but in this market it’s just a little breather.
OT: weather officially shitty for the next 72 hours. Of course.
AM in NC
M kid has seen them on Youtube, and his and Yang’s ads are the only ones he’s seen, or the only ones he remembers.
Kent
I saw a few Bloomberg Ads yesterday. Must have been during the NFL broadcasts on CBS or NBC because that’s the only network TV I watched over the weekend. I’m in the Portland Oregon TV market so that seems like a ridiculous waste of money. I don’t recall seeing any other ads by any other candidate except Maybe Tom Steyer. Oregon is pretty off the radar when it comes to political advertising as the Oregon primary isn’t until May 19.
Mainmata
@Sloane Ranger: Machine Gun Gym Jordan is literally repeating the stupid line of questioning he did on the Intelligence Committee, i.e. what Trump did is not a crime because he got caught and released aid without an investigation. Committing a crime and failing at it is still a crime, of course.
justawriter
For a certain class of political operatives, a billionaire candidate is the equivalent of a big fat wildebeest with a broken leg to a pride of lions.
eddie blake
they’re all over streaming media.
CaseyL
I’ve seen Bloomberg ads during prime time televised football games (which is about the only thing I watch on regular TV anymore).
BruceJ
We’ve had them in pretty constant rotation here in the TSKoA. Which doesn’t vote in the primaries until March 17, two <i>weeks</i> after Super Tuesday.
My guess? He’s gotten some sharp <s>ripoff artists</s> “consultants” whispering in his ear about how to win. He can afford to burn a couple hundred mill or so no problem and they get the skim off that.
Kent
I’ve heard this said elsewhere too. I’m curious because I’m not really that close to this issue. But how would you do things differently? What about the current system disadvantages POC? If you make the criteria looser then you have 25 people on the stage not 10. Seems like the real problem with the current non-white candidates is that they can’t peel black and Hispanic support way from Biden. I don’t know how you fix that, if it even is a problem. People are free to support who they want.
The Dangerman
I’ve seen the ad a few million times. I’m in very Blue California so apparently he thinks he has a chance here. He doesn’t but, hey, whatever gets you up in the morning.
NotMax
Kvetching about a candidate’s ad buys isn’t worth the time it takes to read this sentence.
VeniceRiley
Have not seen one Bloomberg ad in SoCal this cycle. Steyer’s came off like “gentleman Farmer” who is very serious about politics and you cannot get away from him in the local billionaire rundown pub.
Kent
@Mainmata: By Jordan’s logic, a kidnapping isn’t actually a kidnapping if the ransom doesn’t get paid.
I’m trying to remember if the Dems were this craven in support of Clinton during that impeachment. I really don’t remember. Obviously there were the scolds like Lieberman. But the mainstream liberal Democrats?
JoyceH
Here in Virginia I’ve seen the Bloomberg ad over and over and over until I’m sick of it. The one ad. Geez, if you’re going to blanket the airwaves like that, have an assortment of ads! Otherwise the ad becomes the political equivalent of the thousandth holiday rendition of Little Drummer Boy and does nothing but make people feel homicidal.
Gin & Tonic
@NotMax: Having read the post and this sentence I now feel like I’ve been twice robbed.
ola azul
Am presently in Mich. Bloomberg ads are like stink on shit here.
utterdregs
You know he’s going to have to flush 10, 15 times.
khead
You must not watch football. Bloomberg was all over ESPN during Thanksgiving weekend. Steyer too. I think Trollhattan mentioned it a while back but I am too lazy to look it up. The thing that amazes me is that Steyer’s ads are BAD. Like, real bad.
khead
@Baud:
None of the above!
Kent
Just in: McKinsey gives Buttigieg permission to discuss his work and disclose clients. This will likely be a big nothingburger as no one that young and fresh out of college ever does anything but background grunt work. If there was any kind of real dirt there I doubt they’d be taking this step.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/09/us/politics/pete-buttigieg-fundraisers.html
trollhattan
Have seen a gazillion Bloomberg teevee ads in California, probably on sportsball because I didn’t fast-forward through them all. May have missed 3xgazillion without the DVR.
Making a play here? Hard to tell why. Kamala didn’t leave many percentage points here to scoop up and Bloomberg is in no position to do that in any case.
trollhattan
@Kent:
It’s free camera time for Mayor Pete, so a win for him.
JWR
Yes, and he’s pushing them hard during the late night funtime shows, (it’s Colbert & Meyers for me), but that seems an odd target demo for Bloomberg, given the fact that he’s not taken very seriously on those shows. And when I say “not taken very seriously”, I mean disdained.
ETA what trollhattan said.
Yutsano
My ad blocker blocks YouTube ads, so I haven’t seen any on my computer. The only ads I seem to get on my phone if I watch something there is for stupid online games. So I haven’t seen an ad for anyone this cycle unless it came up on Twitter or something. I guess I’m not missing much?
How long until Bloomberg figures out he’s getting soaked?
Kent
Only 6 candidates have met the threshold for the December 19 debate so far: Biden, Warren, Sanders, Buttigieg, Klobuchar, and Steyer. Wang and Gabbard appear on the cusp. Bloomberg is nowhere near any threshold for fundraising or polls. Harris also qualified but suspended her campaign.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/us/politics/democratic-debate-lineup.html
namekarB
@The Dangerman:
Same here in the Sacramento Market. Bloomberg is all over cable and local channels. Just what we need, a billionaire old white man.
Betty Cracker
Big ad buy in Florida. Unfortunately, they sing the praises of Bloomberg for 59 seconds and bash Trump for one. Wouldn’t say Bloomberg is wasting his money though. He’s contributed to the “Dems in a panic” conversation and inspired many a pundit to tut-tut about the perils of lurching leftward. It’s an investment in tax increase prevention.
subcommandante yakbreath
They’ve been running pretty steadily on broadcast tv in Northeast PA for the past couple of weeks.
Annoying, they are…
Jay
His Master’s voice:
Putin – Zelenskyy meeting wraps with tens of thousands in the streets urging Zelenskyy not to cave,
UNGA votes to condemn the Russian occupation and invasion of Crimea,
EU adopts the Magnitsky Act,….
So Trump goes to Russia as fast as his little feet can carry him,
ola azul
@Betty Cracker:
Precisely.
Bloomberg 2020: “Parachute in. Piss in the tent. Work the refs. Punk the media. Helicopter out.”
sdhays
@Kent: JFC, Tulsi is going to qualify? What a fucking joke.
Jay
misterpuff
Seen a few of them, but mostly on MSNBC and cable sports….but then I don’t watch much broadcast TV anymore.
The Ads: Run of the mill stuff. Not scaring real Dems I suspect.
Go “The Good Place” and “The Flash” and “Legends of Tomorrow” Crisis!
No One You Know
I find this disheartening when I think of all the begging emails going out. I counted an average of one every two hours yesterday including events support, personal support, issue support, and a lot of leading-question surveys clearly designed by someone who had recently learned how to sell using the Yes-Yes-Yes model. Then baits the recipient with $3 asks but starts with a $15 or more donation on the next screen.
I give. Not because the surveys are working. But in spite of the shrieking hysteria and apparently bottomless pit of need.
The man can spend his money how he wants, but he should support the structure that’s giving him a platform. Until he does, I’m not even considering ticking his box.
Yutsano
@Jay:
Cue Boris trying to get out of the EU even before the election in 3…2…1…
VFX Lurker
Senator Harris was my preferred choice for the March 3rd California primary. Now that Biden has a clear path to win the Democratic primary, I’m only interested in blocking Wilmer (who has the most field offices here) from a California win.
The only question is whether that means voting for Biden or Warren.
chopper
$57 million down the toilet, by 15 flush mistermix. i’m sensing a theme here.
Tim C.
@Kent: I noticed this too. My Wife is the mother of my children and an amazing person, but she likes reality TV and watches KATU news. I keep quiet about this because I enjoy breathing.
But yeah, they are slickly produced ads and I actually think they work as ads. I won’t vote for him, but I could see the ads working. But like you said, wrong state, wrong market. We don’t come in till the end.
Olivia
I have seen the Bloomberg ad over and over. I don’t watch that much tv and we don’t have cable but it comes on sometimes at every commercial break.
Baud
@sdhays:
The Dems need to provide a voice to people who hate Democrats.
Jay
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Sloane Ranger: The Republicans are all over medicated and flashing back to when their parents caught them experimenting on the family pet, thus the shrillness.
Jay
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Kent: What I recall the defense was it didn’t rise to the level of high crimes and treason.
Baud
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
I think the specific claims were pretty weak too.
Jay
@Yutsano
de Piffle is having a busy day, full of gaffes,
Jay
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/12/09/blood-and-soil-in-narendra-modis-india
Tony Jay
Seethe. Time to vent a little.
I’ve just finished sending an entirely pointless complaint to the BBC about the latest episode of In-Your-Face undeniable bias shown on behalf of the Tories by their sneering Chief Political Editor Laura Kuenssberg, a woman who is best imagined as a Maggie Halbermann who really wants to be Kellyanne Conway.
Very briefly, today the Tories shat the bed in widescreen technicolour on a number of fronts, the most obvious of which was Johnson himself responding to a journalist who was trying to get a statement from him about a 4 year-old with pneumonia forced by Tory cuts to the NHS to sleep on a hospital floor by asking him to him to look at the picture of the poor little thing on his phone. Johnson waffled, spluttered, bullshitted, and then took the phone and HID IT IN HIS POCKET.
Jeebus Funking Christ.
Right, that was the start. Pressed for an answer by the journalist who related to the Public that the Prime Minister had stolen his fucking phone, Johnson took it out of his pocket, glanced at it, then spewed more lies about Tory plans for the NHS, but the damage was done. This all happened on video and it opened Johnson wide to the – 100% true – accusation that he doesn’t give a shit about anyone but him.
What to do? Why, send your Health Secretary to the hospital on an emergency PR mission to be seen taking an interest and ‘doing something’. Only this is Matt Hancock we’re talking about, who some of you may remember from the Tory Leadership Election as the “anti-No Deal Brexit, anti-Proroguing Parliament, anti-Johnson candidate” who lasted a couple of rounds before capitulating and becoming a complete Johnson stooge. He’s a fucking prick with the credibility of a moose in a tuxedo, but not to Kuenssberg, to her he’s one of the team.
Mid-afternoon, the BBC’s Chief Political Editor started tweeting that she’d been informed by ‘a source’ that Labour had heard about Hancock going to the hospital and offered to pay the taxi fares of ‘100 Labour activists’ to harangue the poor little Health Secretary and his minions, but things got out of hand (The Left = Political violence) and one of Hancock’s advisers was brutally punched in the face. This was tossed out there with not even the slenderest attempt at confirmation. She just took the ‘scoop’ at face value and ran with it. Other outlets, including the ever anti-Labour Guardian, ran with it, displacing the various Tory fuck-ups that had been dominating the news cycle, especially the story about the kid in the hospital and Johnson stealing a journalist’s phone.
It took like half an hour before the ‘scoop’ fell apart. Eye witnesses were tweeting it was bullshit, and then video evidence appeared to show that what had happened was a dumb-as-fuck Hancock adviser walking straight into the already upraised arm of a protester. No punch. No attack. Nothing. Kuenssberg just shrugged. “Happy to apologise” she tweeted, without apologising. Other BBC political commentators who had been just as enthusiastic in jumping on the story to distract from Johnson and Co’s fuck-ups stepped back, though still characterising the blatant lie by Kuenssberg’s ‘source’ as somehow a ‘mistake’ on their behalf.
I could take that. I could even see it as a win if the aftermath was the BBC Chief Political Editor stepping in front of a camera on the BBC’s main flagship News program to tell the story of how she’d been lied to and why and who had done it. That would be honest and actual news that viewers could do with hearing.
Yeah, no. Instead Lady Kaw-Kaw gets to do her ‘independent commentator’ act on the News at 10, purses her lips at Johnson’s fuck-up, brackets it with good news about toothless Northern idiots switching from Labour to Tory, and then simply reports that Hancock visited the hospital only to be “aggressively barracked” by Labour activists on leaving.
That was it. No coverage of the lie she’d been fed. Her fucked up tweet. The BBC’s backtrack. Nothing. Nada. It just didn’t fucking happen.
And tomorrow ‘independent journalists’ will be telling everyone that disgust with BBC bias is purely partisan and, in Kuenssberg’s case, probably sexist.
Delenda Est. Brutally. To the bedrock and the 10th Generation. These people are beyond saving and their seed is poison. Thank God for alcohol.
JaneE
I live in the eastern sierra CA, have cable because it is that or satellite for anything. I have seen lots of Bloomberg ads, and a few for Steyer. The Bloomberg ads are good at painting him as someone who does things and can get the country going in the right direction again. Very much he is depicted as the opposite of Trump – a doer not a blowhard, and rightly points out that Trump has ruined businesses over and over and implies that Trump is doing the same damage to the country. Most Democrats will agree with the sentiment and messaging, and might vote for him if they have not yet committed to someone else. How many there are of those I don’t know.
I was torn between Harris and Warren for the primary. I thank Kamala for making that choice unnecessary. I would still like to see a Warren/Harris ticket.
Amir Khalid
If Bloomberg is wasting money on advertising instead of setting up a proper campign org to reach out to voters and win the primaries, it will fail to help him compete, and it serves the rich old fool right.
debbie
@Tony Jay:
And you’d have thought he’d be raging over SNL’s inclusion of him in their cold opening! James Corden made him look a real fool.
Tony Jay
@debbie:
He’s a genuinely disgusting piece of shit that has been comforted and protected by the British Media for 20 years or more. I absolutely guarantee that Corden wouldn’t be allowed to take the piss to any great extent if he was on a British show, not if he wanted any kind of career that included work on the BBC.
Fuckem. I’m going to bed.
Jay
@Amir Khalid:
Bloomberg’s job is not to compete, it is to help shift the Overton Window right and preserve the Billionaires Tax cuts and the coming Social Services slashing.
Calouste
@Tony Jay: “the ever anti-Labour Guardian”
Time to put down the crack-pipe.
Tony Jay
@Calouste:
Oh get over yourself. The Guardian has led the charge against Labour ever since Corbyn became leader. Their cheerleading for the anti-Semitism smear is beyond disgraceful and every single independent academic study of bias in the Media nails them hard for their eagerness to slam Labour whenever the Tories need a ‘both sides’ boost.
They’re the ‘Liberal’ paper. It just so happens we don’t have a Liberal Party worth the name.
Mike J
I’ve seen Bloomberg commercials in Seattle. Our primary (not caucus! yea!) is March 10.
Jay
@Tony Jay:
it’s funny how the same Media dynamic is denied about the non-US MSM simply because the median Political Compass indexes are a little to the left or a lot to the left of the Media environment in the US.
I also often scream at the CBC tor being Nazi enablers, both siderists and “centrist fluffers”.
Matt McIrvin
I’ve seen Bloomberg’s ads all over the web and YouTube. I think he spent heavily on that. They’re ridiculous.