Must be frustrating for Bloomberg to get hassled and interrogated every day about his past comments on stop and frisk. pic.twitter.com/Dz1AyeSLyK
— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) February 14, 2020
A question I am afraid isn't getting asked often enough. If Bloomberg picks Stacy Abrams as his running mate, can he restrain himself from frisking her? Because I feel that even once might be too much for many voters.
— Slava Malamud (@SlavaMalamud) February 12, 2020
Gotta admire the balls on Bloomberg for constantly lying about what he did as the mayor of a city where literally everyone is a journalist, media figure or on twitter
— Proud Bloomberg Disliker (@MenshevikM) February 11, 2020
My parents have always liked Bloomberg much more than I do, which is admittedly not hard to do. Lately they've been talking about how much he annoys Trump, which may be true but is also very easy. Trump is surely yelling "more lies" at an episode of Access Hollywood right now.
— David Roth (@david_j_roth) February 13, 2020
Friend via text: "Don't you wish rich idiots still dueled"
— laura olin (@lauraolin) February 13, 2020
There may be some benefit in a politician showing that he agrees with voters. Campaigns aren't arguments with voters. At least not most campaigns. https://t.co/GhLYDfGgbu
— Iowasca Tripper (@agraybee) February 10, 2020
Mike Bloomberg is lawful evil and Donald Trump is chaotic evil and a lot of people are revealing by their support of Bloomberg that the thing that really bothers them about Trump is that's he's chaotic and don't care about evil either way
— Mathias (@bucephalus424) February 11, 2020
The fact that people thought this was serious is what's wrong with America. Or maybe just Twitter.
— Jon Ralston (@RalstonReports) February 13, 2020
I think what this mostly tells us is that Bloomberg is the candidate of the type of people who participate in betting markets. https://t.co/0BzxOBC8Ou
— James Palmer (@BeijingPalmer) February 13, 2020
Gonna be awesome when the Dem nomination comes down to two guys in their late 70s who've never run in an election as a Democrat.
— Daily Trix (@DailyTrix) February 12, 2020
I hate to be contrarian but….
Against Trump, who never ran as a Republican until 2016 when he did….
— DBarryJ (@BarryJa41633306) February 12, 2020
For the record, though I'm far more ideologically aligned with Bernie, I'd take Bloomberg's competence over Bernie's nonsense any day of the week.
— Daily Trix (@DailyTrix) February 12, 2020
Bloomberg sucks and Democratic rivals should figure out how they'd lose voters to him, and do everything to fix it. If it means analyzing why you can't get traction with certain voters, do it. If it means admitting that Obama is good, do it. If you have to focus on Trump, do it.
— Rent-to-Own the Libs (@dnnation) February 13, 2020
Bloomberg, as a closet Republican with ties to Wall Street trying to buy the nomination, is in reality what people said Hillary was, so him winning is an outcome some of you deserve. I, unfortunately, do not.
— Owl Parliamenterian (@davidabenner) February 13, 2020
I genuinely miss the two weeks where Twitter, united, as one, mercilessly trolled the Starbucks guy out of the public sphere for even THINKING about running in 2020.
This prick buys off a few s***posters and some of you are flirting with letting him pick RBG's successor.
WTAF?
— zeddy (@Zeddary) February 14, 2020
"Mike Bloomberg" is what happens when two people wish for "Anybody but Biden" and "Anybody but Bernie" at the same time in the vicinity of a cursed monkey paw
— The Mall Krampus (@cakotz) February 11, 2020
germy
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I think Bloomberg is what happens when people decide voting is an act of self-affirmation– “I need to be inspired!”– and get drunk on the idea that unpopular ideas will become popular if they’re big and bold.
anarchoRex
Bloomberg’s support proves that centrists hate leftists more than they hate fascists.
Kay
Not too get too nitpicky or “purist” or anything but I’m concerned that he lies so much:
This stuff is laughable. He now wants you to believe that he said all this because the law didn’t have a public option.
Being a moderate Republican is one thing- asking us to believe he has had some magical transformation and become a completely different person is another.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Joy Reid trying to talk to a Bernie guy about the on-line harassment and bullying, he asks if he should bring up all the people on line who don’t like Joy Reid
debbie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Bernie Sanders: Leader of the Brats.
Betty Cracker
@anarchoRex: The reverse seems true as well. I’m hoping that in both instances, the extreme cases are more vocal than numerous.
clay
@anarchoRex: This is nonsense. If anything, Bloomberg’s support shows that they hate fascism so much that they’ll even support Bloomberg to get rid of it.
Kay
I know it’s a given that Bloomberg is so smart, supposedly, but are you reading these speeches he gives?
He promotes the dumbest conservative arguments out there- one of his objections to Obamacare was there “wouldn’t be enough doctors”. He’s supposed to be this business/markets genius and his rationale for not covering people is “there won’t be enough providers”, as if “providers” is some static category that can never increase in response to demand? It’s a dumb thing to say. His speeches are riddled with this bullshit- there’s nothing clever or new or particularly well-informed about any of it, and it’s ALL from a Right wing perspective.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kay: I remember Christopher Buckley in 2013 expressing his arch and precious disappointment that Obama had played golf with Bloomberg and not asked him one question about the economy, “Not. One. Question.”, he repeated for emphasis with arched eyebrows. I wished I were in the room so I could point out that a) the federal government is not a financial services media company, so Bloomberg’s expertise is not really relevant b) we had just had an election where a guy espousing Bloomberg’s fiscal policy was pretty handily beaten mostly because of that policy and c) the fact that Buckley knew that Obama had asked not. one. question. kind of proved that Obama was smart not to have a confidential, substantive discussion with a gossipy old ego-maniac
also, if the term “cold fish” did not exist, it would have to be invented to describe Bloomberg’s stage presence
anarchoRex
@clay: yes, supporting the racist autocrat to defeat the racist autocrat, very anti-fascist. There’s plenty of “I’ll pick Bloomberg over Bernie” in the comments here to prove my point.
Kraux Pas
Mike Bloomberg is the candidate for people who want to restore a veneer of respectability to a system Trump has made plainly obvious is corrupt.
It’s like willful obliviousness.
ETA: I think we need to get past this idea that all we need is to get rid of Trump. Plenty of people are worse than Trump. With Bloomberg it’s close and at a minimum he’ll entrench the worst problems of Trumpism.
Given the choice between two authoritarian douchebags propping up the rich, are we really worse off with the one who’s an obvious criminal for everyone to see?
Kay
So I thought, well, Bloomberg is such a genius and the ACA is a “disgrace” so his plan must be wildly innovative.
He sets “affordable” at 8.5% of gross (compared with the ACA’s 9%) and adds a public option. So all those speeches he gave where he insisted he had all the answers and Congress screwed everything up?
He now says he wants Pelosi’s plan.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@anarchoRex: picking Bloomberg over Bernie is just another way of saying, I’ll take Bloomberg over trump. You I gather would rather have trump than bloomberg.
At least it’s an ethos.
I guess.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@anarchoRex: Because it’s all about who you hate, not about protecting yourself and your family from Trump and the Republicans (who are the real fascists). Got it.
Politics has real consequences for people. For some more than others. It’s not all about in-groups/out-groups and social associations. Sometimes people get put in positions where they have to choose the lesser of two evils, for survival.
If Hillary were President today, the calculation might be a little different, but that ship has sailed.
Baud
I have a feeling I’ll be reregistering as an independent no matter what happens.
germy
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yes, a billionaire from New Yawk who wants to take their guns and soda away should do great in our beloved heartland.
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I’ve never read him before and given his reputation as this innovative genius, I don’t know, I expected something…innovative. You know how you save on public education, Jim? You fire half the teachers. Jesus. Why didn’t anyone else think of that. By my calculations firing half the teachers cuts staffing costs 50%. Eureka!
Baud
@Kraux Pas:
That’s the same argument some people in the left made in 2016, and here we are.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@germy: one of the reasons he’s my second to last choice
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: “If I can’t have Bernie, let it all burn”
clay
@anarchoRex: “Racist autocrat” is not the same thing as “fascist”. Bloomberg is just the one. Donald Trump is both.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Right. Just about everyone here thinks these are the two worst candidates, but our pollsters require us to debate the relative demerits for the two of them.
Baud
Anywho, Bloomberg derserves his time under the microscope. The question is what we do if our voters don’t care.
Kraux Pas
@Baud: Hillary Clinton was no authoritarian. She wasn’t a racist. She gave a shit about people struggling to make a living.
Bloomberg is the competent version of Trump people warned us about.
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
You know, MSNBC never covers labor unions. Almost no one does. There were massive teacher protests in 4 states in the last 2 years and they actually moved governor’s races. The Democrat got a boost because the Republican was anti-public education. They flipped governor’s races. That got barely any national coverage. But the Culinary union leadership comes out against Bernie Sanders and it’s wall to wall coverage for a week. All of a sudden they’re all wildly pro-labor and vitally interested in the issue. This one labor union has gotten more national coverage than “labor”, combined, the whole year.
Baud
@Kraux Pas:
Well I know that.
germy
@Kay:
Fire half the teachers and double the class size. That’s his big idea. Meanwhile:
zhena gogolia
@Kraux Pas:
No, that is not true.
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
Too bad Sanders didn’t say that in a speech as he conceded to her at the right moment during the 2016 primaries.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kay: the class biases (among others) in our media are not discussed enough. They are, demographically speaking, college-educated, upper-middle-class white suburbanites, and education is one of the areas where that really shows. Joe Klein (who has largely faded from the scene) and Jonathon Chait are I think perfect examples of the VSP consensus on education: Teachers’ unions are the problem.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@zhena gogolia: Too bad he spent two years calling the Democratic Party– which pretty much means the Obama presidency– a fayl-yuh. The idiot children of his cult ate it up.
clay
@Kraux Pas: Superpredators! Crime bill! Wall Street speeches! Warmonger! Corporate sellout!
These came from the left. How they saw Hillary is what Bloomberg actually is*. This is their own fault.
*Well, I don’t know if he’s a warmonger or not.
Kay
@germy:
Well, it’s fine. It’s fine that he has spoken endlessly and in opposition to just about every Democratic policy priority because he’s really rich and runs a lot of ads that are mean to Donald Trump.
Everyone’s going under the bus with this guy. We’ll jettison all principles equally, so it’s “fair”. In return we’ll supposedly get “competence”. Competence (allegedly) at what? Doesn’t matter. He’ll “get the job done” as long as we completely redefine “the job”.
I don’t know- I was thinking that maybe the “bombard people with ads” strategy has a ceiling. I don’t know that the return on investment stays the same from 1 to 15% as it will from 15% to 30%. He can buy 15. It remains to be seen if he can buy 30, or 50.
Kraux Pas
@zhena gogolia: Wait are you calling Hillary Clinton a racist?
Or is Mike Bloomberg not competent?
Omnes Omnibus
@anarchoRex: Oh, go fuck yourself.*
*I think that both Sanders and Bloomberg are carpet-bagging, anti-democratic authoritarians who have no place in the Democratic primary process, but the sentiment expressed above still stands.
laura
@Kay: that just reinforces and highlights the sad truth of the concentrated ownership of the media and infotainment industry.
Citizen Alan
@anarchoRex: This is probably because people think Bloomberg can beat trump but that Bernie will lose 40 States. It aint that tricky.
sdhays
Yeah, all those “journalists” who didn’t cover this stuff critically while Bloomberg was mayor are now totally going to correct him aggressively. And if only Dump was from NYC, he would have been sooo nailed in all his lies and criminality decades ago.
Seriously, is this guy a moron or is he playing his snark too straight to detect?
Kraux Pas
@Citizen Alan: Bloomberg and Bernie aren’t our only options, just two of our worst ones.
And it isn’t worth it replacing Trump with another Republican. Do you want a 7-2 Republican Supreme Court? Do you want 8 more years of bullshit instead of 4 due to term limits?
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Now they’ll all be backing a person who has given 5000 public speeches attacking public school teachers. Sort of puts the Culinary union’s health care issue with Bernie Sanders in perspective, worthy as it is of 7 days of wall to wall outraged coverage.
Bernie Sanders has made these people insane. They have lost their minds. They’re no longer even slightly coherent or consistent.
sdhays
@clay: I very, very much doubt he opposed the Iraq War.
clay
@Kay: I am operating under the likely foolish assumption that Bloomberg has many issues that he doesn’t much care about. So he will default to pleasing the constituents who bring him to power.
So when he was a Republican, he did Republican things. But if he gets elected as a Democrat, he’s going to have to make promises that he will have to keep. He’s going to have to deal with Nancy Pelosi. He’ll almost certainly have to pick a solid liberal as a running mate, and probably a woman, and he’ll have to make promises to her to get her on board.
(For the record, I’m NOT supporting Bloomberg in the primary. But as with all of the potentials, I am going to find reasons to vote for them in the general, as opposed to making a big show of holding my nose.)
Schmendrick
In a dead thread below I promised to report back on my experience while early “voting” in the Nevada caucus, so here goes.
I arrived at the nearest early voting site at 11:00 am. It was scheduled to be open from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm. The line at 11:00 am appeared to have at least 200 people in it and I hadn’t moved more than a few feet after about five minutes. At that point I walked inside the school cafeteria and volunteered to help. About 8 hours later I was the final voter of the day at that voting site. In between I spent my time walking up and down the line counting people and telling them an estimate of the time it would take and explaining the process once they got to the registration table.
I have neither the time, nor the skill to weave a compelling story of my adventure, but I will list a few observations that might interest the jackaltariat.
Since this was the first ever early voting activity for a Nevada Democratic Party caucus, there are no previous turnout figures to compare with what happened yesterday. The person in charge of the voting site was competent and organized but he had a limited number of volunteers assigned. I believe he called in a few friends from previous campaigns at the last minute and a few of us volunteered spontaneously when we saw the long lines, so we ended up with about a dozen people helping throughout the day.
At the beginning of the day there was a bit of a learning process and about 75 to 90 voters per hour were completing the process. The bottleneck was the step of looking up the voter registration to verify that they would get the voting card for the correct precinct and to ensure that no one voted multiple times. By the end of the day voters were going through at a rate of about 125 an hour. I can estimate this pretty accurately because there were 128 people in line at 6:00pm when we closed the door and the last voter’s ballot (mine) went in the box at 7:02.
The longest waiting time was well over 3 hours for people who arrived in the late morning. Late afternoon arrivals probably averaged less than two. The total for this voting location was close to one thousand early votes cast.
I did not have any official information about what was happening at the other voting sites around town (Las Vegas), but there were individuals from several campaigns observing who were in touch with other campaigns volunteers at the other sites and the indirect report was that all of the other sites but one were also very busy. When the line was at its peak (about 350 people) I informed the people towards the back of this rumor and perhaps one or two dozen left to try there luck at the other site (about 7 miles away). A few people so disgruntled about the line that they called for their huff and departed in it, but it was striking to me how determined most people were to cast their vote and maintained good spirits.
During the day the party and some of the campaigns provided water and pizza and other snacks to the people waiting in line. There were a few very minor instances of asking campaign people to move a little further from the actual voting area, but from my perspective everyone was co-operative and the discussions were all in good faith. Since I was the one trying to ensure fairness, and the layout of the voting site included a sequence of gates and courtyards before the interior of the building there was room for debate about where the boundaries of the voting place were, there was some negotiation about where the campaign workers could be, but it seemed to me that there were no significant confrontations and the overall attitude was a very encouraging blend of enthusiasm for particular candidates leavened with a very healthy dose “Voting Blue, No Matter Who”.
My very unofficial assessment of people wearing buttons, shirts, hats or other indicia of preference is:
People with no outward sign of their preference more than 90%
Of the people with some sign of their preference, the most may have been Sanders, with Warren a close second. There were a few for Mayor Pete, and Biden.
In terms of campaign staff I think the largest contingent was the YangGang, followed by the Sanders and Warren people. The Biden campaign also had a representative their all day. I think the other campaigns may have been represented for part of the day, but I am not sure.
Finally, I had a celebrity sighting. I helped a certain famous Las Vegas magician update his voting registration so he could vote. He lives about a mile away from me but I had never met him in person before.
Now I need to get busy studying for my job at the caucus this Saturday.
Baud
@Schmendrick:
Excellent report. Thank you for doing that work.
Kraux Pas
Man, Dick Cheney should really jump into the D primary while there’s still a chance. He’s a cut-throat fighter and, as our nominee, may win so deep in red America we could even carry Wyoming. What could go wrong?
Kay
@clay:
I don’t even buy his passionate commitment to gun regulation and climate change, frankly. I don’t know how you square that with his work on behalf of electing Republicans to Congress. He’s supposed to be so fucking smart. He can’t count Senators? What was the grand plan? Keep the senate in GOP hands and ….get gun regulations and climate change action?
Just go into it knowing you’re getting a moderate Republican who may or may not support Democrats in Congress. Also go into it knowing that voters can and may split a ticket, so the moderate Republican may win, but there’s no guarantee that his voters also support D’s downticket. The whole “coattails” argument is pure invention. It’s based on nothing.
trollhattan
@germy:
So, keep DeVoss at Ed for the know-nothing-of-public-education consistency’s sake?
clay
@sdhays: Being a New Yorker gets one somewhat of a dispensation from that, since their brains were the most rattled by 9/11.
I guess the question is, what has he supported since then?
Chyron HR
@Kay:
I know, right? I mean, is a CULINARY union even a union? Doesn’t sound like anything the white working class would truck with.
anarchoRex
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon:
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
@clay:
@Omnes Omnibus:
@Citizen Alan:
The wild mental gymnastics it must take to convince yourself that Bloomberg isn’t just Trump with a “respectable” Twitter feed. And that nominating Bloomberg won’t depress turnout among young and poc voters. Y’all are seriously in a bubble.
sdhays
@Kraux Pas: Yeah, and he doesn’t hate gay people like the rest of the party. He’s kind of liberal! Like Nixon!
Kay
@Kraux Pas:
This is ungenerous of me but jesus christ does it stick in my craw that Republicans gave us Trump and in return for that fucking obscenity they visited upon us we are now ready to give them a moderate Republican. Trump has now captured both parties.
Baud
This would be a good time for one of the Democratic candidates to step up their game.
clay
@anarchoRex: The willful blindness it takes for you to ignore that none of us are actually supporting Bloomberg but will vote for him if we have to is… well, it isn’t surprising, really.
Kraux Pas
@Kay: Not ungenerous at all. Come sit by me, I have cookies.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kay:
It’s a hope, we’re all just trying to figure out the less bad scenarios. I haven’t given up on Warren and Klobuchar yet.
Kay
@Chyron HR:
I know “facts” no longer enter the world of 24/7 opposition to Bernie Sanders but Bernie Sanders is the frontrunner in Nevada. So your six months of sure predictions that his coalition as exclusively composed of online white 25 year olds males seems to be in error.
You know who polls highest with Latinos? Sanders. By a mile. I don’t know that he’ll win Nevada but if he has a strong showing you’re going to have to adjust your theory. It was wrong.
ziggy
@Schmendrick:
Very interesting, thanks for your work and observations.
anarchoRex
@clay: so if it’s between Bernie and Bloomberg in the primary who you taking?
AliceBlue
And yet Bloomberg is still polling better than Warren with POC. I don’t know if she “has a plan for that” but if she doesn’t she damn well better start working on one. Same goes for Buttigieg and Klobuchar.
Kraux Pas
I plan to vote on super Tuesday for either Warren or Klobuchar, whoever is performing better.
Ivan X
@Kraux Pas: Seriously? Bloomberg is just “competent Trump”? No, that would be someone like Josh Hawley a few years from now – a slick, reasonable sounding white supremacist.
I don’t think Bloomberg is without his personally offensive issues, and I do think he has authoritarian instincts, but I also (as an NYC resident) believe he cares about and works for the well being of the polity, which, in our case, is polycultural, polyethnic, and polyglot. Quality of life for all — more public pedestrian and gathering spaces, bike lanes, fast buses etc — occurred under his administration.
I am sure he’s prejudiced and chauvanistic, and has an ego the size of the moon, but I don’t think he is a baked in racist and male supremacist like Trump and much of the modern Republican Party are, who want to turn those prejudices into policy.
Sometimes Bloomberg’s civil prescriptions are heavy handed (public smoking ban and huge tax, soda ban, etc), or, in the case of the 2004 RNC, outright fascistic. He certainly wants to preserve order for the comfortable, but if that means keeping the less comfortable under adequate circumstances, he’ll do it, not try to punish and exacerbate their condition as Republicans do. From what I can see.
He can also be positive In a fashion only billionaire benevolent dictators can offer (“anonymous” donations for civic goods while budget slashing). That’s far from ideal, but it’s better than someone who doesn’t give a fuck and just wants to turn over federal lands to developers.
None of this something you can say about Trump, who cares only about what’s good for him and him only, and if could have his way, would deport all non whites in two seconds.
Suggesting they are equivalent is, well, false.
I’m for Warren, but would I vote for Bloomberg if it comes down to that? Of course. If it’s a choice between Bernie and Bloomberg only, I’d have to give it a good hard think — Bloomberg is an competent authoritarian who nonetheless I believe wants the social good and will reverse many of Trump’s toxic policies, whereas Bernie is another egomaniac whose views I more align with but I have doubts about the competence of in a position of actual leadership. And he certainly has some loathsome followers, which I think ultimately does have to reflect on him.
anarchoRex
@Ivan X: If Bloomberg was a Bernie supporter you’d be asking “why does Bernie have racist billionaires supporting him?” And asking Bernie to denounce him.
sdhays
@clay: I don’t really accept that. An explicit part of the job of journalist is to keep a control on your biases and your personal fears. If you’re at the top of your profession, you can’t get let a decade disappear because you lost your head. It means you are bad at your job.
But more importantly, these are also the same crackerjack “journalists” who didn’t realize that Donny Dump is up to ears with the Russian mob, not a billionaire, and a serial sexual harasser (likely worse). They also covered for Harvey Weinstein. They don’t challenge the rich and powerful, especially if they’re from New York City. You can’t wash that away with 9/11.
We, as a nation, have been let down by our NYC-centered journalist elite for a lot longer than we appreciate.
Baud
@Kraux Pas: That’s where I am.
Kay
@Chyron HR:
Nathaniel Rakich
@baseballot
· Feb 14
Eastern Carolina University gives us our first SC poll since NH:
Biden 28% (-9)
Sanders 20% (+6)
Steyer 14% (-5)
Buttigieg 8% (+4)
Klobuchar 7% (+5)
Warren 7% (-1)
Bernie Sanders is polling 2nd in SC. He’s doubled his support in that state. Bloomberg won’t be on the ballot but they polled him- he’s at 5.
I’m not a Sanders supporter but it’s silly to continue to insist his support consists of Bernie Bros. It isn’t true.
clay
@Kay: I think we need to ask why he was able to win three terms in multi-ethnic, solidly blue New York City? And he seems to have been regarded as a better mayor than the much more left DiBlasio. He has to have SOME appeal to real, actual Democrats in order for this to happen.
Ivan X
@Kay: it started long before Trump. Like it or not, the R’s have moved the Overton window with their nonstop screaming at the “MSM” for being “biased,” and said “MSM” responding by bending over backwards to show “neutrality” and “objectivity.” Moderate Republican is now the center, I’m afraid. Anyone not in Trumpland would vote for one just by virtue of him/her not being ideological.
Kay
Since Sanders polls better in the upcoming more diverse states than any of the other Democrats besides Biden, wouldn’t your choices be Biden or Sanders, if that was your measure?
I mean, it’s obviously NOT the measure since Warren seems to be the favorite around here, but it was put forth as the measure when it appeared Sanders might do poorly in these states.
Ivan X
@anarchoRex: I would? No, I wouldn’t, but thanks for the characterization.
Omnes Omnibus
@anarchoRex: How much of a moron are you? I dod say anything in favor of Bloomberg’s candidacy and, as a matter of fact, I will not vote for him in my primary. The only circumstance in which I would vote for him is if the choice in November is between him and Trump. But when you waltz in with your false premise, I do think you need to go fuck yourself.
clay
@sdhays: Bloomberg isn’t a journalist, though. He’s a businessman, and he likely knew a lot of people in the World Trade Center.
A lot of people were so traumatized by the event that they wanted to lash out and, more importantly, they wanted to trust their government.
I’m not saying it was right. But I do understand it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay: How many votes has Bloomberg received? How many delegates does he have?
Kraux Pas
Sorry, can you repeat that? Couldn’t hear over all the stories about using the police to harass black people, latinos, and muslims. Oh yeah, and his sexual harassment of women.
The bourgeois American dream!
@Ivan X:
Kay
@clay:
We don’t need to ask that. One word- Giuliani. America’s most vicious lunatic wingnut won in NYC.
Now I don’t know how that works but “NYC” may not be the magic formula here. Frankly I’d rather deal with southern wingnuts. They weren’t promoted 24/7 by elite media like the NYC wingnuts are.
sdhays
@clay: Well, he is the owner of his own media empire. Anyway, my whole thing on this point is that the guy saying that the NYC journalists are going to nail Mike Bloomberg for making up a bunch of shit and blatantly lying about his record is smoking crack if he believes that. These people won’t cross Trump, and they definitely won’t cross Mike Bloomberg. We need to be clear on this point.
It’s probably Bloomberg’s most compelling asset, as depressing as that is.
rivers
@Kraux Pas: You would have to convince me that Trump’s next Supreme Court justice would be pro-choice, also that he would suddenly see the light on climate change and guns, also that he would suddenly refuse to accommodate Putin on such matters as Ukraine and NATO for me to begin to accept that having an obvious criminal is preferable to Mike Bloomberg. (P.S. I would infinitely prefer someone else as our nominee, but given the choice, would you honestly choose Trump?)
Ivan X
@Kay: He wasn’t a wingnut when he was mayor, just a raging asshole.
Kay
@Omnes Omnibus:
Oh, I agree. It’s too soon. He may hit a wall at 15 and not be able to buy past that. That’s what happened to Steyer. He bought a lot, enough to stay in, but he isn’t going to win.
It isn’t even the economic conservatism, although that is a deal breaker for me, I know it wouldn’t be a deal breaker for a lot of Democrats, who are Right-leaning. It’s the economic conservatism combined with things like stop and frisk and his really unforgivable approach to women. He is someone who shamed and humiliated women in his employ when they got pregnant. Many, many of them SUED him. I think there were 40 lawsuits.
We would be trading everything. All of it.
Ksmiami
@Kay:
Bernie sucks and is engaged in a hostile takeover of the Democratic Party. He would lose us the house so if Bloomberg is the alternative, we’ll survive
Kraux Pas
@rivers: Convince me that Bloomberg would make a meaningfully different Supreme Court pick than Trump.
Geminid
I don’t like the way Bloomberg will get the nomination, if he gets the nomination, but I am not as pessimistic as others about a Bloomberg presidency. From what I’ve seen I’d call him an Eisenhower Democrat. Got no problem with that.
Ivan X
@Kraux Pas:
Yes. So?
Schmendrick
@Omnes Omnibus: An anecdote re: Bloomberg and Schmendrick’s excellent adventure at the early voting site yesterday. I spent a lot of time explaining to people in line about the process of filling out their ballots yesterday == mostly the fact that they had to fill out at least the first three choices for candidates (and optionally fourth and fifth choices). I had one person ask about voting for Bloomberg. The answer I gave them was that their was no way for them to vote for a delegate for Michael Bloomberg. I indicated that they could vote for an uncommitted delegate which eventually might work in his favor.
Kay
And I’m not a “purist”. That’s a bullshit charge. I would have backed Biden. I would have backed Amy K. I would have trouble backing Mayor Pete because he has no experience and IMO is something of a fraud, plus I think he’ll lose, but if you jerks had chosen him I would have gone along. But there has to be a limit. This is the limit.
Bloomberg isn’t “decent”. He gleefully brags about throwing people against walls. He harangues people in his employ for the sin of getting pregnant. He’s also not “honest”. He opposed the ACA. He supported stop and frisk. He now lies about both things. All his ads against Trump are about “decency” which admiitedly is a good approach, but is he the messenger?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Okay well fuck it let’s just start a DRAFT MICHELLE! movement
206inKY
@Kay: That’s a good point. Beshear ran an extraordinary ground game but it didn’t carry over into the other statewide races, which all went red. Bloomberg could easily pull voters who will turn around and vote Republican down ballot.
I’ve been Bloomberg-curious entirely because if his willingness to drop a couple billion. He promised to fund offices in all 50 states and has poured millions into Stacey Abrams’ organization. I also figured his data operation might be the only one robust enough to detect the rigging of voting machines.
But holy crap, the Post article on his misogyny at work is a bridge too far. I’m feeling intense frustration that Klobucher is getting buried in the press yet again, and Warren and Biden are still vacuuming attention despite NH, which was Warren’s backyard. There’s been no movement toward Klobucher or reckoning with Warren’s misstep in hugging Bernie too tightly for much of the race, and we’re stuck with Bernie, Pete, and Biden in a scrum at the top. Yet Warren and Klobucher seem like the only two non-Bloomberg candidates who can actually best Trump. And both are mired at 8-12%, below the viability threshold for delegates.
Kraux Pas
@Ivan X: So…adequate doesn’t look quite so good when you’re there. Adequate is years of bouncing between friends willing to rent a room until they sell their house. Adequate is not secure for the people there.
Omnes Omnibus
Cite?
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay: It is kind of fun watching you talk yourself into supporting Sanders right in front of our eyes.
Kraux Pas
@Omnes Omnibus: I don’t want Sanders either but between him and Bloomberg, I know whose heart is in the right place.
Kay
@206inKY:
All of the Democrats have family leave proposals. That’s smart- it’s a huge issue for younger families. Younger people, in my experience, are different about this- they don’t accept that they can’t have any time off for a new baby. Good for them! They’re right. It’s barbaric and backward. Gillibrand really brought it forward which I give her credit for. A lot of her “family” stuff was smart- Democrats could take “families” from Republicans with actual family-friendly policy.
And our Party leader will be someone who screamed at pregnant employees “are you going to kill it”?
And he’s running on “decency” – good Lord.
Southern Goth
@Kay:
No.
No, you wouldn’t.
Another Scott
Any Democrat that makes it through the primaries can defeat Donnie and his minions. We’ve been defeating them since January 2017.
Cheers,
Scott.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Kraux Pas:
This is a joke, right?
Abortion rights, gay rights, voting rights, etc. are literally on the ballot AGAIN, and you pull this crap?
Bernie or Bloomberg – our doomsday duo. They each poll better against Trump in the latest national poll* (*allthedisclaimers) than each of our other preferred candidates. Including Biden, who previously led that metric for the past year. We can’t stand em here, but the electorate apparently feels differently. BOOOO
The Lodger
@sdhays: Mike Bloomberg’s media empire is also one of the few places that might not be laying off journalists in the next three or four years. The NYC media are pros, mostly, but they aren’t going to clobber their own careers by unnecessarily taking on a potential future employer.
Kay
@Omnes Omnibus:
this site is delusional about Sanders. It really came home to me with Iowa when Sanders lost (he lost- the delegate count is the measure) and all of a sudden Iowa became the pulse of the nation. Why? Because Sanders didn’t dominate!
The races are determined solely by how Bernie does. If he underperforms it’s “valid”. If he comes in first or second in Nevada all of a sudden Nevada will cease being “diverse” and a “bellweather” and become invalid. SC was determinative until Sanders doubled his support in polling and now it’s suspect.
Kraux Pas
There that looks better.
Kay
@Ksmiami:
Bloomberg wasn’t a Democrat until a year ago and he’s buying the Democratic Party. Whether or not that’s a “hostile takeover” probably depends on whether or not you like Mike. Object to Sanders all you want but this particular objection is now off the table. Find a new one.
AliceBlue
@Kay: Republicans are being encouraged to vote for Sanders in the open Democratic primary. So yeah, I’d say polling in SC is suspect.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Omnes Omnibus: Not exactly what Bloomberg was intending with his candidacy… driving folks into Bernie’s arms while further crowding the “moderate lane” in the Primary.
Bernie’s a liar (misleader/$vengali)
Bloomberg’s a creep
They’re both unrepentant assholes (they’re not “people persons”)
But either one can beat Trump, and both would pick good Supreme Court justice nominees in consultation with Senate Democrats.
Another Scott
@Schmendrick: Thanks very much for the report! Enthusiasm and determination is very good.
Cheers,
Scott.
Kay
@AliceBlue:
Of course it is. You didn’t even have to tell me. So if Sanders places 2nd or 3rd in SC it’s presumptively invalid. Good to know. Is Biden’s polling in SC valid? He’s still first. Why or why not?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon:
fingers crossed, spit three times, knock on wood and throw the salt over your left shoulder
clay
@Kay:
Well, at least he’s pro-choice. //s
Kraux Pas
@Kay: I told them this Bernie derangement wasn’t bringing them good places.
AliceBlue
@Kay: I’m not the ultimate judge of validity or invalidity of any poll; just maybe take them all with a few grains of salt right now. Take some deep breaths and calm down.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
I, for one, am looking forward to 3-4 more months of these fun conversations.
My primary is in late May. Bernie will likely dominate, but maybe with less of an overall percentage than last time (in 2016, Bernie beat Hillary here among the lily-whites and greens). I will probably vote for Warren.
I anticipate the race to be still going strong in late May, as every delegate will matter, for once.
Kay
@Omnes Omnibus:
And I’m not “talking myself into supporting Sanders”. I have supported Warren for months and continue to do so. Here’s the thing though- she’s not breaking 15. Bernie Sanders is, right now, a stronger candidate than Elizabeth Warren and looking at polling he is a stronger candidate in diverse states. So the opposite of the rap on him. Joe Biden hasn’t won any of these states either, so if you’re looking for the candidate with the most support in diverse states it’s Bernie and Biden, one and two, or two and one.
Since the Biden belief was based solely on polling the Bernie belief should be too. I would think. Since it’s not I have to look for bias.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: We’re going to make it happen. And we’ll have a lot of help.
Omnes Omnibus
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: If we could stop limiting our consideration to Sanders and Bloomberg until they are the only people left, I would appreciate it. The last time I checked Biden, Warren, Buttigieg, and Klobuchar are all still running. Some of them have even done well the recent contests and others are polling well in the upcoming ones. Let the fucking process happen.
Kay
@AliceBlue:
I think you have to have some consistency. If your belief in Biden’s popularity in more diverse states was based on polls- and it was, there is nothing else- then that belief should extend to Bernie. It’s both or neither.
Kraux Pas
The fun part comes when a brokered convention lands on Hillary Clinton as consensus cadidate after she never even runs. Shit, I’ll be down for that at this point.
Jinchi
I think Bloomberg is what happens when people vote out of fear and desperation. This is the dark side of repeating the mantra “defeat Trump at any cost” and then falling for Mike’s $100 million dollar campaign that only he can save us.
Baud
@Kraux Pas: Ha! That was my thought too.
To be honest, I would love that result, but it won’t happen.
AliceBlue
@Kay: I don’t agree but I’m not going to argue about it.
Kraux Pas
I believe the accepted euphemism is “pragmatism.”
Jinchi
I realize you were joking, but telling a pregnant employee to “kill it” is the opposite of pro-choice.
sgrAstar
@Kraux Pas:
“ETA: I think we need to get past this idea that all we need is to get rid of Trump. Plenty of people are worse than Trump. With Bloomberg it’s close and at a minimum he’ll entrench the worst problems of Trumpism.”
I suppose it was inevitable that someone would advance this bs argument. Mike won’t propagate the rampant, shameless corruption of the trump admin, he’ll restore the scientific cred of the EPA, CDC, etc, he will fight climate change, he will try to get guns off our streets, he’ll support women’s rights, he won’t rip little kids away from their parents, he’ll support DACA. I can’t stand Mike and won’t support him in any way, but we can’t allow trump to win. We just can’t.
?
Omnes Omnibus
@Jinchi: @Kraux Pas: Let’s see how many votes he actually gets.
Miss Bianca
@Kay: No, what’s “suspect” to me right now is how many Democrats have all either been brainwashed or lost their goddamn minds somehow, since so many of them are apparently willing to vote for a goddamn 78-year-old bullshit artist *fake* Democrat who has gone out of his way to crap on them for so many years.
Oh, sorry, were we talking about Bloomberg, here?
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Omnes Omnibus: Yes. I was just addressing the current topic of conversation.
I like Warren, she’s substantial and a “people person”
I like Buttigieg, he’s a “people person”
I’ve become disillusioned with -Joe!-, despite his also being a “people person”
Never that into Klobuchar, but would def prefer to Bern and Bloom
…and we get to watch them duke it out for the next 4 months-yay
Kraux Pas
No, it will be a respectable corruption; a kinder, gentler corruption.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Kraux Pas: Pragmatism is a rational response to all-to-real “fear and desperation”
Kraux Pas
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: Not if it leads us to accept potentially 8 more years of Republican governance.
Gvg
Bloomberg is getting the 2 weeks turn at popularity and then evryone starts attacking him. His poll surge is people who are actually uncommitted looking around for a sure winner to beat Trump. We are due for some attacks. After that we’ll see how he weathers. I feel it is too soon to bother figuring out who is worse.
the pro Bloomberg talk here was all rationalizing maybe having to vote Bloomberg, not cheerful acceptance or even happiness. It comes out of realizing we aren’t typical voters and too many of our fellows are stupid not to mention racist. If Bloomberg doesn’t hold up, we won’t have to hold our nose for him and November is a long ways away.
A few weeks ago we were talking ourselves into Biden. I recommend saving your energy. I think there are going to be several more agonizing swings in this race. I don’t know what they will be but people are weird.
Jinchi
It came home to me when he lost to Clinton in 2016 and people here were still obsessing about him all the way through the general election.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Kraux Pas: Or 4 years of Independent/Dem Socialist governance…
Kraux Pas
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: That may turn out ok depending on Congress.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Gvg:
”Balloon Juice – where you can talk yourself through the week’s potentially-inevitable political compromises among friends”
Kraux Pas
C’mon let’s keep that Klomentum building. I’m not adept at living in the woods off the grid.
eta: are hippie communes still a thing?
Kay
@Miss Bianca:
Imagine if Bernie Sanders had said or done any of these things Bloomberg said and did. “Fake Democrat”? Are you kidding me? Bloomberg supported Elizabeth Warren’s opponent. He appeared at the GOP convention in 2004 and thanked Bush for invading Iraq. I guess that was in service to his principled commitment to gun regs and climate change action? George W Bush was better on the environment and guns than John Kerry?
Several of Bernie Sanders supporters targeted Culinary union leadership online. OTOH, Mike Bloomberg bragged about his policy of throwing black and brown people up against walls. How is this even close?
Kraux Pas
The good news is this place seems way less vitriolic than in 16. Even 08 was fraught. We’ll be fine.
::Whistles past graveyard::
Raven Onthill
@AliceBlue: “And yet Bloomberg is still polling better than Warren with POC.” This seems to be (PoC have said) because they think he can reliably beat Trump and they don’t trust any “white” candidate to reliably represent their interests.
Archon
I think Trump Presidency validated by a 2nd term with his army of cult like followers is a unique threat to our Republic, in other words this is a flight 93 election for me. So if Bloomberg can convince me he has the best chance to beat Trump I’m voting for him, period.
Kraux Pas
@Archon: Well, has he convinced you?
I think if he’s the nom we’ll lose 60 states and Canada.
low-tech cyclist
Lawful evil? Chaotic evil?. Sorry, no speaka the language.
But three words: Climate change. Filibuster.
AliceBlue
@Raven Onthill: I understand completely. But there are some folks that can’t seem to wrap their heads around that fact.
Miss Bianca
@Kay: Bernie IS a fake Democrat, Kay, with a track record of jack and shit done in Congress, and a shitty band of followers. Does that mean I love Bloomberg? No way. But I am beyond infuriated that somehow Sanders, who has nothing going for him but a big mouth bellowing lefty platitudes, a dicky heart, and a shady attitude towards disclosure of his health and tax records, is a contender at all. He’s a bum. Not as much of a bum as Trump or Bloomberg, but he’s still a bum. You’re always talking about character – well, to me, he has no character. And so now Democrats expose themselves as being just as shitty judges of character as Republicans, and it makes me crazy. Doesn’t mean I won’t vote for him in the general if, God forbid, it comes to that, but I’m sure as shit not going to go all, “yay, Bernie, kumbaya” if it comes to that, either.
Kay
And it seems to have gone completely down the rabbit hole, but Clinton sued the Culinary union in ’08 re: the offsite caucus events and Bill Clinton weighed in complaining that Obama’s thugs were forcing people to caucus for Obama. There was a giant fight, because the Obama people shot back that the Clintons wanted to suppress participation by minorities.
So, you know, absolute fealty to the Culinary union was never a rule, before Bernie Sanders.
https://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/la-na-hillary-clinton-nevada-union-20150503-story.html
Kraux Pas
@low-tech cyclist: It refers to Dungeons and Dragons, or so I’ve heard.
Baud
@Kay:
I wasn’t at BJ at the time, but I assume most people here supported Obama over Clinton in 08, and probably opposed Clinton on the Culinary Union issue.
Ruckus
I’m thinking my decision to sleep in late this morning was a good one.
Kraux Pas
@Baud: I remember it being pretty evenly split for Obama v Clinton.
And, oh, the fights we had. I don’t remember that specifically, but I’m sure it came up.
FTR: I was team Obama after Bill Richardson dropped out.
Raven Onthill
Oct 21, 2011: “About 30 people, including the civil rights campaigner and Princeton professor Cornel West, were arrested Friday outside a police station in Harlem during a protest of the police practice known as stop-and-frisk.” – https://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/21/protesters-of-police-stop-and-frisk-practice-are-arrested/
Kathleen
@Kay: Which has been the goal since 2014/2015. Destroy the party.
pamelabrown53
@Kay:
I can imagine a lot of disgusting, frightening things that Bernie has said, done and wrote. Until he’s really vetted and we see how he handles and weathers it, you get no points for riding the moral high horse.
Chyron HR
@Kay:
And don’t forget when Hillary told the PUMAs to send death threats to everyone who opposed her.
Oh wait no, Trump and Bernie are the only ones depraved enough to do that, my mistake.
Kraux Pas
@Chyron HR: Uh, can you link to Bernie telling his supporters to do that?
Chyron HR
@Jinchi:
Oh, yeah, the way people here act you’d think Bernie threw the general election so he wouldn’t have to wait until 2024 to run again which is of course exactly what he did.
pamelabrown53
@Kraux Pas:
President Obama was the only candidate I ever fell in love with during the primaries and wouldn’t allow the slightest criticism or bogus, out of context statement to go unchallenged.
Would love to be able to return to my pre-blog days of living my life and always voting for the primary winner.
I think I might have been able to do just that if not for Emperor Orange.
Kent
Show of hands here. Who over say 40 has actually switched parties and changed their affiliation and political philosophies over time?
I know there’s Cole. But how common is that? I’m 56 and have been a Dem since I was about 10 and cheer-leading the fall of Nixon. Actually since 1972 NIxon-McGovern when I was 8 but that was probably more me just picking up my parent’s influence.
Yet we have these folks like Bloomberg, Sanders, Trump…even Warren, who get into their 40s or beyond before their political philosophies coalesce. I just don’t understand how you can go through the bulk of your adult life without understanding what your principals are. I understand when a party shifts out from underneath you like the Southern Dems and Northeastern Rockefeller Republicans. But that isn’t usually the case here. That’s maybe Warren but not Bernie, Bloomberg, or Trump.
Kay
@Kathleen:
Bloomberg isn’t flooding the zone with 4.5 million dollars a day to beat Trump. He isn’t the Democratic nominee. He’s flooding the zone with 4.5 million dollars a day to beat the other Democrats– the candidates you guys supposedly support.
If you’re genuinely supporting Elizabeth Warren or one of the others the idea that this billionaire can swoop in and buy the race should enrage you.
This is skewing the Democratic primary. He first has to buy the Democrats before he can run against Trump. Part of what he does it tell other rich people that they don’t have to donate at all- they can just NOT support another candidate and they’ll get Bloomberg without spending a dime. This will affect the chances that one of the other Democrats wins. His fortune is so huge it skews the whole race.
Kay
@Baud:
It was huge, Baud. The interpretation of Bill Clinton’s remarks were that the Clintons were calling the Obama people thugs. Bill Clinton then had a complete fucking meltdown that lasted thru South Carolina. It was not then and is not now considered “unforgivable” because it’s the shit that happens in a primary.
She sued the union in an effort to allow fewer people to caucus. All of our newly-minted labor supporters in media were not outraged. It’s the shit that happens in a primary.
Baud
@Kay:
It would have been if Obama had lost to McCain. Do you think Hillary would have been the nominee in 2012 if that had happened? I don’t.
Kay
@pamelabrown53:
Well, since we have Mike Bloomberg on tape bragging to a group of rich people about how you have to throw people against the wall, and then pinning the 2009 financial crisis on black homeowners, then haranguing employees because they had the nerve to ask for pregnancy leave, or the 40-some lawsuits where he settled and made them sign NDA’s, I can’t imagine that Bernie Sanders, “the secret tapes”, the “oppo” that never came out in his hundred years in Congress or his last prez run, will or really could be worse, but I suppose we’ll see.
I have no idea why anyone thinks Bloomberg would be less corrupt. He owns a goddamned empire and he CURRENTLY has his own Ivanka, Emma, his daughter. Is he going to sell his vast business interests?
Omnes Omnibus
@Kent: Actually, Cole’s history has made this blog rather friendly to party-changers. I am not one, but there are more than a few here. What’s funny is that quite a few have the zeal of converts and are more Catholic than the Pope.
germy
I wrote the law Bloomberg blames for the financial crisis. He’s wrong.
rivers
@Kraux Pas: Go to the Planned Parenthood site on their candidate page – they point to 1) his statement in 2006 that “reproductive freedom is a fundamental human right” 2) his actions as mayor in terms of giving access to contraception for students who requested it. He has also made grants to Planned parenthood partners to reduce maternal deaths in developing countries.
This is not an endorsement of Bloomberg, because – as I’ve said – he is my least favorite candidate for the nomination; however, this pattern of support for reproductive choice and maternal health suggests to me that he would not choose a Supreme Court nominee who would restrict abortion rights. I can always be wrong of course, -and his misogynistic statements in the past and creation of hostile workplace conditions for women lead me to put him at the bottom of the list of all the potential nominees so far in terms of women’s rights, but would I rather take a chance on him over the prospect of allowing Trump to continue his rampage against minorities, immigrants and women? Yes.
Annie
@Kay:
who’s this “we” you’re talking about? Sure doesn’t sound like too many people here are jumping onto a Bloomberg bandwagon. The media likes shiny new things to report on so Bloomberg is getting coverage. How many delegates does he have?
Kay
@pamelabrown53:
Here’s my take on Bernie Sanders. I think he would be a weak executive. I think he reached the highest possible rung of even moderate “effectiveness” in Congress and that’s because of how Congress operates. He could do his thing while voting with Democrats 99% of the time while in Congress and he won’t be able to hide like that as executive. So one of two things happens- he compromises, or he fails utterly. I think he compromises. He’s compromised plenty. Every single D bill he voted for was a compromise, and he’s voted for the vast, vast majority of them. He’s not even a particularly mavericky senator.
Another Scott
@Raven Onthill: IIRC, Biden was most popular before he got in the race. It’s always this way.
ex-Mayor Mike hasn’t been in a debate yet – and he might not ever if he can’t get enough support. (Almost) Nobody who is thinking about voting for him really knows anything about him. His numbers are likely to drop once he actually has to answer pointed questions for an extended period of time.
Cheers,
Scott.
Kent
Probably because us old-timers remember all the times we basically held our noses and voted with the party cause it’s what you do. We don’t expect purity because we have never had it. Mondale? Dukakis/Bentson? Kerry/Edwards?
You just pull the lever because the alternatives are ALWAYS worse and you understand that politics is always a zero sum game and progress is always incremental. The Susan Sarandon idea that you move forward by taking a GIANT leap backwards is infuriating for words, and has NEVER once proven to be true in the 250 year history of American politics.
Kay
@Annie:
I think the focus on Bloomberg beating Trump ignores the effect of Bloomberg’s money on OUR primary.
He changes the race. What he hopes to do is make “Bloomberg the savior” a self-fulfilling condition. Before he knocks out Trump, remember, he has to knock out all the other Democrats.
I think we’ll actually hear more about this from the other candidates here shortly. Imagine you’re one of them. You’re going along, in the top five, hoping for delegates, whatever, and here comes this giant wad of cash. WOMP. 4.5 million A DAY. It’s unprecedented. Warren is already screaming like a crazy person about it. The rest will follow.
pamelabrown53
@Kay:
Well, except for what he wrote. Don’t really know for sure as he’s never been seriously vetted.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kent: I am not going to out anyone on this issue, but they aren’t necessarily young people.
Kay
@pamelabrown53:
Joe Biden was pretty “vetted”. Had you heard a word about Hunter Biden prior to last summer? If they want to turn something into something, they will do so. Hunter isn’t even the end of it. Biden has two brothers who traded on the name. I knew about Frank. I didn’t know there’s another one. I saw that last week. My point is not that Joe Biden is bad- my point is that “vetting” doesn’t matter. Hillary Clinton is one of the most well known people in the world. They invented a completely new scandal just for the 2016 race.
Kraux Pas
Well let’s hope he can find a justice who doesn’t fit the typical right left paradigm. Because I think Bloomberg prioritizes money above all else, will nominate someone who is basically a Republican in that regard, and not a lot of people compartmentalize issues along the same way Bloomberg has.
Ruckus
Went for a nice 2+mile walk came back to find that my decision was again warranted.
Kent
@Kay: This. They will make a scandal out of absolutely ANYTHING.
The whole Clinton emails thing was actually a by-product of the Benghazi hearings which were a giant to-do about absolutely nothing and far less of a scandal than half the things that Trump has done overseas from the Kurds to Turkey to Iran to North Korea.
There are no possible candidates that the Dems can pick that will be immune from the tidal wave of filth that is coming our way. All we can do is pick the candidate who is most adept at deflecting it and has the resources and skills to maintain the focus on their message. Obama had that skill. Of this current crop, I think Warren has it, at least to some degree. And obviously Bloomberg has the resources and payroll to do it, although he is nowhere near as naturally adept at it as an Obama or Bill Clinton. And I don’t think Bernie is equipped for it either. He has never once in his political life had to expand his coalition towards the center. I think they will make him look toxic, and the crazies that surround his campaign will not help matters. Snake emojis won’t beat Trump.
Kent
@Omnes Omnibus: It was a rhetorical question. More of a comment on Bloomberg and Sanders and everyone else who discovers the Democratic party in their 70s when it is convenient for them to do so.
Sab
@Kay: My dad’s nurse’s aide is thinking favorably about Bloomberg. He has good ads. She was surprised early on when I liked Warren and Harris. She was Biden.
Your comments this thread have given me a lot of ammo to talk her down. That should also spread around the nursing home. Thanks.
I think the lying factor should be particularly persuasive. Ads look good, but don’t believe them.
She and I were Hillary to the bitter end in 2008. We both thought Obama had a bright future but was young.
Kay
@Kent:
Sanders fanatics ignore his senate vote record and anti-Sanders fanatics do too. Bernie has compromised every single year of his time in the senate. His true-believers have to ignore this but it is true. Bernie Sanders once compromised with John McCain- the issue was partial privatization of the VA. Sanders actually traded away a part of a wholly public health system.
He’ll compromise and then Sanders supporters will be the ones talking about 60 votes in the senate instead of Obama supporters talking about that.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
Bloomberg and Warren voters don’t overlap.
You have to give people considering Bloomberg an alternative. A few posts promoting Klobuchar would be helpful. Otherwise the Bloomberg voters will just go back to Pete or Biden.
Kay
@Sab:
It’s upsetting. Not so much Bloomberg v Trump. I could live with that choice if it came to that after a fair fight among the Democrats. But it isn’t a fair fight. Amy K. raised 12 million dollars since Iowa. Bloomberg SPENDS 4 million a day. I’m not sure people are getting their heads around how his entry impacts the D primary.
I’m confident the other candidates will raise it as an issue. Warren and Sanders already are.
pamelabrown53
@Kay:
I agree with your take on Bernie Sanders: weak leader, etc. etc..
I just need to see that he can make it to winning the election.
All day you’ve been frantically vetting Bloomberg which I applaud. Here’s what I don’t applaud: Nobody is really vetting Bernie and while he may have never yelled at a female employee to get an abortion-which is horrific-there seems to be many seriously weird “ideas” that he’s written about that are jaw droppingly freaky.
At any rate, it doesn’t really matter as I’m 1 vote in Texas. While I won’t vote Bernie, it’s equally doubtful I’d vote Bloomberg.
My question to you since you’re an Ohioan and I grew up there: who do you think could win Ohio’s electoral votes? Bernie or Bloomberg?
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@Kent: Warren is terrible at this. See: DNA test and walking into Sanders’s M4A briar patch.
Kay
Here’s how I could live with Bloomberg and see it as “Bloomberg v Trump”
If Bloomberg had run like all the rest in the primary with some amount of his vast fortune that is somewhat comparable to the rest in spending. If he won THAT on the merits and then went on v Trump I could deal. But he isn’t doing that. Before he gets anywhere near Trump he is skewing the primary field with his giant bags of cash, hoping to make Bloomberg v Trump inevitable.
To me it’s not “Bloomberg v Trump”. It’s “Bloomberg v every other Democrat in the field”. That’s the reality. That’s what he’s doing.
evodevo
@Kay: Yes. In the Dump Bevin election in Ky, virtually all the Dem downticket lost. Looking at my county’s election returns, it was evident that the Repubs hated Bevin, but not enough to vote for Dems in other races. So, yes, that downticket coattails thingy doesn’t always apply.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Preach. The non-Bloomberg candidates are at the mercy of cynical media gatekeepers who want to foment dust-ups between them. They can’t bypass our profoundly broken system because they can’t carpet bomb potential voters with ads 24/7. I’m hoping they stage a revolt at the upcoming debate. This is a travesty.
Ksmiami
@Miss Bianca: Bernie is a fraudulent grifter at least Bloomberg is backing down ballot races – something the Bern will never do
Geminid
@pamelabrown53: Curious. Want to ask a Texan: What do you think of MJ Hegar? Do you think she’ll beat Cornyn?
Jinchi
The DNA test ‘controversy’ happened before the campaign even started and Warren built strength in the polls for the entire year following it. I think we can discount that as a problem for her campaign. Nobody cares about the DNA test. It’s just a troll talking point for Trumpsters.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@Jinchi: the question was who is best at “deflecting” incoming attacks, not who has problems. She handled the incoming attack on her heritage poorly. That’s not to say she’s doesn’t have good policy and values or that she wouldn’t make a good president.
pamelabrown53
@Geminid:
I just moved here from Florida. Seriously clueless…still trying to get my bearings.
P.S. I moved to El Paso, a minority majority city where I’m muy comfortable. My city has way more in common with New Mexico.
Another Scott
Relatedly, because FB is behind everything that ails us these days… Dean Baker at CEPR:
Dean is very, very good about cutting to the heart of the matter. Read the whole thing.
If we want FB and similar giant corporations who are Ok with anything as long as it brings them clicks and dollars – no matter the damage it does to our democracy and our institutions – to be reigned in, then we have to elect Democrats. Not rich plutocrats who figured out how to twist the system to wring out monopoly rents.
Cheers,
Scott.
Geminid
@pamelabrown53:
@pamelabrown53: I’ve been watching her from Virginia, thinking she has potential. Compelling life story, seems cheerfully tough. Could ride the outsider vs. insider dynamic to victory. I hope your new home will be a happy one.
Geminid
@pamelabrown53: Your freshman Congresswoman, Veronica Escobar, looks very solid. The NYT did a long article on her last July, when the intraparty squabble over Border funding was going on. I was impressed. There is also a new Congresswoman over the border from you- Xochitl Torres-Small (D-Las Cruces NM); seems impressive too. Flipped a red district in 2018.
Sab
@Kay: That’s why I like Warren. Corruption that would have been illegal in the 1970s is now legal, but it is still corruption.
I don’t think Bloomberg is in this because he thought our candidates are weak. I think he is in this to stop a Democratic tidal wave from top to bottom.
Geminid
@pamelabrown53: New Mexico’s new governor, Michel Luhan-Griffin, seems pretty cool also. Ran on a clean energy platform, signed a good clean power bill last year.
pamelabrown53
@Geminid:
I can’t thank you enough for taking the time to share such important, relevant info.
Geminid
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@Sab: but he’s not taking votes away from liberals, he’s taking votes away from moderates like Biden and Pete.
Warren’s decline began on Oct 7 (see graph), 30 days before Bloomberg announced his run.
Moreover, Bloomberg is to the far left of Sanders on guns and immigration and the environment. Furthermore, Bloomberg spent 80,000,000 million dollars on electing Democrats in the midterm, while Sanders spent a paltry 39,815 thousand dollars (everyone he endorsed lost 0-22; ironically and tellingly he refused to endorse Socialists AOC and Cynthia Nixon in their primaries).
There’s no need to like Bloomberg, but there’s no need to invent conspiracy theories.
Geminid
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: Sanders also campaigned against Sharice Davids, now Congresswoman from Kansas City, KS, and against Gretchen Whitmer, new Governor of Michigan, in the primaries. Both excellent candidates.
Sab
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: What conspiracy theory? This isn’t about Warren.
He is trying to buy an election, and he is rich enough to do it. Normally this wouldn’t work, but we are so afraid of Trump that we have lost our minds.
He is hoovering up political strategists and computer analytics people. He is paying his canvassers when everyone else relies on volunteers. He has bought the best ad people and is running ads all across the country all day long. And he lies in those ads.
Reporters are afraid to challenge him because he is a potential employer in a tough market.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@Sab: you said, ” I think he is in this to stop a Democratic tidal wave from top to bottom.” There are no facts to support this. To the contrary, spending 80,000,000 million dollars to elect down ticket Dems is the opposite. To say he’s trying to stop a “tidal wave” at the top of the ticket implies he wants to lose or win by a smidgen or prevent another candidate from triggering a tidal wave and all evidence is to the contrary.
And I’ll repeat, there’s no reason to like Bloomberg, but there’s no reason to invent the conspiracy theory that he’s trying to “stop a Democratic tidal wave from top to bottom”.
rikyrah
@Schmendrick:
Thank you for the report from the ground
Suzy
@Kay: I totally agree. There should be a limit to the amount of personal money that a candidate can put into a campaign. Bloomberg’s money advantage is simply insane.
Suzy
@Sab: Bloomberg is in this because he has dreamed of the presidency for years. And he now sees an opportunity. It’s that plain and simple.