Which is certainly why he pays for so many armed bodyguards.
Posted on 01/29/2020 10:52:34 AM PST by Kaslin
The staff, the ad spending, the campaigning -- Michael Bloomberg was going to do all of this to defeat President Donald Trump already. Doing it as a 'candidate' excempts him from limits on PACs and political donations.
There is very good reason to believe Michael Bloomberg isn’t actually running for president.
Of course, there is plenty of evidence to the contrary. For one, he declared he is. He’s also hired more than 1,000 staff and is still expanding, offering salaries far above campaign averages. This week, he became the first of the declared candidates to have campaigned in all 14 states of March 3’s Super Tuesday primary battle, and he’s spent a quarter billion on political advertising so far. All would point toward Bloomberg indeed running for president.
But here’s the snag: He wanted to do all of this anyway. Everything, that is, but the declaration bit. That, he was loathe to do. But the staff, the ad spending, the campaigning — he was going to do all of this to defeat President Donald Trump already, and we know this because he told us so.
As early as February 2019, the billionaire pledged he’d spend at least $500 million to defeat the president as either a candidate or as what Politico called “a shadow political party for the Democratic nominee.” That massive spend, the report continued, represents “just 1 percent of Bloomberg’s estimated net worth.”
Just a month later, the wealthy New Yorker laughed at the idea he would ever run for president, mocking “Amtrak Joe” Biden for apologizing “for being male, over 50 [and] white,” and Beh-tóh O’Rourke, who Bloomberg joked had “apologized for being born.” Well, a few months later he jumped in anyway. But does the world-renowned winner have any intention of actually winning the nomination?
We might all agree it is strange to hear the hyper-competitive Bloomberg declare he will pay his sizable staff to work on behalf of the people who are supposed to be his primary opponents. His “army of some 500 staffers will march on through the general election in November even if he loses the Democratic nomination, campaign officials [told] NBC News” back when he employed a measly 500 staffers.
Of course, Bloomberg has said the same of the now $2 billion he’s reportedly willing to spend for any campaign to defeat Trump.
This magnanimity in defeat doesn’t seem to square with Michael Bloomberg, cut-throat capitalist billionaire, but it does make sense when viewed in the light of his Bloomberg News empire, which loses money every year. The losses don’t seem to bother Bloomberg, because in this aspect of business he is a man who wants his ideas in the world and is willing to pay to make it happen.
So why declare? Simply put, the billionaire mayor gets a lot more for his money as a candidate than he ever could as a donor or even as the operator of a super PAC.
First, there are limits to what a donor can give a campaign, and $2 billion is way out of the question. Even so, Bloomberg could poor billions into an organization to sway elections, as Charles Koch and George Soros seek to do. Then, there’s something campaigns have that no PAC has — and that’s access to the best rates the market has to offer.
See, super PACs pay more for everything. And not a little more: Depending on the spend, these outfits pay maybe double what a candidate for office must pay for advertisements in digital, radio, cable, newspapers, network television, and even mail.
By law, candidates for office are entitled to the best treatment a station can give. “In the 45 days before a primary and the 60 days before a general election,” Radio & Television Business Report explains, “legally qualified candidates get the lowest rate for a spot that is then running on the station within any class of advertising time and particular daypart.”
If a private entity earned a bonus spot, the ability for his ads to preempt other ads, or any other perks, those must also be made available to the person running for office. Someone is getting a deal for buying in bulk? Then so is the candidate, even if the campaign isn’t buying in bulk. And on and on.
Super PACs, on the other hand, get no such perk or protection, and are often treated as whipping boys and charged rates far higher than others.
And of course there’s the reputational aspect. Selfless and successful businessman who is generous to his opponents when they have common cause, versus bellicose billionaire spending untraceable money in the shadows.
Bloomberg is very, very unlikely to win the presidency or even the nomination. “An anti-teachers’-union, anti-gun, pro-nanny state, pro-Wall Street, pro-stop-and- frisk, pro-inequality, pro-immigration, pro-surveillance, pro-Iraq War neoconservative is almost surgically designed to repel practically every American voter on some level,” The New Republic pointed out in 2016, and the same remains true today. But once his goals are clearly understood, Bloomberg, candidate for public office, might be far shrewder than at first it seemed.
And there is good reason to see a danger to our freedoms in all of this.
Late last fall, the Trump campaign announced 313,000 first-time donors had given to his re-election campaign. That same month, Sen. Bernie Sanders proclaimed he’d received 1.8 million donations that averaged a little less than $20 a pop. These are just two examples from different ends of the political spectrum, but they offer a slice of what democracy looks like, with average citizens donating a few bucks here or there to the candidate they think represents them best in the Washington.
Michael Bloomberg, the Wall Street billionaire whom D.C.’s flunky press affectionately calls “mayor of the world,” seeks to drown all of that out with his private wealth. He doesn’t like the man voters put in the White House, so he’s going to spend billions of dollars to undo it.
Look, money has always been a player in politics. People use it for good, people use it for evil, and Americans will cheer their selflessness or decry their selfishness depending on whether they agree with their politics. None of it changes that Bloomberg is skirting the campaign finance laws designed to keep the American republic answerable to her citizens — that, and he isn’t really running for president.
Bloomingidiotberg
I love that.
He's going to waste $2B and lay the groundwork for Hillary to win a brokered convention and lose again.
Most likely taking the House down with her.
He is serious.
He’s the most electable Democrat.
Whether a real candidate or not (and I prefer to consider Michael Bloomberg as NOT a candidate), he is certainly determined that Donald J. Trump be resisted to the degree Bloomberg is able to muster.
If this is a matter of money, then Bloomberg can support the resistance to a far greater level than practically any other player out there, except possibly George Soros, who is directing his agenda much more broadly, to Congressional and state elective offices.
At one time, the critics directed their wrath at “malefactors of great wealth”.
Well, we have a couple of them right here. Is any wrath being whipped up against either Soros or Bloomberg?
I agree - he is serious - and the biggest threat.
Still going to lose.
Lying, weasel, POS.
Which is certainly why he pays for so many armed bodyguards.
I think they will revert to “background noise” and won’t register anymore on people.
A natural result of our attacks on campaign finance laws. We will be just fine.
He could be electable (arguably), but he's not nominable.
The squad would have conniptions if 2020 became "The Battle of the Billionaires".
He is SUCH a bad candidate I think it makes little difference if he were to spend ALL of his money.
for later
With the number of Democrats attending Trump’s rallies holding steady at about 25% Democrat and between 8 to 12% of attendees not voting in 2016 there really is not too much Little Michael can do to stop Trump so go away.
” ... the combined totals of Creepy Corrupt Joe and Soda Boy are greater then Angry Berd so there is your brokered convention ...”
A Biden-Bloomberg ticket isn’t “woke” enough for today’s Democrats. There would be a massive stay-home movement among the left-wing base of the party, ensuring Trumps’s re-election. A Biden-Harris or Biden-[pick your oppressed minority] ticket is much more likely.
You think President Trump ran for office to become more famous? That’s buffoonery.
[You think President Trump ran for office to become more famous? That’s buffoonery.]
When economic approval is at 65% which it is Trump is next to impossible to beat. Thus the impeachment fiasco.
His $2B is plowing the road for whomever has already been decided upon and will be exposed during the Democratic BROKERED CONVENTION.
Stalking horse for Hillary?
I’ve been saying this since he announced — it was mostly a way to get around spending limits and censors. He could care less about being President.
Although he also seems to hate Bernie Sanders, and wants to make sure Bernie doesn’t win.
Not necessarily only for the best price, but also guaranteed placement and frequency.
And not every billionaire likes spending more than they have to. Warren Buffet used to drive himself in an older Buick, just a few years ago.
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