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.
You mean Mike won’t get it done?
I think the democrats are waking up to the fact that they can’t beat Trump with this slate of sleazy candidates, so they are trying to keep the house and maybe pick up the senate. That’s why they pushed Mueller and Impeachment to try to keep the base motivated to turn out in droves to make a difference in the congress election.
But the Bernie surge is destroying all this. The Bernie Bots are from the Antifa base that the DNC has created and now has lost control of. If Bernie is leading at the convention and gets screwed out of the nomination again, then the Bernie Bots will riot. Not even 0zer0 will be able to control them as he will be tarred as anti-Bernie establishment. Any brokered convention without Bernie as the nominee means the base stays home and its a wipeout for the dems.
That’s where the Bloomberg angle comes in. Regardless of whether there is a brokered convention or not, or even if Biden wins the nomination, and then chooses Bloomberg as his running mate, Bloomberg is set as the defacto power broker going forward to replace the Clinton machine. Bloomberg is setting himself up to control the DNC and the money and candidates after 2020. They are positioning to write off the Antifa wing because they realize they can’t control the Frankenstein they created and believe it is as much a threat to them as to the repugs. AOC and the Muslim Sisters prove that. They will replace it by going more “central” by targeting the more left Rino wing of the repugs, which are really old dems anyway. Bloomberg will be perfect for this role because he has the money and contacts to do it.
[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.]
Bloomberg’s not some kind of Mother Teresa altruist. Like anyone who’s ever stepped into the political ring, he wants the prestige and fame of personal power, not the obscurity and unpredictable fruits of being kingmaker. His Democratic primary opponents are definitely worrying about him, because he has beaten Buttigieg to 4th place in 6 of the last 7 polls:
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/01/28/bloomberg-progressives-leftists-2020-dnc-106712
[His rise is now stirring growing anxieties among some of his biggest detractors, who maintain that his white knight pledges should not insulate him from critiques and what they consider a standard vetting process.
“He has a long history of big-money self-promotion, but he wants to play senior statesmen and try to get people to believe he’s just taking one for the team,” said Zephyr Teachout, a law professor who has run for statewide office in New York and is aligned with Bernie Sanders.
“But he’s spending hundreds of millions because he wants the most powerful job in the world, and he needs the full treatment,” she added, pointing to his positions on foreign policy and Social Security and his long mayoral record.
Bloomberg has risen steadily in national polls, surpassing Pete Buttigieg and nearly doubling Amy Klobuchar’s standing. On Monday, Bloomberg eclipsed Klobuchar in congressional endorsements, with many of the supporters arguing he’s uniquely positioned to beat Trump in the swing states Democrats need to recapture the White House.
“I’d be fine with him being on the debate stage because I think that instead of just putting your money out there, he’s actually got to be on the stage, and be able to go back and forth so that voters can evaluate him in that way,” Klobuchar told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Tuesday, when asked about POLITICO’s reporting.]
[But activists from California to Colorado to Virginia said they can’t ignore the scores of organizers he’s hired to build momentum for himself.
“We have seen rich people run before, but the amount of money Bloomberg is able to throw around is able to get him over the absence of enthusiasm because it’s orders of magnitude” greater, said Neil Sroka of the progressive group Democracy for America.
Sroka, who lives outside Detroit in Wayne County, recently spotted his first candidate representative at a local community meeting: It was a Bloomberg organizer trying to recruit attendees to an office opening.
“It’s starting to filter beyond the nonstop ads,” he said. “These aren’t people parachuting in. They are organizers who have experience, want to get paid a good sum of money and know who the local movers are.” ]
The little Jewish creep that wants to take your SALT and Colas away from you..NEVER HAD A CHANCE to WIN.....NEVER!
You’re saying President Trump is MORE popular now? That’s weird, because people who used to actually like him now hate him with every fiber of their being.
I guess his ploy to become more famous failed.
[You’re saying President Trump is MORE popular now? That’s weird, because people who used to actually like him now hate him with every fiber of their being.
I guess his ploy to become more famous failed.]
His ads airing in MN are just infuriating. Americans are sick of Trump they claim. Apparently 50 plus percent of the US approving of his job performance are illegal aliens or foreigners.
Yeah, that’s the ticket.
Every year a million more uninsured, not bloody likely...
I could go on
[You’re saying President Trump is MORE popular now? That’s weird, because people who used to actually like him now hate him with every fiber of their being.
I guess his ploy to become more famous failed.]
Unclear how mini-Mike could do a Ross Perot. He would be more likely to split the Democratic vote and allow Trump to win more States.
There won’t be one street named after Trump. The Left will make sure of that.
What he’s doing: it’s not working.
* * *
Indeed, he’s polling at 0% on Democratic Underground
tax write off
And political ads in a Olympics year still get the lowest rates, meaning that the evil networks actually lose money per ad, or at least have non-political ads crowded out by the political ads. Unless Bloomberg’s ads crowd out President Trump’s ads - and don’t be surprised when that happens - the major networks might scream about it, privately of course.
I do not believe that political donations are deductible.
Yeah I think that is likely but I also think some areas of the US might honour him. Anything in the cities is out but something in rural areas might occur. Reagan has an airport and carrier named after him. Could be those.
so, basically Bloom and Steyer are actually doing what the dems thought Trump was doing in 2016. Just elevating their egos.
Trump didn’t need that because he says what he means and does what he says, no clowning around, but he does have fun :)
“I see his ads on facebook all the time.”
I see his nauseating lies, err ads on TV all the time, and it’s usually before or after one of those stupid Liberty Mutual “LiMu Emu” ads.
well worked for many anyway...just gotta invest properly
My one comment is that Mister Bloomberg is, in fact, a candidate- albeit a long shot (if an extremely short, short person could be a long shot, that is.)
That said, getting the nom is unlikely, the VEEP, probably not, that will go to Pete B or (cough, cough) Moochelle. Bloomberg hates America, Americans, and the American traditions and our wonderful way of life.
Above all else, he is out to settle a score with DJT (and us.).
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