Ranting On...Mike Boomberg 2020

Mayor Mike Bloomberg (D-NY)

Really?  I kind of figured in the past few weeks that there would be a random candidate that'd make a late play into the race for president.  It was becoming apparent that Elizabeth Warren's polling was making Democrats nervous, and many were buying into the idea that Joe Biden was losing steam dramatically, with Pete Buttigieg being too young/earnest/gay (take your pick) for the DC Democratic power-brokers to take a risk upon.  Everyone from Hillary Clinton to John Kerry to Sherrod Brown to even Eric Holder had been rumored to be taking a look at the race, and then the media got its wish-a headline name that they could trumpet as "shaking up the election" for a few weeks as we settle into the final slog into Iowa: former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Bloomberg is actually kind of perfect for a late-breaking candidate, and more fitting to history than someone like Clinton or Kerry.  Clinton or Kerry, after all, might actually win the nomination-Clinton in particular has a base of support with the party in a way similar to 2004 for Al Gore, where many feel she was cheated out of a win, and she'd have an apparatus that would threaten to upend the entire race.  She might not emerge victorious, but she'd be a factor.  And "being a factor" is not really what last minute candidates in the presidential primaries do.  Instead, they're people like Wesley Clark in 2004, coming in with a handsome face and a boy scout record, but with the political skill of a stop sign.  Or they're "good on paper/terrible in reality" politicians like Rick Perry or Fred Thompson, armed with great biographies but then proving totally unprepared for the rigors of a presidential campaign.  Perhaps most telling for Mike Bloomberg, they're beltway insiders with limitless bank accounts like Steve Forbes who seem like they could wow voters with their "new ideas" when in reality they only mesmerize the DC chattering class because they're shoving filet mignon & cavier down their pallets while giving speeches about a flat tax.

Mike Bloomberg fits into this exact vein (or considering the direction of this run, perhaps "vain" would be the more appropriate homonym).  He's famous-a long-time mayor of New York City who made national headlines with his opinions on gun control, public health, and immigration, to the point where pretty much everyone who even loosely follows politics knows his name. But those viewpoints come at a price-Bloomberg is the most idiosyncratic major politician in American politics.  Forgetting for a second that his wealth (he's genuinely a billionaire, unlike Donald Trump who is only questionably one) and age (he's older than Joe Biden, and just a few months younger than Bernie Sanders) give him two huge deficits that some of his other opponents who have been in the race for months have struggled to shake, he's got unusual views on political issues that would slip so far outside the political norm it's difficult to know what party of which he should be a member.  His views on gun control have helped him gain some foothold in Democratic politics, but his personal liberty issues (specifically around crusades against giant soda containers) would be ridiculed outside of Manhattan, and his views on criminal justice (strong supporter of stop-and-frisk), marijuana (supports it being illegal), and civil liberties (he supports a national DNA database), would be nonstarters with just about any sector of the Democratic primary electorate.

If establishment Democrats are looking for a moderate alternative,
wouldn't Amy Klobuchar be a better option than Mike Bloomberg?

So why is he doing this?  Bloomberg is an odd man, but he's not a dumb one.  He's blessedly not running as a third party candidate (which would be terrible news), so he's either trying to sway the race or is deluded enough to think he can win.  If it's the former, it's likely because he sees the writing on the wall-Elizabeth Warren is the prohibitive frontrunner for the nomination, and though I think she's more vulnerable than most of the Democratic candidates, it's possible she wins just because people want Trump out to the point any Democrat would win...and "liberal" billionaires are coming out petrified that Warren's plans for healthcare, climate change, and student loans might actually become law.  Bloomberg isn't alone here-even Bill Gates, arguably the world's most devoted philanthropist, became a pariah on social media this past week when he seemed reluctant to endorse Warren over Trump, despite Warren clearly standing stronger for the goals of his Foundation in every possible way than the incumbent president.  Bloomberg might be petrified about a portion of his fortune going to give Gen Z access to free college, and he won't let that happen without getting on every news channel in America to complain.

If so, he'd have been better off getting behind someone already in the race, because if there's going to be a savior for the left-of-middle Democrats in this race, it ain't going to be a guy who got into politics as Rudy Giuliani's endorsed successor and was a big supporter of George W. Bush in 2004.  There's "used to be a Republican" and then there's "I endorsed Scott Brown over Elizabeth Warren in 2012"-he ain't coming back from that.  The reality is that, as much as everyone wants to write Joe Biden's obituary, he's still a formidable candidate.  Biden does very well among black voters, better than any of the Top 4 candidates right now by a wide margin, and probably well enough that he could carry a middling race in IA/NH into a big win in South Carolina, and rebound as the "compromise" candidate for Super Tuesday.  It's also entirely possible that Pete Buttigieg is having some sort of Ben Carson moment, not a Bill Clinton moment, and will quickly slip in the polls again rather than be a thorn in Biden's side.  Even if Biden is faltering, Buttigieg is an easier moderate pill to swallow for establishment Democrats than Bloomberg, or better yet, someone like Kamala Harris or Amy Klobuchar, still in the race and more likely to peal off Warren/Sanders voters who don't like Biden because of his age & blunders, but are worried about Warren's views on healthcare.  Any of these four would still be in line with Bloomberg's views on gun control, but wouldn't have as grandiose of vision for his tax rates.

At the end of the day Bloomberg's campaign will go nowhere.  Particularly after Donald Trump, there's no appetite in the Democratic Party for a billionaire to swoop in and claim he can solve all of our problems (the only way that was going to happen was if Oprah Winfrey would have done it).  His decision to not run third party is welcome, as he might have stolen away enough voters to be dangerous to the eventual nominee, but as a Democrat he's a non-starter.  Like most late-breaking candidates, he'll soon prove that if he was actually serious about being president, he would have started his race months ago like the eventual nominee did.