Bloomberg could save the Democrats – will they flunk it?
Michael Bloomberg was the highly successful Stop and Frisk Mayor of New York for twelve years. Murder fell 50% on his watch. Now he has disowned the policy – sort of – and is mea-culpaing his way towards the Democrat nomination for President.
Al Sharpton, the inexplicably prosperous American civil rights Baptist Minister, slickly turned out TV show host and litmus test of the woke left – a character straight from Tom Wolfe’s Bonfire of the Vanities – doesn’t believe him. Many people follow the popular prelate’s lead.
Still, even minus Rev. Sharpton, Bloomberg’s late entry has changed the US Democrat primary race overnight. He appears as the moderate cuckoo in the Democrats’ relentlessly left-wing nest, battling an ever-increasing spiral of loony tunes policies, downwards to electoral defeat in Fall 2020.
How on earth did the party that recently held the Presidency for two terms come to this? Remember the Democrat storyboard, when Donald Trump, TV host and perhaps rich property developer, burst onto the scene in 2015? Lofty disdain.
Democrat tropes over four years; June 2015 – a lightweight like Trump can never be nominated; July 2016 – an ignoramus like Trump will never be elected. Oops! He’s been elected. January 2017 – a warmonger like Trump will start a nuclear war in the Korean archipelago; February 2017 – impeach Trump – for anything. Self-evidently the man is impeachable, for simply being Donald Trump. His opponents have underestimated Donald Trump at every turn. Again, it will prove a fatal error.
Spool on to today. Trump has now been impeached by the House of Representatives, over an attempt to diss former Vice President, Jo Biden, a possible 2020 opponent, with questionable shenanigans in Ukraine. Only the frothingly committed really think the almost incomprehensible accusations add up to a hill of beans. No-one else seems to care much. While President Richard Nixon’s potential impeachment rattled markets and dominated the domestic agenda, Trump’s actual impeachment has not. Life goes on.
The House of Representatives has passed articles of impeachment, voting along partisan lines. Now, Speaker Nancy Pelosi isn’t sure what to do next. She wasn’t sure what to do in the first place, but had her hand forced to start the impeachment process by shouty people in her caucus. She knows impeachment is toxic politics for her party.
Come on! Pass the articles of impeachment quickly to the Senate for trial. Obvious. Bring the man to the justice he deserves. The election cycle starts in March, so the process has to be done and dusted before re-election outweighs impeachment in politicians’ priorities.
Er, … no. Can’t do that. The trial won’t be fair. Come to think about it, the election in 2016 wasn’t fair. It was the Electoral College wot did Winning Hillary down. Just as it was the Rupert Murdoch press wot lost Grandpa Jeremy that election in Limey Land. Get the similarity? For today’s left on both sides of the Atlantic, losing is always someone else’s fault.
Meantime, as Trump tweets outrage and voters seem to be indifferent, let’s line up a bunch of lefty dingbat candidates to compete with each other in the dwindling-ratings televised debates, to win the “I’m the Biggest Dingbat, Get Me Into Here” nomination. For good measure, throw in a former Vice President, who can barely recall if he’s a Dingbat or not. We were heading for a Democrat dream ticket – for Republicans.
That was, until Mike Bloomberg burst onto the scene. I spoke about Brexit, post the UK election, at Franklin & Marshall College, Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The gig was arranged some time ago. The election was serendipitous timing. Forget Brexit. In the Q & A I was asked what lessons Corbyn’s defeat could teach the Democrats. Spot on. I painted Corbyn as an awful warning – the high road to irrelevance. Bloomberg might be a sanity check for Democrats.
In a largely Democrat audience of academics and interested townsfolk – Lancaster splits about 55% Democrat – 45% Republican – it was largely conceded that Trump would win against either Senators Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders. They both espouse policies as wildly left wing as anything Comrade Corbyn dreamt up. No-one mentioned impeachment.
Mike Bloomberg was widely acknowledged by Republicans in the room as an acceptable choice as President. Else, they would hold their noses and vote for The Donald again. Trump may have a loyal base, but there is a flaky part of it, supporting him only because there has been, until now, no viable alternative.
Is Mike Bloomberg a serious prospect, or just a well-heeled spoiler who will simplify the President’s re-election run? Is he even for real? Republican, Independent, Democrat. Hang on! That’s President Trump’s record backwards. Maybe he’s just a rich, dabbling amateur. A personal friend of his reassured me over lunch in Manhattan that Bloomberg was in for the long haul – and uber serious.
He is spending oodles of money – $13m in the latest CNBC count – in Super Tuesday primary states where he is focusing his efforts. He has infuriated opponents by snitching highly professional – clearly not high-principled – staff from under their noses. He pays them twice as much. Bloomberg bucks talk.
I am told the strategy is to build a bridgehead in Super Tuesday states and hang on until the Democrat Convention in July. His team’s, probably realistic, assessment is that it will be next to impossible for them to go into the Convention with the nomination secure. Probably, the other leading candidates, Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren will be in the lead. Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Joe Biden will be in the mix still, though will have fallen behind.
Bloombergers are betting on the fact that a fractured convention will turn to Bloomberg after a couple of inconclusive votes, once delegates are released from their obligation to support their mandated candidate. Back to smoke filled rooms. By July, impeachment will be a distant memory, most will smell the coffee of a Trump re-election, hate it, and Mayor Mike will emerge as Candidate Bloomberg to take on Trump.
Maybe. But, there are more than a few flies in this optimistic ointment. The first is, the convention will be stuffed with delegates even more left-tilted than the Democrat party in the country. Whatever the smell of the coffee, they are unlikely to be keen to vote for a former Republican New York billionaire, whose personal wealth has bought a ticket to the show. Bloomberg flaunts every privilege they claim to despise.
The first Harris poll after Bloomberg’s entry into the race put him on 6%, ahead of Kamala Harris of California, who has subsequently withdrawn – not because of lack of support, but lack of funds. That is not Mike Bloomberg’s problem. Many aspirants would give their eye teeth for 6% on a first outing.
As Britain’s Labour decides if it wants to return from Fantasy Island, the Democrats face exactly the same choice. What’s my bet on how it will turn out? Democrats will flunk it, present another unacceptable candidate to the American people and President Trump will Tweet on for four years. Tuesday March 20th, 2020 – Super Tuesday. That’s when we will know if Democrats are serious about taking the Presidency from him. Candidate Bloomberg could turn the tables.