The Billionaire former NYC Mayor who served 2 terms as Republican and one term as a Independent is earning attention as a possible Democratic nomination sweepstakes contestant …..
Huh?
The guy who WAS a Republican is now running against that party?
He’s put his money where his mouth is by promising to go in his deep pockets and spend $80 Million to help his newly adopted party….
A rich guy party hoping?
Where have we seen this recently?
Democrats voting for a guy like this?
(Bloomberg could only qualify as a Conservative Democrat….THAT probably won’t work with most Democratic primary voters these days…But I’ve said this before about the guy…He’s got a boat load of money and it works for him…He successful spend enough to get what Rudy Giuliani couldn’t get….A Third term as NYC Mayor…)
But the more interesting question is not if Bloomberg will jump into the Democratic primary but how he would fit into it. The short answer: awkwardly. He’s a billionaire who defends big business and Wall Street, and he’s a former mayor who is still defending his administration’s reliance on stop-and-frisk searches that predominantly targeted men of color. He’d also enter the race as an older white man at a time when the Democratic base has made it clear it’s increasingly interested in candidates who know firsthand what it’s like to live in America as anything but that…..
image…Axios
While 44 different men (all but one of them white) have served as President so far (one twice), and over 60 different men (all but one white) have served since 1789 as Mayor of New York, no one person has yet held both offices in his (let alone her) lifetime.
The voters have yet to decide (as John Lindsay and Rudolf Giuliani learned) that holding down the Second-Toughest Job in America guarantees your fitness to serve in the Toughest one — or vice-versa.
When reporters asked Bloomberg in the past about running for President,he would say he wasn’t .
When they inquired why,his short,succinct, and probably accurate answer was,” can’t win.”
One wonders what has made him change his mind?I guess it could be nothing more than,” if Trump can do it, maybe I can!”
Could very be that Jack….
His money would allow him to stay in longer then others
But doubt he’d get the vote in the primaries
If Biden, Sanders and Bloomberg all run we’ll have 3 Democratic contenders in their lare 70s.
And if Trump is still in office and running again we’ll have a GOP noninee who is 74.
Bob Dole has to be thinking–gee, and they said I was too old???
Also assuming Trump is the Republican nominee in 2020 the party will continue it’s tradition of nominating a septuaganarian every 12 years–starting with 73 yr old Ronald Reagan in 1984 and continuing with Bob Dole in 1996 (73) John McCain in 2008 (72) and Donald Trump in 2020 (74).
That makes Ike, whom everyone now thinks of as ancient, a sprightly, vigorous 62 at his inauguration in January 1953.
Those old salts, Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush, were both born in 1924, making them respectively 52 in 1977 and 64 in 1989.
Two other Navy veterans, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, were both born in 1913, making Nixon 56 when inaugurated in 1969 and Ford 61 when Nixon resigned in 1974.
Those less-eager warriors Bill Clinton and George W. Bush were both born in 1946, making the former 46 in 1993 and the later 58 in 2001.
And Ronald Reagan (born 6 Feb. 1911) was actually only 69 at his inauguration on Jan. 20, 1981, not having his 70th birthday (something I’m fast approaching myself) for another couple of weeks, on February 6th, 1981.
Barack Obama (born 1961) was 47 in 2009, the same age as Grover Cleveland in 1885, and only slightly older than JFK (43 in Jan. 1961) and TR (42 in Sept. 1901) when they became President.
No age discrimination,eh?