while thinking about my 'big picture' goals and energy & enthusiasm...thinking about the long game, and the details....looking at the roster i've been quietly coming to the realization that Bloomberg can be 'that guy'.

still pondering & evaluating the whole team, but getting near the time for me to move from 'quiet realization' onwards to 'Lets GO!'...

..we'll see...





�
have you listened to
her stuff?
v

http://www.meshell.com/site/
https://www.facebook.com/officialmeshell?fref=ts
http://www.freemyheart.com


RIP David Williams:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Williams_(guitarist)

I wonder if spending $250 million dollars on advertising had something to do with it.

I'll vote Bloomberg over Trump - but Bloomberg is not my choice.

Not just favorite but I would happily vote for him against Trump.

i find him pretty bland as a human being, and it seems his primary motivation for entering the race is to defend billionaires but i'll gladly vote for who ever can beat trump, whether its a socialist or a boring oligarch.

I dunno what that means.

One fake worships Jesus
and the other is a high priest of capitalism.

He's a fucking joke.

Bloomberg & Trump were the only ones who dished out the millions needed to buy a SuperBowl ad.

I'm always like - does this actually work with voters?

Guess so.

-->

smh

just hearing how people on shows like morning joe talk about it further reinforces my viewpoint.

the line of thinking seems to be that he is some centrist safety valve against a further left nominee (bernie/liz). if biden falters...he is supposed to swoop in with his money and massive data/ground operation and circle the wagons of the moderate coalition or something like that.

but you have moderate biden, intentionally-triangulating/pandering-to-moderates mayor pete, and more-tolerable-to-moderates-than-bernie warren. and all a bloomberg run does is peel voters away from *them* because those are the folks whose voters (at least a portion) his campaign is specifically targeting/appealing to. 2+2.

all he does is help clear the path for bernie (who is consolidating his support primarily from a specific portion of the base...voters who self-identify as 'very liberal'). he further divides the opposing pie.

its no surprise that his rise in the polls coincides with drops from biden and warren.

so he will skip the 1st few states...then appears on the ballot just in time to kneecap biden in the most important states for him to win (assuming biden is #1 or #2 with bernie). shit makes no sense for anyone who wants to stop 1 specific candidate.

im surprised nobody learned any of this from trump in 2016. more 'establishment' candidates with overlapping support bases obviously benefited him.

also the entire calculus is based on the assumption that moderates are one homogenous voting bloc that are universally magnetized around the center on most pivotal issues. but 'moderate' is a pretty diverse group (traditional/legacy black voters, culturally conservative pro-union working class whites, 'socially liberal' pro-finance/business voters, mega-rich climate change crusaders, etc). to assume all of those folks are just gonna coalesce around some new 'moderate' pace car candidate at the flip of a switch is completely nonsensical.

you think black church folk are gonna jump behind bloomberg at biden-level margins just because pollsters say he will be in the best position to defeat bernie? you think some wisconsin gun owning iron worker is gonna switch from uncle joe to bloomberg? stupid af.

every single donor/consultant/party boss/pundit etc could realign behind bloomberg. real people dont politically uproot themselves and migrate to the same pole like that.

this whole thing pretty much shows why (D)emocratic power brokers are historically bad at politics. trying gimmick plays out the spread formation at the 1 yard line instead of just lining up your big guys and running the rock.

Now Kerry rumors are flying.

Reminds me of when the Morning Joe/David Brooks crowd were thinking Romney was gonna swoop in and save the party from Trump.

Its strategically idiotic

you gotta treat these folks not as experts but as commentators/entertainers like stephen a smith, skip bayless, etc.

makes the bloomberg approach even more crazy.

He's trash. The worst.

the actual Republican.
Mr. "Big Gay Ice Cream Is The Best, Aren't I So Liberal"

Bloomberg turned NYC into a Rich Man's Paradise... get this fool up outta here

If Bloomberg said, "my goal is to damage Trump with attach ads and help flip the senate" and may be got himself a senate seat from some state that allows carpetbagging, he would not only be a hero to the Democrats but probably the most powerful democrat who is not the new president.

But that ego man, everyone thinks they can and should be the president now after the office was held by a black man and then a doofus.

\
**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

just emulate right wing billionaires like koch bros, robert mercer, sheldon adelson, etc.

stay behind the scenes and throw money at liberal politicians and voter turnout operations.

fund liberal think tanks that hatch policies that tilt electoral power in the favor of dem leaning groups (women, unions, minorities, etc).

buy out state legislatures and use them as test beds for these policies in preparation for taking them national when dems control congress/prez.

when you learn to lock in power then you can get whatever agenda you want on climate change, gun safety, etc.

It is unnecessary. This country has all the money it needs. It needs better ideas and priorities.

I think a super-rich person like the Koch brothers should be fearful if they spend too much money opposing the president, the president will stick the government on them and make their lives miserable.

I know that sounds wrong and very much like Putin's Russia, but it seems like the opposite, elected officials doing the bidding of unelected rich people, is a lot worst.


**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

"everyone thinks they can and should be the president now after the office was held by a black man and then a doofus."

Dude had to actually work for his money, rather than inherit it, and that bugs the shit out of the doofus.

Otherwise, nah. Not fucking with him in the primaries.

guess the op aint the only one.

usual disclaimer that its only 1 poll. but its a reputable poll with a large sample size. and the trend has been clear regardless.

if dudes money can do this at the presidential level...imagine what he could have done with state legislative races, senate races, etc.

https://twitter.com/MorningConsult/status/1224399904857944065
------
NEW NATIONAL 2020 POLL:

Biden: 28% (-1)
Sanders: 24% (+1)
Bloomberg: 14% (+2)
Warren: 14%
Buttigieg: 6% (-1)
Yang: 4% (-1)
Klobuchar: 3%
Steyer: 3%
Gabbard: 2% (+1)

Based on ~15K surveys w/ Democratic primary voters; MoE=+/- 1.

https://t.co/19xcvbKDo2
------

https://twitter.com/MorningConsult/status/1224403060530851841
-----
HYPOTHETICAL MATCH UPS against POTUS:

- Bloomberg leads the president by 7 points.
- Biden & Sanders lead by 4 points.
- Warren by 1 point.
- Buttigieg by 1 point.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EP30GAnWoAA7wg6?format=png&name=small

https://t.co/19xcvc2eMC
-----

j/k

and that is the LAST thing this country needs after Trump.

Here are the facts:

He is a billionaire media magnate who extended his NYC mayorship to a 3rd time by bribing and bullying until he succeeded.

he spend millions of dollars to buy his way into the DNC debate that he didn't qualify for by regular means, thereby disrupting grassroots organizing

- His tenure as NYC mayor Was also horrifically racist and authoritarian (Stop & frisk AND purposely delaying, FOR YEARS, the Exonerated Five from receiving their payout from their lawsuit against the City of NY)

- He amassed a shit ton of personal wealth while in office, thereby already showing a penchant for using political office for personal gain

- He uses the media channels he owns to push & amplify his personal propaganda

He's another Trump-like disaster waiting to happen, sans the trash, social climbing children (I HOPE)

I feel like we can maybe do better than that.

...seems even content to leave Elizabeth Warren out to dry.

She's not good enough for them.

Biden is in free fall (as he should be... on superficial reasons alone, never mind his actual policy). Buttigieg gets the nod as Biden insurance.

If he fails. Klobuchar.

Bloomberg: The Nuclear Option. LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

but it is telling that none of these people are catching on. On one hand, how thin is the "moderate" bench?

Weekend at Bidens, the Consultant Created Candidate, and a dude who endorsed W in 2004 and implemented stop and frisk?!?

On the other hand, maybe its telling that "unity/moderate" candidates aren't really catching on also.

Biden's freefall, Mayo Pete not polling well outside of white people in Iowa, Booker is a distant memory, etc.

The current front runner calls himself a socialist and Liz, despite numerous campaign blunders that probably could have sunk her, is still strong.

>...seems even content to leave Elizabeth Warren out to dry.
>
>She's not good enough for them.

Warren is getting a raw deal from both sides, but to your point- it looks like those articles about donors/the party freaking out and trying to get everyone from Deval Patrick to Sherrod Brown to reconsider were true...

Well, maybe the party needs to take a step back and take the temperature of the room. I think its pretty clear that "lets go back 4 years!" and "intermittent change! yeah!" isn't what the voters want. Or at least it hasn't been enough to carry any of these moderate candidates and I really doubt it will work for the Wine Cave Wonder

If beating Trump is really and truly the ultimate goal here, you would think more establishment Dems would support or even endorse her...since she would seem like the best bet to unite the party.

>
>Biden is in free fall (as he should be... on superficial
>reasons alone, never mind his actual policy). Buttigieg gets
>the nod as Biden insurance.
>
>If he fails. Klobuchar.
>
>Bloomberg: The Nuclear Option. LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

LOL right. And if a billionaire W supporter can win the Dem primary we are all fucked.

>I feel like we can maybe do better than that.

...we asked her why? she said she saw his ads and he seems like he would be great!

Put up some slick ads and try not to get people to ask too many questions.

It looks so good in the commercials

L O L

A dead squirrel would be better than Trump

I'd probably even vote for him over Bernie and Trump if he ran third party and made a significant showing. That is, if the third-party Bloomberg started beating Bernie in the general election polls, which I assume he would.

Bloomberg has insisted that he wouldn't run 3rd-party because he'd just split the anti-Trump vote. But I don't know if that's true anymore if Sanders is the Democratic nominee.

I don't think I'd vote for Bloomberg over any other Democrat (apart from Steyer and Gabbard, obviously, but they're irrelevant). And he wouldn't be able to run third-party in the general election against any other Democrat.

and how the acquittal will make anyone with money think they can do the same shit.

Then right after that he says Bloomberg is his guy.

Huh???

right now, he's not better than any of the other Dems

he's at the bottom of the list, quite frankly, cuz he cheated to get in the race

d

bloomberg has actually held office

didn't give a coherent reason for why and there was nothing new yorkers could do to stop him

oh, by the way, since then he's reverted his position on term extensions.

that's stuff Trump has only joked about so far

they didn't
regardless, Steyers complete and total lack of experience still aligns him more with trump than bloombergs third term does.

"The 51-member council voted 29-22 to approve the measure. About two-thirds of the council would have been forced out of office under the two-term limit, but they can now run for a third term in the November 2009 election."
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-newyork-bloomberg/ny-council-extends-term-limit-so-bloomberg-can-run-idUSTRE49M70J20081023

"By making more and more organizations dependent on him, Bloomberg took decision-making out of the democratic sphere and turned it over to himself. This is clientelism, a system built on financial quid-pro-quos, and naturally “the mayor and his top deputies… pressed social service, arts and neighborhood groups that receive donations from Mr. Bloomberg to express support for his third-term bid by testifying during public hearing.”"
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2020/02/a-republican-plutocrat-tries-to-buy-the-democratic-nomination

regardless, this doesn't make him "similar to trump" in my book

Switched 'council' to 'senate' to make it relevant to Trump's aborted impeachment

I get that you don't want to make the comparison. They seem so different. My point is that in my opinion they are similar enough to make the idea of a Bloomberg presidency terrifying

Bloomberg has experience:

-changing election laws for his personal benefit
-militarizing a major city's police force
-using that militarized police force to unjustly imprison minorities
-running a deeply misogynist workplace
-kneecapping union efforts
-actively cheerled a cartoonishly exaggerated class distinction in NY

So, he's got experience acting pretty similarly to how Trump has acted: like a fascist. Just because he's the sort of fascist who knows the names of operas and actually went to class in college doesn't mean that he's not one. He's trying to game American democracy and is being incredibly explicit about it.

but experience = a track record, which trump didn't have.
he has to run on those things and/or confront them (which trump will finally have to do as well)

-->

they may have completely different ideologies, but if we're picking a dem candidate who is "most similar to trump" - ie the post i was responding to - really not sure how thats not Steyer

-->

....and just a overall piece of shit ...of yeah, he's ultra wealthy too

https://www.arlnow.com/2020/02/06/d-c-mayor-to-campaign-for-bloomberg-in-arlington/

"Get ready....for your blessing....."
"Bury me by my Grand-Grand and when you can come follow me"

Right when Joe is on the ropes. They've got photos of Obama and Bloomberg together on Air Force One looking like HE was the vice president.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/mike-bloomberg-is-paying-influencers-to-make-him-seem-cool-9

One day after the Iowa caucuses were effectively botched by the disastrous rollout of a new vote-counting app, billionaire Mike Bloomberg announced that he intended to capitalize on chaos from the Hawkeye State by doubling the advertising budget of his presidential campaign.

But in addition to a flood of traditional advertising on television, radio, and online outlets targeting Super Tuesday voters, the campaign’s advertising budget includes a strategy familiar to every other startup with a ton of cash and a questionable business model: paying influencers to make it seem cool.

The Bloomberg campaign has quietly begun a campaign on Tribe, a “branded content marketplace” that connects social-media influencers with the brands that want to advertise to their followers, to pitch influencers on creating content highlighting why they love the former New York City mayor—for a price.

For a fixed $150 fee, the Bloomberg campaign is pitching micro-influencers—someone who has from 1,000 to 100,000 followers, in industry parlance—to create original content “that tells us why Mike Bloomberg is the electable candidate who can rise above the fray, work across the aisle so ALL Americans feel heard & respected.”

“Are you sick of the chaos & infighting overshadowing the issues that matter most to us? Please express your thoughts verbally or for still image posts please overlay text about why you support Mike,” the campaign copy tells would-be Bloomberg stans under the heading “Content We’d Love From You,” asking influencers to “Show+Tell why Mike is the candidate who can change our country for the better, state why YOU think he’s a great candidate.”

Tribe, which works with nearly 70,000 aspiring influencers, offers brands—and, in this case, presidential campaigns—the ability to solicit custom-made content from aspiring influencers, who create custom social within the brand’s parameters for submission. If the brand accepts the content, the influencer is paid in exchange for the ability of the brand to license the content and place it on their own social channels—or, if the campaign prefers, the influencers post the #sponcon to their own feeds, targeting followers that the brand might not otherwise reach.

The campaign post, reviewed by The Daily Beast, encourages submissions to be well lit, mention why the influencer thinks “we need a change in Government,” and for the creator to “be honest, passionate and be yourself!”

Influencers are asked not to use profanity, nudity, or “overtly negative content,” as well as be U.S. residents to participate.

“Mike Bloomberg is a middle class kid who worked his way through college,” the posting states under an “About Us” section, describing Bloomberg as “a self-made businessman, proven supporter of progressive values & can get things done.” The post also highlights his work on gun violence, creating a clean-energy economy, and “flipping 21 of 24 down-ballot House races he supported in 2018.”

The Bloomberg campaign declined to comment on the Tribe post, and an email to Tribe about whether it had worked with other political campaigns was not immediately returned.

The Bloomberg content campaign appears geared toward collecting content that can later be shared by the campaign, essentially creating a stock-image library of well-crafted, “organic”-seeming still images and videos custom-made for the campaign. The relatively low $150 cost per post also makes the investment comparatively cheap—some influencers can command fees in the five or even six figures for a brand campaign, and that’s not even including celebrity accounts, who can earn enough money per post to make even billionaire Bloomberg blush.

The approach is novel. No other high-polling candidates reached by The Daily Beast said that their campaigns have ever paid influencers to create content for the campaign, or for influencers to post such content on their own channels in exchange for money.

But the notion that one of the richest people on the planet is paying micro-influencers in exchange for authentic-seeming endorsements from Instagrammers risks giving off what might be described as a Monty Burns-entering-a-film-festival vibe.

Bloomberg’s posting also sidesteps some of the more un-millennial aspects of his three-term mayoralty, from his years-long endorsement of the New York Police Department’s “stop-and-frisk” policy that disproportionately targeted black and Latino men to his unsuccessful war on large soft drinks.

while thinking about my 'big picture' goals and energy & enthusiasm...thinking about the long game, and the gritty details....looking at the roster i've been quietly coming to the realization that Arby's can be 'that dinner'.

still pondering & evaluating the whole team (I'm looking at you Wendy's), but getting near the time for me to move from 'quiet realization' onwards to 'Lets GO...to Arby's!'

I mean, 'they have the meats'...

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2020/02/a-republican-plutocrat-tries-to-buy-the-democratic-nomination

but this piece is extensive and

DAMNING

just give it a read.

Thanks for posting. I didn't realize this was up.

Has never been a Democrat - yet you don't hear the Dem party purists crying about how he's "not a real Democrat!" like they do with Sanders.

-->

"The nanny state taking our guns and Big Gulps"

but none of the core principles or compassion

Just like he used his money as leverage to muscle his way in local politics, he will do on a larger scale.

Taking his money was a huge mistake for the DNC

to let Trumpster lite into the primary

Right?

Seriously, WTF

The DNC is making every effort to fuck this up...

Again.

and only because i think they'll have a hard time with Trump
pete, warren, klob, bloomy - i think they're all solid
and ill 100% ride with bernie and grandpa joe if thats how it goes down - i actually think they'd be fine presidents too. I just think trump feasts on them both.

>and only because i think they'll have a hard time with Trump
>pete, warren, klob, bloomy - i think they're all solid
>and ill 100% ride with bernie and grandpa joe if thats how it
>goes down - i actually think they'd be fine presidents too. I
>just think trump feasts on them both.


Biden will be an awful President.

they're all about a million times better than what we're dealing with right now. every one of them.
but yes, i dig pete, kloby, and bloomy. Warren would be my first choice tho.
i dont think biden would be a great prez - i dont think he'd be awful either - like i said i think he'd be fine. - but my larger issue with him is that i dont think hes a great candidate, and thats what ACTUALLY terrifies me about him.

>and only because i think they'll have a hard time with Trump
>pete, warren, klob, bloomy - i think they're all solid

Pete, Warren & Klobuchar all do worse in head-to-head polling than Biden & Sanders.


-->

but i think once the campaign starts trump would have his way with those two - thats just my instinct.
I think bernie would at least be able to hit back pretty hard tho. I dunno about joe.

Big money has a massive influence on politics?

Who would've thought.

-->

Haven’t heard anything about his policies..

Just because he is rich and has name recognition.

... and its impact on New York City.

"The President deserves our support. We are here to support him. And I am here to support him."

Some charitable soul is going to pull a "can't people change?" and while the answer is durably "sure, but they hate it and it's almost always for the worse" the answer in the case of Bloomberg should be that obviously he can change but he's not even bothering to pretend that he's changed. This isn't "Elizabeth Warren used to be a Republican" shit. This is Mike Bloomberg not thinking enough of any of you to even bother explaining why he was a Republican then and a Democrat now because it's made literally no difference in his politics. The same principles that led him to welcome the murderous, torturing regime of Dubya to New York are the same ones that are driving his presidential run, and if you ask him to explain that his answer will be some polite version of "Fuck off" because he, and everybody who is propping him up in this campaign, is utterly contemptuous of you, your loved ones, and any tiny aspiration that would permit you all to live freely. Fuck him.

https://twitter.com/WalkerBragman/status/1199201379132362752

https://theintercept.com/2019/11/25/michael-bloombergs-right-wing-views-on-foreign-policy-make-him-a-perfect-candidate-for-the-republican-nomination/

Bloomberg takes MBS to Starbucks:
https://twitter.com/Badermasaker/status/979099746777337856

>https://theintercept.com/2019/11/25/michael-bloombergs-right-wing-views-on-foreign-policy-make-him-a-perfect-candidate-for-the-republican-nomination/
>
>Bloomberg takes MBS to Starbucks:
>https://twitter.com/Badermasaker/status/979099746777337856

Wasn't Bloomberg one of the villains of the past twenty years? I really thought that was almost universally agreed on, and okayplayer wouldn't end up on a shortlist of spots that didn't agree. And if I was just wrong about that one then who else am I wrong about? Does Kissinger still suck? Newt Gingrich hasn't actually held office for awhile. If he just switched teams, would he be cool?

I had an argument with my mother on Bloomberg. She likes Warren and Klobuchar but doesn't love Sanders' angry old guy persona.

This last Friday she started on a new 'Bloomberg would be ok' tack.

She admitted stop & frisk is an unforgivable issue (since she still is upset about my own arrest). I unlike her know many young men that this was actually a more regular occurrence for under Bloomberg.

but she said his record on the environment, banning smoking in bars, and banning jumbo sodas were all good things. She forgot what the city became under him and just remembered the Hollywood version of his administration, with him being the sharp little businessman and philanthropist with his heart in the right place.

I sent her the Nathan Robinson article and she immediately backtracked.

It's like when we see Michelle Obama hugged up on George W. or them sharing candy at H.W.'s funeral and we forget he's a war criminal. I'm not sure why we are prone to forget the sins of these people so quickly.

Pelosi and most of the Dems at the SOTU cheered Trump's attempted coup in Venezuela - and of course the majority of Dems have gone along with the Bush/Clinton/Trump doctrine of endless war.

Bloomberg peddling Kissinger-Bolton foreign policy should be an absolute disqualifier. Instead, you've got "Democrats" praising him and even vowing to vote for him, showing that they have no big issue with Bloomberg's NeoCon foreign policy.

-->

Bernie - 25 (up from 21 last month)
Biden - 17 (down from 26)
Bloomberg - 15 (up from 8)
Warren - 14 (down from 15)
Buttigieg - 10 (up from 6)


Bloomberg is making his gains by stealing black support from Biden.

Black support for Biden (27 vs 49 last month)
Black support for Bloomberg (22 vs 7 last month)



https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/482363-sanders-overtakes-biden-in-quinnipiac-national-poll

Bloomberg: “We Put All The Cops In Minority Neighborhoods Because That’s Where All The Crime Is.”

not on wall street.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vnmObHts-I

"95% of your murders - murderers and murder victims - fit one MO. You can just take the description, xerox it, and pass it out to all the cops. They are male, minorities, sixteen to twenty five.... One of the unintended consequences is people say 'oh my god you're arresting kids for marijuana that are all minorities.' Yes, that's true. Why? Because we put all the cops in minority neighborhoods. Yes, that's true. Why do we do it? Because that's where all the crime is. And the way you get the guns out of kids hands is you throw them against the walls and frisk them."

This is from 2015. Apparently. FIVE years ago, he was explicitly affirming the effectiveness and social value of racial profiling as such. Like, affirming that they are indeed targeting children and young black men because it works and helps move the city toward Bloomberg's vision for New York.

https://twitter.com/BenjaminPDixon/status/1227067093692055553

You really have to question the party at this point

Bloomberg is the antithesis of the Democratic policy platform

...and yet, here he is...

Also telling, all of the positive press (in comparison), but we haven’t heard his vision for the country...WTF

Michael Bloomberg blocks footage of Aspen Institute appearance

https://www.aspentimes.com/news/michael-bloomberg-blocks-footage-of-aspen-institute-appearance/

I mean, the inverse of Dr. Poomar level anti-Black.

This dude is TRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASH.

Basically saying that he floods Black neighborhoods with cops to lock up Black people.

And because he eats ice cream and takes pictures with Obama and supposedly can "beat Trump"? that's it?

I refuse to vote for him.
He is the one that would make me break the rule.

So the DNC is trying to rig a primary for a racist mayor, and if that fails, to install a racist oligarch to lose to another racist oligarch they elevated the last election?

how do you explain this to someone who refuse to vote cuz they see both parties the same

this dude IS Trump, with less "grab 'em by the pussy" and more "men in a dress" and "lock black people up". and this is in RECENT history.

why would anyone vote for this fool if they want Trump out? To have a Trump with a (D) by his name?

"Get ready....for your blessing....."
"Bury me by my Grand-Grand and when you can come follow me"

and forget that most of the

>So the DNC is trying to rig a primary for a racist mayor, and
>if that fails, to install a racist oligarch to lose to another
>racist oligarch they elevated the last election?
>
>how do you explain this to someone who refuse to vote cuz they
>see both parties the same

By being honest with them: Yes - the Dem establishment is corrupt, too. The Republican establishment is rotten, but both parties have suffered from institutional decay.

Yet, there are candidates who are calling for (and would institute) serious reform.


-->

Prolly using the same Russian motherboards Trump used to win