@sun_tzu
Bloomberg Buys the Democratic Elite
Putting dollar signs in the eyes of activists is not the same as catching fire with the voting public.
When a recording leaked of Mr. Bloomberg defending stop-and-frisk in New York, Andre Fields of the liberal voting-rights group Fair Fight Action rushed out a tweet hitting him as a “true terrorist” but promptly deleted it. Fair Fight Action had received $5 million in funding from Mr. Bloomberg. Three members of the Congressional Black Caucus helped out with timely endorsements of a man who spent at least $90 million on House Democratic races in the last 19 months.
New York Times columnist Tom Friedman on Wednesday joined in with 1,500 words implying that other Democratic candidates should make way for Mr. Bloomberg. He ended his piece with a disclosure that his wife’s charity was supported with Bloomberg donations.
Mr. Bloomberg has said he will spend $1 billion through Election Day. If so, he will have to curb his outlays to meet his target. At $344 million, he’s already spent more on advertising than the Clinton and Trump campaigns did in all of 2016.
I wouldn’t put it the way his left-wing critics do—that he’s trying to buy the nomination or the presidency. He’s trying to buy the Democratic Party elite. He’s distorting the incentives of activists, officials and campaign fixers who suddenly are thinking less about a presidential victory and more about getting on or staying on the Bloomberg gravy train.
He entered the race, remember, because Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren were too left-wing to beat Donald Trump, but he only strengthens Mr. Sanders by giving him a foil for his message of billionaire corruption of politics. Mr. Bloomberg’s dominance of the airwaves will not help things shake out in the centrist lane. A tiny fraction of his current spending might be intelligently employed to give Amy Klobuchar a boost. Instead, he’s in danger of becoming a pro-Sanders spoiler.
Mr. Bloomberg would make a competent president but the question is moot. Mr. Trump’s voters aren’t going to abandon him. The Democratic left would see Mr. Bloomberg as a repudiation of everything it hoped to achieve in 2020. Mr. Bloomberg’s belief that there’s an anti-Trump majority just waiting to coalesce around his earnest self is a variation on the miscalculation that has so many Democrats thinking this is the year for Medicare for All. Democrats have consistently overestimated what Mr. Trump’s “unpopularity” can deliver them in 2020. Mr. Bloomberg is making the same mistake.
His ads might have moved him from 3% to 10% in the polls but ads have sharply diminishing returns. They make people aware of a product. They don’t make them buy it. After three viewings, viewers tune them out. Mr. Bloomberg could try handing $10 bills to voters but U.S. law and tradition frown on this. It’s the other element of his spending, meanwhile, that has toxic potential for the Democratic Party—the sight of so many party stalwarts dropping everything for a financial opportunity for themselves.
The idea that Mr. Bloomberg has any catch-fire potential in the larger electorate is the ultimate flaw in the scenario. At least if they lose with Bernie, Democrats will be able to respect themselves in the morning.
The potted story line is that Mr. Trump envied Mr. Bloomberg his genuine entrepreneurial accomplishments and his bigger fortune, but it turned out it was Mr. Trump who got up and did what Mr. Bloomberg has been mooning about for two decades—run for president and win.
Mr. Bloomberg is the man who wants to be invited, who wants to be seen stepping forward because the people summoned him. Mr. Trump invited himself—and was surprised by the result. His imitators shouldn’t kid themselves about this. A genuinely enthusiastic section of the electorate ran away with the GOP in 2016. Mr. Trump provided the message; in no sense was its reception orchestrated by him. On the contrary,
he didn’t have to spend money on ads.
If Mr. Bloomberg can run away with the Democratic Party in 2020, it will be for all the wrong reasons. Mr. Trump’s was a revolution of the grass roots. Mr. Bloomberg’s would be a revolution of a paid-off elite.
