A bold claim from someone who hasn’t even yet been on a ballot. The Michael Bloomberg campaign released a memo warning Democrats that the Not Bernie lane’s split threatens to leave the party with a socialist in control of a large plurality of delegates. The only solution to this, Team Bloomy says, is to have everyone else withdraw and get behind the candidate with no delegates thus far at all — and hasn’t yet gotten one vote, for that matter.
Axios reported on the highlights:
Kevin Sheekey, Bloomberg’s top strategist, said: “The fact is if the state of this race remains status quo — with Biden, Pete and Amy in the race on Super Tuesday — Bernie is likely to open up a delegate lead that seems nearly impossible to overcome.”
“I don’t think many people understand the dire circumstances here.” …
“If Biden, Buttigieg, and Klobuchar remain in the race despite having no path to appreciably collecting delegates on Super Tuesday (and beyond), they will propel Sanders to a seemingly insurmountable delegate lead by siphoning votes away from [Bloomberg].”
Votes? What votes? Bloomberg won’t even appear on a ballot at all until March 3rd, missing Saturday’s caucus in Nevada and next Tuesday’s primary in South Carolina. What are the other candidates supposed to do for the next eleven days — knit Bloomberg for President beanies? Tell their organizations, “Never mind”? If Bloomberg was that concerned about unity and votes, why didn’t he get into the race early enough to compete in the first four states, and not just Super Tuesday?
The sheer arrogance of this analysis astounds in another way as well. Let’s not forget that Bloomberg’s the Johnny-come-lately to this party, and he came expressly to split the moderate vote. At the time Bloomberg launched his campaign, the race was shaping up as a socialist love-fest jockeying to be the Not Biden, who had been in polling control of the race for months. After Biden’s lackluster performance and several rhetorical stumbles, Bloomberg got into the race to take over Biden’s moderate slot. Unfortunately, the One True Socialist has emerged as the frontrunner and now everyone else is trying to paint themselves as a unity-minded moderate in response.
Plus, let’s also not forget that Bloomberg is almost as much of a Johnny-come-lately to the Democratic Party as Sanders is. If there’s party-saving to do from one socialist in Democrats’ clothing, why would the other candidates throw their lot in with the Republican in Democrats’ clothing? At least while he has yet to run in a single primary or caucus?
That’s not to discount everything in the analysis provided by Team Bloomberg in this memo. It’s absurd to call “MRB … the clear #2 based on vote share” when he has yet to get a single vote, and won’t until March 3rd. They’re correct in predicting that Sanders will get a large plurality based on current projections:
David Plouffe, Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign manager, tweeted in response to Nate Silver’s delegate projections through Super Tuesday — which show Sanders with 41%, followed by Bloomberg and Joe Biden with 18% each.
“If this happens, Sanders would have a pledged delegate lead he’ll never relinquish.”
That’s true … as far as it goes. The assumption in this memo is that one candidate in the moderate lane will defeat Sanders, as long as that field narrows between now and March 2nd. Even forgetting that the ballots for Super Tuesday are already set, that assumption is, er … somewhat suspect. As Allahpundit wrote last night, the latest NBC/WSJ poll shows that Sanders would beat Bloomberg by a whopping twenty points in a head-to-head match, 57/37, probably in large part due to the distaste that even some of the moderate wing have for a multi-billionaire buying the nomination.
That entirely contradicts the thrust of the memo. If Democrats really want to deny the nomination to Sanders, then the best strategy isn’t to narrow the field but to keep it expanded. The GOP uses a winner-take-all approach in most states to quickly whittle down their primary races, but Democrats allocate delegates proportionally above a threshold of viability (usually 15%).
Dems have made their bed and now must sleep in it.
Everything Bloomberg’s camp says about him VS the others could be said about any of the others about him and the rest of the others.
That said, the Mormons in Utah have been playing this game to make sure Mormons get the nomination as opposed to any non-Mormons, for all the time I have been here (and probably long before.)
They run many candidates to dilute all the non-Mormon candidates down.
THEN all but one of the Mormon candidates drop out but throw their support to the only Mormon left.
That Mormon gets elected almost every time.
But I doubt Amy, Liz, Pete or Joe has the moderate future concern of their party at heart over their own futures.
They won’t do this, at least not for FREE.
FOLLOW THE MONEY, if it does happen.
Some of this retarded logic is Trump is a billionaire the people will love bloomers too. Bernie has proven he can be bought with a house, a “bookdeal” and a fancy car, I guess thats why Bloomers wants to go head to head with Sanders.
Bloomers the idiot who thinks Chinas leaders have to bow to the people vs Sanders who never collected a paycheck til he was 40 then it was a government one.
The Democrat elite find themselves in the same situation the German industrialists were in in the 1930’s. They supported Hitler because they thought they could control and use him; then his popularity allowed him to get beyond their control. The similarities just keep accumulating.
Klobuchar and Buttigeig are too young with too many future opportunities for campaigns to play any of those power broker games.
Quick question: WHEN did Sanders explicitly declare himself as a Democrat? The Democrats could, somewhat belatedly, declare him ineligible. It won’t be painless, though.
But, their options are limited. If Bernie is their nominee, he will have a relatively small (and lazy) but enthusiastic support group. If Bernie is screwed over, those supporters will not only bolt, but will probably violently turn on the party. Bloomberg would do the same; drive away many ideologues who would resent his buying his way into the race. Meanwhile, they draw support away from the so-called “moderates”. That’s the kind of mess lying machinations create.
I hope all liberals are aware of just how much we are all enjoying this.
@Deplorable Me:
many American industrialists supported Hitler-joe kennedy for one. mikey was one of the most hated mayors to run nyc. mikey will destroy the democrap party like bernie is now. mikey bankrupted nyc. as one will recall, mikey went on a few trips with epstein to his island retreat
@MOS #8541: The Guardian reported that Epstein’s “little black book” contained contact numbers for A-listers including Tony Blair, Naomi Campbell, Dustin Hoffman, Michael Bloomberg and Richard Branson..
Bloomberg didnt have to go to the island Jeffy had a place in NY on 71st st.