Bloomberg

I had not thought through the implications of Bloomberg running for President while owning a huge news agency. This will be interesting to watch.

 

Doesn't Trump own FOX?

 

Didn't we see this movie when Adelson bought the Review-Journal?

 

And of course, Charles Foster Kane.

 

The only thing Bloomberg is going to do in this race is pump millions upon millions into states with early primaries.

Expose away. He's not getting the nomination.

 

God bless Bloomberg. He's already written my station a massive check for advertising.

He's going to get his ass kicked but I'd like to see him stay in as long as possible.

 

He might have a better chance of running as Ross Perot.

 

Having Bloomberg and Steyer in the field only makes Bernie and Warren look more necessary. Bloomberg waiting until joining the race to apologize for stop and frisk is as shallow as it was late.

 

And the fact he is so rich he can just hop into the race, thinking he's a viable candidate.

 

Robert F. Kennedy 1968 presidential campaign - Wikipedia

RFK joined the 1968 campaign on March 16th, 1968, and was not exactly poor.

The real problem is these campaigns are starting way too early, exhausting the voters and also the candidates to some degree. Who benefits from these way early starts? TV 24 hour news cycles feed it. They need programming and money. Start a year early.

From a historical perspective, I have zero problem with what Bloomberg is doing. I think it is very smart strategy. Let some of the jackasses wear themselves out first. Conserve money.

That’s another thing - money. He can self finance. I wretch at all of the donation statistics that get trotted out each month. X made $18 million last month!

Sounds like prostitution.

Last I heard, Bloomberg’s website doesn’t have a Donate button anywhere on it. Refreshing, in my opinion.

 

Good points. I think part of the problem is Iowa and New Hampshire. You want to have February primaries or caucuses? Fine, but put them in Arizona or Georgia where you don't have to worry about weather making it tough on canvassers or preventing people from getting to the polls. Ninety days is plenty of time to run a campaign. But now we have the "staff and bundler primary" where candidates compete for top staffers and fundraisers, you have the "endorsement primary" where candidates compete for key endorsements from key politicians in key states and you have the "media primary" where you create the narrative for your campaign and hope enough people in the media buy in - don't forget the media types are the ones that have given such weight to what Iowa and NH do.

Is it odd that we're this far in with this many candidates and their hasn't been a scandal that has taken out a candidate? Not sure Biden counts, since it's his son. I mean shoot, where is all the oppo?

 

Worth noting as well that primaries were not as abundant in 1968 as they are nowadays.