Michael Bloomberg

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Michael R. Bloomberg (1942–) is a Democrat Republican independent Democrat, the 12th richest man in the United States, and was the 108th Mayor of New York City from 2002 to 2013. His annual salary as mayor was $1.[1]

Bloomberg attended Johns Hopkins University (where there is now a Bloomberg School of Public Health) and Harvard University before being elected mayor of New York in November 2001. He is also a well-known philanthropist and businessman. He started Bloomberg LP in 1981 and even has his own news channel.

There was speculation about a possible bid for the 2008 U.S. presidential election. He said no. There was also speculation that he would try to run for Governor of New York in 2010. He said no. There was some more speculation that he would seek the presidency in 2012. He said no. Then there was even more speculation that he would seek the presidency in 2016.[2] He said no… again.[3] He finally threw his hat in the ring in 2020...and promptly made people wonder why people had spent 12 years hyping up Bloomberg in the first place.[4]

Head-scratching attempts at bipartisanship[edit]

Bloomberg seemingly cannot make up his mind any more than he can make up his mind about which political party he is a member of. His mayoralty saw a list of policies arguably more diverse than the demographics of the city he was mayor of:

This mixing of left and right-wing politics gets more confusing in regards to economics (i.e., defending welfare and fiscal moderacy at a Tory conference[13] despite his cozying up to certain embarrassing financial institutions[14][15] and opposing an early version of the Zadroga Bill because "there's no free lunch"[16]). Basically, WTFs all round, and in the post-recession era, his opinion polling took some hits.[17]

In short, he is an avatar of the centrist business wing of the Democratic Party. He's a former Republican who was put off by his party's embrace of religious conservatism and populist nationalism long before it was cool, but while he agrees with the Democrats on social issues and the need to combat climate change, he distrusts the party's economic justice wing and resists more progressive climate polices.

Occupy Wall Street[edit]

Long story short, Bloomberg is a bit of a dick who thought he had his own personal "army."[18] He cracked down on the protesters rather violently, to the point where the cops in New York City set up a surveillance system meant to gather information on the protesters and shared what they gathered with banks.[19]

2020 presidential campaign[edit]

On November 24, 2019, Bloomberg announced his campaign for the 2020 presidential election.[20][note 1] Though there was some hype about him replacing Biden as the chief centrist candidate,[22] or "buying the nomination,"[23] his inability to shake the notion he was an entitled billionaire who entered the race because the progressives who would raise his taxes had a decent chance at winning left him very unpopular, and he was thus decimated on Super Tuesday after a series of weak debate performances.[note 2] He spent $500 million on his campaign in hopes of a blowout performance on Super Tuesday (he skipped the first four states entirely[30][31] — apparently learning nothing from the Rudy Giuliani 2008 presidential campaign),Wikipedia yet only ended up winning in American Samoa. Thus, on March 4, 2020, Mike dropped out of the presidential race. We will all miss his... Big Gay Ice CreamWikipedia eating,[32] snout-handshaking[33] ways... probably.

Resurfaced comments[edit]

During the 2020 Democratic presidential campaign, a massive amount of comments that he made in the past (plus the fact he was once photographed alongside Ghislaine Maxwell,[34] and was listed in Jeffrey Epstein's "little black book"[35]) resurfaced. This included many prejudiced statements.

One such comment that proved especially damaging during the 2020 campaign was his past defense of Stop and Frisk. In one such instance, he said: "People say, 'Oh my God, you are arresting kids for marijuana who are all minorities.' Yes, that's true. Why? Because we put all the cops in the minority neighborhoods. Yes, that's true. Why'd we do it? Because that's where all the crime is. And the way you should get the guns out of the kids' hands is throw them against the wall and frisk them."[36] Separately, he added: "I think we disproportionately stop whites too much and minorities too little. It’s exactly the reverse of what they say."[37] In further support of racial profiling, he stated: "Ninety-five percent of your murders — murderers and murder victims — fit one M.O. You can just take the description, Xerox it, and pass it out to all the cops."[38]

A number of demeaning comments or behaviors he displayed or allegedly displayed towards women over the years also resurfaced, including a tendency to remark "Nice tits!" upon meeting women (according to a former aide), and comments degrading women's intellect.[39][40] He has also infamously referred to transgender individuals as "some guy in a dress" and referred to them as an "it."[41][42]

Clips of Bloomberg praising Donald Trump were also unearthed and exploited by his political opponents, including one 2011 Fox News interview in which he called Trump a "New York icon" and a personal friend,[43] though the two later became rivals.[44] Other resurfaced comments from 2015 suggested Bloomberg wanted an alliance with Russia, in part to handle "the whole crazy Islamic world"; he also equated Russia's annexation of Crimea (2014) with the annexation of California by the United States (1848). In separate comments, he stated Xi Jinping is "not a dictator".[45] Another comment that Bloomberg made after Trump won the 2016 presidential election suggested that Bernie Sanders would have won that election, because young people liked him; he continued by saying that they liked him only because they were uneducated.[46] In a resurfaced 2018 conversation he had at the International Monetary Fund, he defended fingerprinting food stamp recipients and even appeared to criticize the concept of minimum wage laws.[38]

Amidst the slew of resurfaced statements by Bloomberg, at least a handful were exploited for what amounted to unfair criticisms. In one such case, a tape unearthed during the 2020 campaign appeared to show Bloomberg insulting farmers; however, this clip was reportedly edited by the Trump campaign so as to remove key context.[47][48]

Boatloads of money[edit]

“”The Bloomberg campaign was a make work program for political consultants. He's like the FDR of K street.Wikipedia
—Ken Klippenstein[49]
“”But being forced to think about how to stretch dollars in politics can have its advantages, Mr. Trippi said, recalling that in 2004 — when he worked for Howard Dean’s campaign, which broke the record at that time for Democratic presidential fund-raising — 'a lot of the things we pioneered were exactly because we had to be that creative.' Nonetheless, he added, laughing: 'Picking between the advantage of being a little bit more creative with your money, versus having the money to do whatever you want to do — most campaigns would pick having more money.'
—The New York Times, February 2020[23]

Bloomberg was not shy about digging into his deep pockets to boost his chances.[23] Some of the results were peculiar, and at times it felt like the campaign was throwing cash wherever it could, hoping anything would stick: they paid hundreds of people $2,500 monthly to support Bloomberg with "officially approved messages" on social media (which resulted in at least seventy account bans on Twitter) and to "recruit friends and family members to write posts supporting him";[50] they also paid Instagram "influencers" to post pro-Bloomberg "memes", for instance.[51][52][53][54] A "robust network of consultants, lawyers and campaign staff members" were lavished with generous pay, gifts, and other benefits — perhaps even in an effort to draw talent from other campaigns.[23][55][note 3] Bizarrely, this situation allegedly led some pro-Sanders operatives to join Bloomberg's campaign staff for the pay while secretly campaigning for Bernie anyway.[55] Campaign events were littered with tables of expensive food in the hopes of impressing voters.[57][23] Flush with cash, the campaign was able to hire thousands of people and open 125 offices by February.[23]

The campaign spent so much on advertising (about seventy percent of the campaign's overall spending[23]) that it hiked ad prices significantly overall, proving to be very costly for other candidates.[58][59] It's a bit difficult to articulate just how ubiquitous Bloomberg ads were at one point in time — an effort to, as the The New York Times put it, "make his voice omnipresent on television and radio."[23][60][61][note 4] The television executives (including Mr. Murdoch himself) were pleased with this,[63] and the campaign even dropped ~$10 million on one Super Bowl ad alone primarily to get "under Trump's skin" (as there was also a pro-Trump Super Bowl ad with a similar price-tag at the same time).[64][65] Some pro-Bloomberg television ads heavily impressed the idea that Mike had a great relationship with Barack Obama (or could have been interpreted as an implied endorsement[66]), which ticked off some former Obama staffers and led some to point out their relationship was more complicated than the ads made it seem.[67][68][69] Television and radio were by no means the only targeted mediums, with other large ad buys placed in newspapers,[70][71] the World Wide Web,[72] and weirdly enough, even massive billboards insulting Donald Trump for eating burnt steak.[73][74] Based on one Financial Times report, the eponymous Bloomberg TerminalsWikipedia off which Mike Bloomberg made much of his fortune may have even been used for a little bit of indirect campaign advertising.[75]

In total, Bloomberg blew $1.1 billion on his campaign, by far the most money ever spent in the US for a self-funded campaign. For his profligate spending, he garnered only 2,550,000 votes in the primary for an average of $427/vote.[76]

Prison labor phone calls[edit]

In late December 2019, The Intercept broke the story that the Bloomberg campaign had, bizarrely enough, exploited (via subcontractors) the labor of prisoners to make phone calls to voters. The campaign claimed that they learned about this only due to the inquiry by The Intercept.[77][78] Bloomberg himself quickly confirmed the report was accurate,[79][80] and the campaign cut ties with the vendor responsible.[81]

Plagiarism[edit]

See the main article on this topic: Plagiarism

In February 2020, a report from the Intercept found that Bloomberg had plagiarized much of his platform from numerous research publications, media outlets and nonprofit groups, including CBS, CNN, Time, and the American Medical Association.[82]

See also[edit]

External links[edit]

Notes[edit]

  1. ↑ Curiously, this came after a phone call with Jeff Bezos, in which Bloomberg told Bezos that he would not run for president.[21]
  2. ↑ In the first debate featuring Bloomberg, he was under attack from all sides,[24] and was hit particularly hard by critiques from Elizabeth Warren.[25][26] In the debate after that one, the audience's behavior was interpreted by many as unusually pro-Bloomberg despite being hosted in a state (South Carolina) which he opted to skip entirely,[27] and accusations that Bloomberg had "bought" the audience ensued,[28] though this was apparently not actually true.[29]
  3. ↑ Although they were reportedly offered job security through to the general election as staffers working to elect whoever the eventual Democratic nominee would be, former Bloomberg campaign staffers later alleged that he reneged on this promise.[56]
  4. ↑ Some journalist at Slate tortured himself by watching 185 Bloomberg campaign ads, for some reason, which probably means he holds the world record for watching Bloomberg campaign ads.[62]

References[edit]

  1. ↑ Who Makes How Much, New York Magazine
  2. ↑ Stop it!
  3. ↑ Bloomberg says he won't run for President in 2016.
  4. ↑ Goldenberg, Sally. "Michael Bloomberg launches campaign for president." Politico, 24 November 2019 (recovered 24 November 2019).
  5. ↑ Jon Stewart compares the discrepancy between the state of New York's marijuana liberalization and Bloomberg's crackdown on large soft drinks.
  6. ↑ NY Mayor Bloomberg Endorses Obama in Presidential Race, Bloomberg
  7. ↑ https://www.mikebloomberg.com/news/why-im-endorsing-hillary-clinton-for-president/
  8. ↑ (December 21, 2005). "Mayor Bloomberg Condemns New York City Transit Strike, MTA Workers Hold Firm". Democracy Now!
  9. ↑ Michael Sainato (February 20, 2020). "Michael Bloomberg's Troubling Record on Unions and Workers". The American Prospect.
  10. ↑ Andrew Kaczynski and Em Steck (February 16, 2020). "Mike Bloomberg in 2010 called Obamacare legislation 'a disgrace' and 'another program that’s going to cost a lot of money'". CNN.
  11. ↑ Michael Bloomberg: "Stop and frisk" keeps New York safe The Washington Post. August 18, 2013.
  12. ↑ Erin Durkin (July 23, 2013). "Mayor Bloomberg Vetoes Stop And Frisk Bills". New York Daily News. Quote: "Bloomberg slapped his veto on measures to create an NYPD inspector general and allow people to sue over racial profiling by cops that he has charged would be a boon to criminals and terrorists."
  13. ↑ "Being a fiscal conservative is not about slashing programs that help the poor, or improve health care, or ensure a social safety net…"
  14. ↑ What do you think?
  15. ↑ Bloomberg peddles the "Fannie and Freddie caused 2008" myth
  16. ↑ Pataki Signs Law Increasing Death Benefits for Ground Zero Workers, The New York Times
  17. ↑ A better New York City? 6 takes on Michael Bloomberg's legacy, The Week
  18. ↑ Bloomberg's "Own Army," "Smoked Up" Speech Raises Eyebrows, NBC
  19. ↑ F.B.I. Counterterrorism Agents Monitored Occupy Movement, Records Show, The New York Times
  20. ↑ Michael Bloomberg Joins 2020 Democratic Field for President The New York Times. Nov. 24, 2019.
  21. ↑ Jason Del Rey (November 9, 2019). "Jeff Bezos asked Michael Bloomberg months ago if he'd consider running for president". Vox.
  22. ↑ Julie Hollar (February 14, 2020). "Pundits Look to Bloomberg as Their Anti-Sanders Savior". Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting.
  23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 23.2 23.3 23.4 23.5 23.6 23.7 Rebecca R. Ruiz (February 13, 2020). "The Bloomberg Campaign Is a Waterfall of Cash". The New York Times.
  24. ↑ Grace Segers and Kathryn Watson (February 20, 2020). "Democrats clash in fiery Las Vegas debate with Bloomberg as main target". CBS News.
  25. ↑ Sam Levin (February 20, 2020). "'Arrogant billionaire': Warren attacks Bloomberg over NDAs, racist policing and taxes". The Guardian.
  26. ↑ Ankita Rao (March 4, 2020). "How Elizabeth Warren destroyed Mike Bloomberg's campaign in 60 seconds". The Guardian.
  27. ↑ Ashley Feinberg (February 25, 2020). "Tuesday Night’s Debate Audience Sure Did Seem to Like Bloomberg for Some Reason". Slate.
  28. ↑ Andrew Naughtie (February 26, 2020). "Michael Bloomberg accused of paying people to cheer for him at election debate". The Independent.
  29. ↑ Bump, Philip (2020-02-26). "Analysis | Did the Bloomberg campaign stack the debate audience with supporters? Doesn’t appear so." (in en-US). Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. 
  30. ↑ Michael Finnegan (February 2, 2020). "Trump and Bloomberg run dueling Super Bowl ads and trade insults". The Los Angeles Times.
  31. ↑ Daniel Jackson (February 12, 2020). "Bloomberg Woos Voters in Gateway to Deep South Ahead of Super Tuesday". Courthouse News Service.
  32. ↑ (January 29, 2020). "Mike Love Big Gay Ice Cream". YouTube.
  33. ↑ Chelsea Ritschel (January 28, 2020). "Michael Bloomberg shakes dog's mouth in bizarre video during 2020 election campaign event". The Independent.
  34. ↑ Dan Evon (November 27, 2019). "Is This Bloomberg with Jeffrey Epstein Associate Ghislaine Maxwell?". Snopes.
  35. ↑ Dan Evon (February 27, 2020). "Are Bloomberg, Trump Mentioned in Jeffrey Epstein's 'Black Book'?". Snopes.
  36. ↑ Bobby Allyn (February 11, 2020). "'Throw Them Against The Wall And Frisk Them': Bloomberg's 2015 Race Talk Stirs Debate". NPR.
  37. ↑ Daniel Dale (February 15, 2020). "Fact check: Bloomberg leaves out key parts of his history of stop and frisk policy". CNN.
  38. ↑ 38.0 38.1 Sarah Jones (February 13, 2020). "Michael Bloomberg Defended Fingerprinting Food-Stamp Recipients in 2018 Interview". Intelligencer (New York).
  39. ↑ Laura Bassett (February 13, 2020). "Why Is Bloomberg's Long History of Egregious Sexism Getting a Pass?". GQ.
  40. ↑ Megan Garber (September 19, 2018). "'I’d Do Her': Mike Bloomberg and the Underbelly of #MeToo". The Atlantic.
  41. ↑ Mike Bloomberg refers to transgender people as 'it', 'some guy wearing a dress' in newly surfaced video, The Washington Post. Feb. 19, 2020.
  42. ↑ Alex Bollinger (February 7, 2020). "Mike Bloomberg said trans rights are about 'some man wearing a dress' using a locker room with girls". LGBTQ Nation.
  43. ↑ Eric Lutz (February 19, 2020). "Mike Bloomberg's Chumminess With Trump Is A Gift To His 2020 Rivals". Vanity Fair.
  44. ↑ Daniel Strauss (January 17, 2020). "'Huge amount of ego': how Bloomberg and Trump ended up fierce rivals". The Guardian.
  45. ↑ Spencer Ackerman (February 11, 2020). "Bloomberg in 2015 Saw Russia’s Point in Invading Ukraine". The Daily Beast.
  46. ↑ Daniel Newhauser (February 19, 2020). "Bloomberg Said Young People Support Bernie Because They're Dumb". Vice News.
  47. ↑ Charles Duncan (February 18, 2020). "Another Bloomberg tape comes back to haunt campaign. And this time it’s about farmers". The Miami Herald.
  48. ↑ Rick Barrett (February 17, 2020). "Edited video of Mike Bloomberg appears to insult farmers, factory workers, but there's more to the story". The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
  49. ↑ (March 4, 2020). "The Bloomberg campaign was a make work program for political consultants. He's like the FDR of K street". Twitter, via the Wayback Machine.
  50. ↑ Charlotte Jee (February 24, 2020). "Twitter has suspended 70 pro-Bloomberg accounts for 'platform manipulation'". MIT Technology Review.
  51. ↑ Meghan Mistry (February 7, 2020). "Mike Bloomberg's campaign is looking to pay influencers". CBS News.
  52. ↑ (February 2020). "Bloomberg Is Paying Big Meme Accounts To Post Cringe For His Campaign". Cheezburger.
  53. ↑ (February 13, 2020). "Mike Bloomberg campaign pays influencers for memes". BBC News.
  54. ↑ Danielle Garrand (February 13, 2020). "Michael Bloomberg's campaign just paid some of Instagram's biggest accounts to drop memes about him". CBS News.
  55. ↑ 55.0 55.1 Ryan Grim (February 13, 2020). "Mike Bloomberg Is Hiring So Many Operatives, Local and State Campaigns Are Starving for Help". The Intercept.
  56. ↑ Juana Summers (April 3, 2020). "'Mike Borrowed My Credibility And Abused It': Fired Bloomberg Campaign Workers Speak". NPR.
  57. ↑ Gary He (February 18, 2020). "If You Feed Them, Will They Vote?". Eater.
  58. ↑ Stephanie Bunao (February 4, 2020). "What is the 'Bloomberg Effect'?". The Charlotte Observer.
  59. ↑ Maya King (January 20, 2020). "Bloomberg’s massive ad campaign hikes TV prices for other candidates". Politico.
  60. ↑ Todd J. Gillman (February 26, 2020). "You're not imagining it: Nearly every campaign ad in Texas is from Bloomberg". The Dallas Morning News.
  61. ↑ Fredreka Schouten (February 28, 2020). "Ad spending barrels past $1 billion mark as Mike Bloomberg overwhelms airwaves". CNN.
  62. ↑ Justin Peters (February 17, 2020). "I Watched 185 Mike Bloomberg Ads". Slate.
  63. ↑ Lee Fang (February 15, 2020). "TV Executives Celebrate Unprecedented Flood of Bloomberg Campaign Spending". The Intercept.
  64. ↑ Jordan Jackson, Monica Alba and Allan Smith (January 7, 2020). "Super Bowl ad wars: It's Bloomberg vs. Trump, and they're spending millions". NBC News.
  65. ↑ Rebecca Morin (January 7, 2020). "'Biggest point is getting under Trump’s skin': Michael Bloomberg to spend millions on Super Bowl ad". USA Today.
  66. ↑ Eli Yokley (February 27, 2020). "Most Democrats Think Obama Has Endorsed a Democrat for President. (He Hasn’t.)". Morning Consult. Quote: "26 percent say Obama has endorsed Michael Bloomberg; 25 percent say he’s endorsed Joe Biden."
  67. ↑ Alex Seitz-Wald (February 19, 2020). "Bloomberg and Obama: A more 'complicated' relationship than the ads suggest". NBC News.
  68. ↑ Kayla Epstein (February 18, 2020). "Former Obama aides say Bloomberg's 'jarring' ads mislead voters about his relationship with the former president". Business Insider.
  69. ↑ Jeff Zeleny and David Wright (February 26, 2020). "Bloomberg's $38 million investment buys Obama TV ads but doesn’t rewrite complicated relationship". CNN.
  70. ↑ (2020). "Print Ads—Pre-Primary and Primary". Democracy in Action.
  71. ↑ Curtis Bunn (February 26, 2020). "Bloomberg spends record $3.5M on ads in black media". NBC News.
  72. ↑ Julia Carrie Wong (February 21, 2020). "$45m, 1.6bn views and 'Crazy Donald': How Bloomberg bought your Facebook feed". The Guardian.
  73. ↑ Tim Perry (February 21, 2020). "Mike Bloomberg trolls Trump with billboards as Trump campaigns in West". CBS News.
  74. ↑ Eric Levitz (February 21, 2020). "Love Wanting to Die? Then Check Out Bloomberg’s Anti-Trump Billboards". Intelligencer (New York).
  75. ↑ Adam Samson, Philip Georgiadis, and Anna Nicolaou (December 5, 2019). "Bloomberg terminal shortcut sent users to presidential campaign site". The Financial Times.
  76. ↑ David Trone and the history of candidates lighting their money on fire: The Maryland Senate candidate spent $62 million of his own money, only to lose the primary. But others have fared worse — at least on a dollars-per-vote basis. by Aaron Blake (May 15, 2024 at 3:48 p.m. EDT) The Washington Post.
  77. ↑ John Washington (December 24, 2019). "Mike Bloomberg Exploited Prison Labor to Make 2020 Presidential Campaign Phone Calls". The Intercept.
  78. ↑ Sasha Pezenik (December 24, 2019). "Bloomberg campaign used prison labor to make 2020 campaign calls". ABC News.
  79. ↑ Laurel Wamsley (December 24, 2019). "Bloomberg Campaign Vendor Used Prison Labor To Make Presidential Campaign Calls". NPR.
  80. ↑ Jake Johnson (December 25, 2019). "Bloomberg Says Explosive Report on His Campaign's Use of Prison Labor Is 'Fundamentally Accurate'". Common Dreams.
  81. ↑ Matt Stevens (December 24, 2019). "Bloomberg Drops Vendor Connected to Prison Labor". The New York Times.
  82. ↑ BLOOMBERG PLAGIARIZED PARTS OF AT LEAST EIGHT OF HIS PLANS The Intercept. February 6 2020.
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