New York City’s Big Gulp-banning, would-be gun-grabbing busybody former mayor has formally announced his bid for the Democrat nomination for president.
The former Democrat, turned Republican, turned Democrat billionaire apparently sees weakness in the current clown car crop of Democrat hopefuls and has tossed his Nanny hat into the ring.
It’s landed—somewhere on the totalitarian left—with a bit of a thud.
Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg officially entered the 2020 race Sunday, ending several weeks of will-he-or-won’t-he speculation about a late entry into the already-crowded Democratic primary.”I’m running for president to defeat Donald Trump and rebuild America,” Bloomberg said on his campaign website. “We cannot afford four more years of President Trump’s reckless and unethical actions. He represents an existential threat to our country and our values. If he wins another term in office, we may never recover from the damage.”Bloomberg’s entry was preceded by news of a massive television ad buy — $31 million, according to Advertising Analytics, which said it was the single largest single week expenditure the firm had ever tracked. A $30 million buy in the final weeks of the 2012 race for then-President Barack Obama held the previous record.The ad promotes Bloomberg’s record as mayor in the aftermath of 9/11 as well as his post-mayoral work campaigning for gun control and against the coal lobby.
Over at progressive Buzzfeed, they are somewhat . . . less than enthusiastic. In an article hilariously entitled, “Michael Bloomberg Is Really Running For President,” Matt Berman notes that Bloomberg is a “strange fit” in the Democrat primary.
Bloomberg, 77, is a strange fit in the primary. He was first elected as mayor of New York City as a Republican in 2001, before leaving the party in 2007 and winning a third term as an independent in 2009. He registered as a Democrat in 2018, when he was considering running for president.Party allegiance has already been an issue in the race this year — Joe Biden has implicitly criticized Elizabeth Warren for being a registered Republican decades ago. “I’ve been a Democrat my whole life,” Biden said at a recent fundraiser in Pittsburgh. “This person has only fairly recently in the mid-’90s become a Democrat.”He’s also joining a campaign where extreme wealth has been a focus. Warren and Bernie Sanders have laid out proposals that would tax high wealth, something that would clearly impact Bloomberg, who is worth $52 billion. Bloomberg attacked Warren’s wealth tax proposal in January, comparing it to socialist schemes in countries like Venezuela.. . . . Bloomberg also took a swipe at the progressive focus on “Medicare for All;” and in the ad a narrator says Bloomberg will work so “everyone without health insurance is guaranteed to get it, and everyone who likes theirs can go ahead and keep it.”
Kellyanne Conway cut to the chase on Face the Nation and pointed out that if the Democrat field were more promising, Bloomberg would not have entered.
Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway Sunday said the entry of former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg into the 2020 presidential race demonstrated that “the Democratic field is underwhelming.”Bloomberg’s entry, Conway said on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” was the former mayor’s way of saying “I don’t think any of you can beat Donald Trump,” but decried his first campaign ad, saying it was “all unicorns and rainbows” and comparing it to Obama’s campaign, adding “as we sit here today over 10 million have no health insurance of any kind.”
The reaction on Twitter is less than enthusiastic, with many on the left being upset that he’s a billionaire and may damage socialist (millionaire) Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) bid.
And some people are reacting with hilarious good humor.
It remains to be seen how successful his campaign can be. He’s reportedly vowed not to take campaign donations, so he won’t meet the minimum criteria for any Democrat debate stage, and it seems unlikely that he’s going be a big hit on the left. Or the right. Or in the middle.
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