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| Michael Bloomberg has no chance of being president. Why is he trying? | Michael Bloomberg has no chance of being president. Why is he trying? |
| (7 months later) | |
| Can we stop pretending billionaire Michael Bloomberg – who is reportedly exploring an independent presidential run – has a chance to win any national election, let alone this one? He is the perfect storm of everything that voters find repugnant. | Can we stop pretending billionaire Michael Bloomberg – who is reportedly exploring an independent presidential run – has a chance to win any national election, let alone this one? He is the perfect storm of everything that voters find repugnant. |
| For progressives and the large swaths of the public who are sick of the very wealthiest concentrating their power, he is a plutocrat; the ultimate creature of Wall Street, who relentlessly defended and befriended the largest and wildly unpopular major banks after they tore down the economy, and resisted any effort to tax the wealthiest 1%. | For progressives and the large swaths of the public who are sick of the very wealthiest concentrating their power, he is a plutocrat; the ultimate creature of Wall Street, who relentlessly defended and befriended the largest and wildly unpopular major banks after they tore down the economy, and resisted any effort to tax the wealthiest 1%. |
| To Republicans – from whom he would have to steal large chunks of votes to win – his stances on gun control and social issues are far too liberal garner to any support among the conservative rank and file beyond those who work at Goldman Sachs. He is radioactive to supporters of both parties. | To Republicans – from whom he would have to steal large chunks of votes to win – his stances on gun control and social issues are far too liberal garner to any support among the conservative rank and file beyond those who work at Goldman Sachs. He is radioactive to supporters of both parties. |
| Yet here he is again. It has become a perennial ego-stoking exercise for one of the world’s largest egomaniacs, the former mayor of New York City, where every four years he pretends he’s “thinking” about running for president as an independent while coating his “decision” in a glaze of anguished patriotic responsibility. After, he inevitably keeps the door open for a run that will never actually happen for several rounds of high-profile, fawning media speculation. It’s so predictable that members of the media are known to joke-guess about when it’ll happen in the election cycle. | Yet here he is again. It has become a perennial ego-stoking exercise for one of the world’s largest egomaniacs, the former mayor of New York City, where every four years he pretends he’s “thinking” about running for president as an independent while coating his “decision” in a glaze of anguished patriotic responsibility. After, he inevitably keeps the door open for a run that will never actually happen for several rounds of high-profile, fawning media speculation. It’s so predictable that members of the media are known to joke-guess about when it’ll happen in the election cycle. |
| Well, whoever guessed the third weekend in January won the pool, because Bloomberg’s people unveiled his latest go-around in the New York Times on Saturday while attempting to portray this time as the Most Serious Ever. Right on cue, the major network Sunday shows – Bloomberg’s key and only constituency and ground zero for DC conventional wisdom – were aflutter with Michael Bloomberg talk, with their roundtables giddily discussing the possibility and hosts asking every real candidate what they thought of the prospect. | Well, whoever guessed the third weekend in January won the pool, because Bloomberg’s people unveiled his latest go-around in the New York Times on Saturday while attempting to portray this time as the Most Serious Ever. Right on cue, the major network Sunday shows – Bloomberg’s key and only constituency and ground zero for DC conventional wisdom – were aflutter with Michael Bloomberg talk, with their roundtables giddily discussing the possibility and hosts asking every real candidate what they thought of the prospect. |
| The fact is, a third-party candidate – no matter how many billions they have – is a virtual impossibility, thanks to electoral politics and the 12th amendment. Candidates need to win a majority of electoral votes allocated to the states (that is, not a plurality). An election with anything less isn’t decided by the person with the most votes; it gets thrown to the the House of Representatives, where an independent candidate will almost certainly come in last place as Democrats and Republicans vote for their own. | The fact is, a third-party candidate – no matter how many billions they have – is a virtual impossibility, thanks to electoral politics and the 12th amendment. Candidates need to win a majority of electoral votes allocated to the states (that is, not a plurality). An election with anything less isn’t decided by the person with the most votes; it gets thrown to the the House of Representatives, where an independent candidate will almost certainly come in last place as Democrats and Republicans vote for their own. |
| But even to get that far, you would need to be a popular independent candidate, which Bloomberg most certainly is not. He wasn’t even well liked in his last election as mayor, where he vastly outspent his near-unknown Democratic rival 14-1 yet escaped with only the narrowest of victories on election night. (When in office, he was even better at buying off his critics.) | But even to get that far, you would need to be a popular independent candidate, which Bloomberg most certainly is not. He wasn’t even well liked in his last election as mayor, where he vastly outspent his near-unknown Democratic rival 14-1 yet escaped with only the narrowest of victories on election night. (When in office, he was even better at buying off his critics.) |
| It’s ironic that he may be financing a run now, given the sudden popularity of Bernie Sanders, as if that’s a signal that the poor, confused voters need him. He is exactly the type of politician who makes Sanders’ message so resonant. What more could prove Sanders’ point that we are currently living in an oligarchy than running against not one but two billionaires? | It’s ironic that he may be financing a run now, given the sudden popularity of Bernie Sanders, as if that’s a signal that the poor, confused voters need him. He is exactly the type of politician who makes Sanders’ message so resonant. What more could prove Sanders’ point that we are currently living in an oligarchy than running against not one but two billionaires? |
| And let’s not forget: in a year where criminal justice reform has become a bipartisan consensus issue, Michael Bloomberg is the living embodiment of everything wrong with the criminal justice system. He was the leading proponent of the NYPD’s discriminatory “stop and frisk” policy, which ensnared hundreds of thousands of Hispanics and African Americans in unconstitutional searches (it was finally curtailed by a judge). Bloomberg’s allies predicted a calamity for crime rates, which of course never occurred; crime continued to fall. | And let’s not forget: in a year where criminal justice reform has become a bipartisan consensus issue, Michael Bloomberg is the living embodiment of everything wrong with the criminal justice system. He was the leading proponent of the NYPD’s discriminatory “stop and frisk” policy, which ensnared hundreds of thousands of Hispanics and African Americans in unconstitutional searches (it was finally curtailed by a judge). Bloomberg’s allies predicted a calamity for crime rates, which of course never occurred; crime continued to fall. |
| He also was a staunch defender of the police department’s suspicionless spying program aimed at the entire Muslim American community living in New York, that was not only totally offensive and completely useless, but was also dismantled by another court settlement last month. | He also was a staunch defender of the police department’s suspicionless spying program aimed at the entire Muslim American community living in New York, that was not only totally offensive and completely useless, but was also dismantled by another court settlement last month. |
| The idea that the Michael Bloomberg candidacy will be any more than a fantasy is just that – a fantasy. Please remind anyone who takes it remotely seriously. | The idea that the Michael Bloomberg candidacy will be any more than a fantasy is just that – a fantasy. Please remind anyone who takes it remotely seriously. |