Enter Michael Bloomberg

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has all but formally announced that he will seek the Democrat nomination for President of the United States. Did the announcement to announce cause a seismic shift in the Democrat primary race? Not as much as you may think.

First, let’s dispose of the low hanging fruit amongst the Democrat contenders. Robert O’Rourke (you may know him as Beto – a vain attempt at cultural misappropriation) announced that he was dropping out of the race. With his support numbers hovering at about zero, Mr. O’Rourke joined Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) as the two least competent people to drop out. When last I commented on Mr. O’Rourke, I noted:

“Former Rep. Robert (Beto) O’Rourke (D-TX), born with a silver spoon in his mouth and upon which he has been choking ever since identity politics has become the norm for Democrats, is a dead man walking. His sole claim to fame is that he lost a Senate race to the least popular Republican in Texas, Sen. Ted Cruz. And that is despite nearly $70 Million dollars poured into the state by trial lawyers, unions and far-left super PACs.”

Mr. O’Rourke has the misfortune of believing the mainstream media who treated him as the reincarnation of Bobby Kennedy. And apparently he was the only one who believed it. There is a job, however, waiting for Mr. O’Rourke – stocking shelves at his wife’s furniture store – although he may prove to be incompetent at that also.

But back to the main event. Mr. Bloomberg is a self-made billionaire who has previously been a Republican, then an Independent and now a Democrat. Of course he is a straight white male which casts him as “suspect” in the Democrat Party. He was a three-term mayor of New York City and by most accounts was quite successful. (His successor Mayor Bill de Blasio – another recent dropout in the Democrat primary race who enjoyed a following approximating that of Ms. Gillibrand and Mr. O’Rourke – has been doing his level best to destroy all that Mr. Bloomberg accomplished not out of spite but just incredible incompetence.)

But the question to be addressed here is whether his entry into the Democrat primary race will significantly change it. There are a lot of things that say NO. First, Mr. Bloomberg will vie for the same body of voters that are currently supporting the pathetic campaign of former Vice-President Joe Biden and that body of Democrat voters has failed to demonstrate more than a meeker mid-thirty percent. The remaining voting base remains divided between all of the other far-left candidates with Socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (Socialist-VT) and socialist denier Sen. Elizabeth Warrant (D-MA) carving out the largest share of that pie. But Mr. Biden will not go quietly. Having failed twice before this is Mr. Biden’s last hurrah and add to that he isn’t really smart enough to recognize his own failings and his continuing decline. By the time Mr. Biden might exit, Ms. Warren will have sewed up the nomination.

Second, Mr. Bloomberg is a self-made billionaire – the very personification of the people Ms. Warren, Mr. Sanders, and the rest of the far-left crowd loves to hate – and hate with a passion. That includes the OMG crowd at CNN, MSNBC, NBC, the New York Times, The Daily Kos and most of the rest of the print media, all of whom have panned him already. Any early success by Mr. Bloomberg will bring out the shock troops from Antifa, Black Lives Matter, the anarchists, SEIU and others – the socialist tide will not be denied.

Third, Mr. Bloomberg has stepped on the third rail of a number of vocal elements of the Democrat menagerie. He has been a strong supporter of charter schools in an effort to provide better educational opportunities to the minority communities. And that support will cost him support from the National Education Association (NEA), the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and much of the rest of the public employee unions. He continued the “broken windows” approach of former Mayor Rudy Giuliani including “stop and frisk” which puts him at odds with “leaders” of the minority communities.

Fourth, Mr. Bloomberg is unapologetically Jewish and an active member of the Emanu-el Temple. This will infuriate the growing anti-Semitic crowd within the Democrat party including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and Ayanna Presley. You can assume that there will soon be cartoons from that lunatic fringe depicting Mr. Bloomberg in jackboots and military dress with a Star of David in lieu of a swastika.

And finally as a self-made billionaire who rose from humble beginnings he gives lie to the favorite line of far-left opponents, “You didn’t build that.” That has been a comforting screed for the likes of Ms. Warren, Mr. Sanders, Hillary Clinton, and the other liberal/progressives who, in fact, never did build anything but became wealthy by selling access to government. And Mr. Bloomberg also proves to be an embarrassment to many of those same people by his personal charity. Mr. Bloomberg joined The Giving Pledge whose members have committed to give at least half of their wealth to charities – thus far that has amounted to over $8 Billion in contributions by Mr. Bloomberg with more to come. In contrast, Ms. Warren, when given the opportunity to temporarily reduce the nearly one million dollars of salary drawn by her and her husband from Harvard in an effort to aid the clerical staff during the Bush/Obama downturn, declined resulting in a number of layoffs at the Harvard Law School. And Ms. Clinton created a phony charity that raised hundreds of millions primarily from those seeking favors from the government she served and then gave less than ten percent of that to real charities while distributing huge amounts to retain a political staff to prepare for her losing campaigns for the presidency. People like Ms. Warren, Mr. Sanders and Ms. Clinton don’t like charitable giving – they prefer taking other people’s money to promote their great ideas – and those great ideas begin and end with their elections.

And while I speak charitably of Mr. Bloomberg I still would not vote for him. He is an ardent supporter of taxpayer funded abortions on demand. He has accepted the drivel from the global warming crowd without demanding they explain the gap between their predictions of doom and the relatively mild climate changes that relate as much to historical cycles as anything else. And, he has been one of the primary funding sources for gun control advocates who seek to disarm America.

Mr. Bloomberg could probably defeat President Donald Trump in a general election, but he cannot defeat the allied forces of the Democrats’ liberal/progressive/ socialist wing.

Tags: Michael Bloomberg

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