I told myself I would not get sucked into the pre-election drama … but I could not help it. I spent tonight scanning the political sites so here is my mash up.
18 February 2020 (Brussels, Belgium) – Money alone can’t buy a presidential election, but it surely gets you VIP access:
• Billionaire Michael Bloomberg is duking it out with Billionaire Donald Trump, often on Billionaire Jack Dorsey’s Twitter and in ads on BillionaireMark Zuckerberg’s Facebook, all chronicled in Billionaire Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post.
In this race, billions aren’t just buying admission — they’re buying results:
• Bloomberg’s TV blitz ($320 million, per numerous sources) has pushed him from nowhere to the top tier of national polls, alongside Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden, and helped make him the talk of the post-New Hampshire race.
• Billionaire Tom Steyer bought himself relevance ($137 million in TV ads), and a respectable showing in polls — with the chance for a strong showing in the South Carolina primary on Feb. 29.
And the whole ecosystem is a billionaire‘s ball:
• 60% of Republicans say they rely on Billionaire Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News for political news.
• Most people follow the race on iPhones or Androids — both made by companies worth more than $1 trillion.
What to watch: Sanders is the one candidate who could target every one of these billionaires. Longtime Sanders adviser Jeff Weaver, when asked by CNN’s Brooke Baldwin yesterday if the Vermont senator — as nominee — would accept the money Bloomberg has promised to help defeat Trump,replied : “No.”
So the 2020 race could easily be “Bernie vs. The Billionaires”. Or, if Bloomberg wins: the “Battle of the Billionaires”.
And the “Democrats’ Dilemma”? Hoo, boy
Here’s the growing dilemma for 2020 Democrats vying for a one-on-one showdown with frontrunner Bernie Sanders: Do they have the guts — and the money — to first stop Mike Bloomberg?
Why it matters: Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren all must weigh the costs of punching Bloomberg where he looks most vulnerable: stop-and-frisk, charges of sexism, billionaire entitlement. The more zealous the attacks, the greater the risk he turns his campaign ATM against them. And those rivals are already struggling to catch up with Sanders in national support and campaign dollars. Turning their focus toward Bloomberg only complicates that task.
There’s another risk, at least for the moderates: weakening the one who may be best poised to stop Sanders, a democratic socialist, if they fail themselves. The biggest test so far will come tomorrow night at the Democratic debate in Las Vegas, three days ahead of the Nevada caucuses. In brief:
• Biden, Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Sanders and Warren will be on the stage — and Bloomberg, who hasn’t been eligible for earlier debates, got a last-minute qualification.
• So far, Bloomberg has been focusing his hundreds of millions in advertising on President Trump — not his primary rivals.
• Bloomberg’s climb in the polls and saturation of the airwaves have inspired an acceleration of opposition research and investigative reporting into his decades as a businessman and New York mayor.
• Biden told Chuck Todd on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday that “billions of dollars, can take you a long, long way” but that “you all are going to start focusing on him like you have on me, which — I’m not complaining.”
• Klobuchar said on the same show that Bloomberg “just can’t hide behind the airwaves.”
• Warren, whose standing has slid as Sanders consolidates progressives’ support, sees Bloomberg as a badly needed chance to regain her footing with her credentials as a protector of consumers against big banks and Wall Street.
The big picture: By not competing in the four early states, Bloomberg has gone basically unchallenged, allowing him to define himself. This has made him a top-tier candidate and the only one with the certain cash to run to the end.
The bottom line: Each day the rivals wait, Bloomberg grows stronger. Each day he grows stronger, his case for being the electable one.