Links to Original Article:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/08/us/politics/michael-bloomberg-president.html
In an unexpected move, billionaire businessman Michael Bloomberg has decided to run for President, having filed the paperwork necessary to enter the Democratic primary in Alabama. Bloomberg, the former New York City mayor, has previously played with the idea for running in the 2008 and 2016 elections but now has officially declared his candidacy. Because of his late start, he has decided on a rather risky move of skipping the first four traditional state contests(Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina) to focus on the bigger states. Also important to mention is that Bloomberg is currently 77 years old, meaning this will probably his last chance to run.
Bloomberg's entry has made waves in the Democratic field, with the relative unease surrounding current Democratic candidates. Still it's far too early to say Bloomberg will have any substantial impact, as he needs to prove he can appeal to a wider audience than the elites. Bloomberg's approach is also completely unprecedented, as instead of doing the typical door-to-door style of campaigning, he has chosen to rely on costly, grand advertisements to win the appeal of bigger states. This is completely possible based on Bloomberg's massive fortune, but this style of campaigning has drawn criticism, suggesting he's trying to buy the Presidency.
Overall, while I see the potential of this high risk high reward strategy, I don't believe it will work out. I feel as though his campaigning will be seen as trying to corrupt the system with money, so he will fail with gaining sufficient support from bigger states. This is definitely something to keep an eye on though, as previous billionaire candidates like Ross Perot and Trump have been able to either mobilize mass support.
Do you believe Bloomberg has a realistic shot at the Presidency?
What do you think about his strategy of appealing to bigger states?
6 comments:
I don't believe that Bloomberg has a realistic chance of winning the presidential race. Not only is he already older, but he also is not being very strategic in his campaign plan. I agree with Ryan that skipping the smaller states does not seem to be a smart move; we learned about battleground states which are the smaller ones that Bloomberg may lose votes to. These states could allow for significant support in the race that Bloomberg may lose since he chose to skip to gaining support solely from larger states. While I understand that the advertisement based campaign strategy could be seen as trying to corrupt the system with money, I don't believe that most of the public will focus on that. They most likely will be focused on Bloomberg's decision to skip gaining support from the smaller states, and view this as arrogance and overly confident.
I don't think Bloomberg has any real shot of wining the Democratic Party's nomination. First of all, Bloomberg faces formidable competition, with almost 20 other Democrats competing for the nomination. As Ryan mentioned, it'll be difficult for Bloomberg to gather support from non-elites. Nowadays, there's a general distrust of large sums of money flowing within election campaigns, with the invention of superPACS, 501c groups, etc. Due to the Buckley v. Valeo and Citizens United Supreme Court decisions, candidates can spend as much of their own money as they want for their campaigns, which is what Bloomberg will do. In general, I'm not sure what Bloomberg will stand for as a candidate, what might distinguish him from the other candidates policy-wise. If I remember correctly, while he was mayor of New York City, he supported the discriminatory practice of policemen stopping people on the street to frisk them for weapons or drugs.
Personally, I don't believe that Bloomberg actually has a chance to win the Democratic nomination given how late he has entered the game, his strategy, and his competition. First, he has a very late start so it will be hard for him to build a connection with the public and win enough support with the time he has left. This will be especially hard for this election race given how many Democrats are already running, the party already being split by so many well respected candidates that have established/gained pretty solid followings. Furthermore, Bloomberg's strategy won't help him as it seems very elitist. The Democratic Party is more supported by minority groups and what can be seen as "the people," so an elitist method that is really just trying to use money to buy the nomination is very unlikely to gain support from members of the party. Also, I don't think it's a smart move to skip smaller states because it makes it seem as if Bloomberg only cares about certain parts of the nation. Additionally, skipping Iowa and New Hampshire could really hurt his campaign as they have the first primaries/caucuses which can really set the tone for the rest of them.
I don't believe Bloomberg has a high chance of gaining the Democratic nomination. There are several factors to Bloomberg's low chance to win the Democratic nomination. As Ryan said, he is now 77 years old, meaning that he is unlikely to have another chance to run if he does not start campaigning now. But being late in campaigning also adds on to a more unlikely chance that Bloomberg would win the Democratic nomination. In addition, Bloomberg previous statements on running for president in 2008 and 2016 could have possibly made him less reliable to follow through this one as well. Having skipping Iowa and New Hampshire might tremendously hurt him later because these caucuses and primaries are what often less to the presidency. Due to cases such as the Citizen United and etc., the Supreme Court ruled that individuals, corporation and unions could donate unlimited amounts of money to groups. As Ryan said this is something that Bloomberg would do. In addition, given that he started so late and the multiple other Democratic competing, it adds on that Bloomberg would have a low chance to contribute anything significant.
I don't believe Michael Bloomberg will get the amount of support to get the democratic nomination. Missing out on the first 4 states will cost him since these are crucial states to decide on what the public opinion is. Going to these smaller states might given him a better chance since he will gain a bit of support. As for the bigger states he will need a better strategy than just say that he has money. People don't care about the wealth of someone, they care about the policies and strategy on domestic and international and their views. As Ryan said he will corrupt the elections with money.
I don't think this is a great strategy. We have been learning about the House of Representatives and the Senate all year long and I think we can fairly say that there is unfair representation because the small states get basically equal voice as the large states. In the past, there have been many examples of a candidate winning the votes of big states, yet the cumulative votes of smaller states has caused that candidate to lose the election. It's all because of current representation system which gives smaller states too much of a voice and because of this, Bloomberg's strategy is doomed to fail.
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