Campaign 2020

[taki15]

The problem with Bloomberg isn't his money. FDR and JFK were also very rich.
The problem is that his policies are not in sync with the Democratic base, to put it kindly.

[Sabin]

Big Magilla wrote
They all have ties to Wall St. You don't think they keep their millions under their mattresses, do you?

There's a difference between "having ties to Wall Street" and Michael Bloomberg.

[Big Magilla]

They all have ties to Wall St. You don't think they keep their millions under their mattresses, do you?

[Sonic Youth]

Big Magilla wrote
Then I checked my e-mail and lost count of all the Democrats who were asking for donations.

I wish we lived in a world where people paid attention to the news and didn't need paid advertising or someone knocking on their door to tell them who to vote for, but we don't. I'm almost convinced that Bloomberg is the ideal candidate if for no other reason than to stop the incessant requests for money coming from the other candidates.

You are weighing the damaging effects of politicians being beholden to Wall Street, the credit card companies, the insurance companies, and countless other corporations with the annoyance of deleting an email. We finally have non-corporate-funded politicians but our lives get 5% more loud and annoying. I'll take it.

No, I'm weighing a self-funded candidate against both the corporations and the millionaire politicians crying poor-mouth.

Well, thank God that Bloomberg has no ties to Wall Street whatsoever.

[Okri]

Magilla, I'm not going to pursue this line of inquiry any further. That stated, it might just be my own ignorance talking here but I interpreted your comment as essentially wishing that the only people who pursue the presidency (and by extension any other political office) be capable of self-funding as limiting the democratic process to the ultra-wealthy.

[Sabin]

Big Magilla wrote
No, I'm weighing a self-funded candidate against both the corporations and the millionaire politicians crying poor-mouth.

So, your problem is you see political populism (vis-a-vis individual donors) as potentially damaging.

[Big Magilla]

Big Magilla wrote
Then I checked my e-mail and lost count of all the Democrats who were asking for donations.

I wish we lived in a world where people paid attention to the news and didn't need paid advertising or someone knocking on their door to tell them who to vote for, but we don't. I'm almost convinced that Bloomberg is the ideal candidate if for no other reason than to stop the incessant requests for money coming from the other candidates.

You are weighing the damaging effects of politicians being beholden to Wall Street, the credit card companies, the insurance companies, and countless other corporations with the annoyance of deleting an email. We finally have non-corporate-funded politicians but our lives get 5% more loud and annoying. I'll take it.

No, I'm weighing a self-funded candidate against both the corporations and the millionaire politicians crying poor-mouth.

[Big Magilla]

Magilla, how are you not wishing for an oligarchy with your last statement?

Good grief!

Oligarchy
Form of Government
Oligarchy is a form of power structure in which power rests with a small number of people. These people may be distinguished by nobility, wealth, education or corporate, religious, political, or military control. Such states are often controlled by families who typically pass their influence from one generation to the next, but inheritance is not a necessary condition for the application of this term.

That's where we're headed with Trump if we're not already there. His partisans are already advocating for Ivanka, Don Jr. and Barron to succeed him as president in that order!

I see Bloomberg as a one-off.

[Greg]

I think Bloomberg showing instead of a candidate pandering to Wall-Street donors in order to run for President, a candidate climbing to the top of Wall Street by making over $50 billion from giving gambling advice and then running for President, is a step down, not up.

[Sabin]

Big Magilla wrote
Then I checked my e-mail and lost count of all the Democrats who were asking for donations.

I wish we lived in a world where people paid attention to the news and didn't need paid advertising or someone knocking on their door to tell them who to vote for, but we don't. I'm almost convinced that Bloomberg is the ideal candidate if for no other reason than to stop the incessant requests for money coming from the other candidates.

You are weighing the damaging effects of politicians being beholden to Wall Street, the credit card companies, the insurance companies, and countless other corporations with the annoyance of deleting an email. We finally have non-corporate-funded politicians but our lives get 5% more loud and annoying. I'll take it.

[Okri]

Magilla, how are you not wishing for an oligarchy with your last statement?

[Big Magilla]

Re Bloomberg:

I don't think he's racist, but he is an elitist.

Stop & Frisk - a detestable program he inherited from his predecessor (the repugnant Giuliani) that was expanded by his own police commissioner. He claims that when he realized the harm the program was causing that he ended his support and ended the program. It took a threatened expansion of a lawsuit from four plaintiffs to a class action suit to prompt that realization. Now he's a philanthropist helping many of the people the program wronged. Did he wait too long to descend from his ivory tower? Maybe.

Redlining - this is a red herring. Bloomberg was not a proponent of redlining - the practice of lending institutions to draw a red line around the map of an area within which they would not make mortgages - his taped comments were clearly an explanation for those he was speaking with that the cessation of redlining caused predatory lenders to go in the other direction and lend money to people who clearly couldn't afford to pay back their mortgages. Actually, the lending tactics were more perverse than that. They enticed first-time buyers with low initial interest rates that would increase over time, playing into people's hopes that their incomes would increase with their interest rates so they had nothing to fear, which is the same kind of pipe dream Trump and his sycophants have been selling the last five years.

Money - yes, he's using his money to buy our votes, but I've come to the realization that all of today's politicians are using money to buy our votes. Bloomberg is using his own. The rest of them are using other people's - whether corporations, organizations or contributions from ordinary people, some of whom have become so invested in their candidates that they are almost a cult. If their candidate loses, they take it as a personal affront especially if the money they're donating is more than they can afford.

On the night of the New Hampshire primary I listened to Warren relate a story about "a young college girl" who was one of those who up came to get a selfie with her. She had told her, "before I came out tonight, I checked my bank account. I had $6 left. I'm giving three of them to you because I think what you're doing is so important." My immediate response was "You took it? You should be helping this girl instead of her helping you. Never mind that if you win and you get your ideas through congress it will benefit her. You're a millionaire. At the very least, she needs that $3 more than you."

Then I checked my e-mail and lost count of all the Democrats who were asking for donations.

I wish we lived in a world where people paid attention to the news and didn't need paid advertising or someone knocking on their door to tell them who to vote for, but we don't. I'm almost convinced that Bloomberg is the ideal candidate if for no other reason than to stop the incessant requests for money coming from the other candidates.

[OscarGuy]

Bloomberg wasn't on the ballot in the first four states, but he's dropped something like 250 million on the Super Tuesday states where I'm sure he's hoping to make a dent.

[Sabin]

Okri wrote
All I'll say is that if the Democratic Party nominates Bloomberg, the party will lose and it will deserve to lose.

When was the last time a candidate was the nominee when s/he didn't win one of the first two states? Bill Clinton in 1992, and I'm sorry that was a different era. The only conceivable way Bloomberg could be the nominee would be at a deadlocked convention. I feel like I've heard this outcome brought up in every election since 2008 and it never does. Of course, if there ever was a candidate it would happen to it would be Bernie Sanders. But I said the same thing about Trump last time as well.

[Sonic Youth]

Thank-you. That's sort of what I figured you meant.

All I'll say is that if the Democratic Party nominates Bloomberg, the party will lose and it will deserve to lose.

And it will lose my vote and it will lose me.