Almost quietly?
Money Mike Bloomberg continues his effort to buy the 2020 Democratic Presidential nomination….
While the others are running for delegates in small states?
Bloomberg is spending hundred’s of millions on staff and ads across the country…
His focus is Donald Trump….
NOT his fellow Democrats…
He’s qualified as the (Republican?) mayor in America’s ‘second toughest’ job…
His polling numbers remain. mostly in the single digits…
BUT?
He IS sneaking up with those numbers and more important?
As other Democrats run out of attention and money in the next few weeks ?
Mike Bloomberg IS gonna be standing tall….
I must admit…
This New York dog is now thinking of the guy as a backup for Joe Biden if he flames out….
While the rest of the Democratic field tries to recover from Iowa and pivot to New Hampshire, Bloomberg is seizing the moment to gain an advantage — doubling his television spending in key states, expanding his staff to more than 2,000, and traveling the country to introduce himself as a competent and accomplished manager.
The sheer size and machine-like efficiency of Bloomberg’s campaign, for which he has already paid more than $200 million of his own fortune, is distinct compared with the troubling performance of party leaders in Iowa and stumbling by former vice president Joe Biden.
Bloomberg, 77, began his campaign too late to qualify for the early primary states that often make or break presidential candidates. Instead, he has focused on delegate-rich Super Tuesday states, which will vote in early March, hoping to nudge Biden aside as the moderate alternative to Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). Former South Bend, Ind., mayor Pete Buttigieg, who finished surprisingly strong in Iowa, is also vying for the moderate mantle….
…
“There’s nothing that Donald Trump can do or say that can hurt me,” Bloomberg said, a line he repeated to applause at each event. “He’s not going to bully me, and I’m not going to let him bully you.”
Bloomberg, in an interview in Detroit, said he does not name his Democratic rivals during his speeches because that would only help them. “Why give them the courtesy?” he asked. “I’m running against Donald Trump. To the extent these people are running against me, my polls are going up while theirs are going down.”
Bloomberg’s Philadelphia appearance was a show of force in the city where Biden’s campaign headquarters is located. It also came a day after the former vice president’s weak showing in Iowa.
Yet Bloomberg waved off the suggestion that he is counting on Biden faltering. “It’s true if some people aren’t in the race it would be easier,” he said of Biden, whom he described as a “very nice guy” and a “business friend.”
“I think you have to assume he’s going all the way, and we’ve got to make a better case,” Bloomberg said. “I would never criticize him, and I assume he would never criticize me.”
Asked about Sanders, he said, “Conventional wisdom is that Sanders and Warren are bad and when they get a good story in the paper, the stock market does go down a little bit.”
“Maybe after the nomination they can change their spots,” he said, envisioning a scenario where either is the Democrats’ candidate in the fall. “People do that all the time.”
image…VanityFair.Com