Michael Bloomberg 2020 campaign megathread

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/MikeBloomberg/status/1229369357471551488?s=19

Bloomberg's got a new ad criticizing Bernie's inability to control the Twitter mobs and get them to act like decent people. I don't approve of Bloomberg, but now that Sanders is seen as a front-runner, he is getting getting attacked as all front-runners do. In light of the culinary union situation it seems likely that he will face questions about this at the next debate.

[ElectionsGuy]

It's absolutely ludicrous that they think Bernie should be held responsible for his freak supporters on Twitter. Only Bernie's fanatics that have maybe 100 followers on average are made into this grand problem by the establishment hacks.

[Roblox]

Half of the tweets in the Bloomberg video are pretty standard memes and rude replies. The fact that they felt the need to make an ad out of getting roasted on twitter is pretty funny.

[President Johnson]

You can’t support Bloomberg and be a Democrat. Period. He’s literally worse than Trump in my opinion, if mostly because he’d be far more competent a Republican.

Well, let's see:

- Mike supports a 15$ minimum wage
- Mike supports immigration reform with a pathway to citizenship, plus statehood for Puerto Rico
- Mike supports higher taxes for the wealthy
- Mike supports expanding health care
- Mike has a long history as an advocate for gun control
- Mike has a long history as an advocate to combat climate change
- Mike is essentially a self-made billionaire, didn't inherit a fortune, pays his employees and campaign staffers a decent wage
- Mike actually knows something about foreign policy, doesn't embarrass himself
- Mike has acknowledged past mistakes, shown some self-reflection
- Mike has pledged to support any Democratic nominee including Bernie and is willing to outspend Trump in favor of Democrats (but is still accused of "wanting to buy the presidency")


Let's check the opposite:

- Mike didn't praise KKK and Nazi thugs as "fine people"
- Mike didn't call upon his supports to punch protesters in the face
- Mike didn't attack the press as enemy of the people
- Mike didn't defraud charity to enrich himself (instead he's known as real philanthropist)
- Mike isn't on tape saying he can grab women whereever he wants
- Mike didn't undermine public trust in courts, called out judges for being "Mexican"
- Mike didn't call on foreign nations to interfere for his own political benefit
- Mike didn't bribe a foreign leader to dig up dirt on his opponents
- Mike didn't stand in front of a foreign autocrat and said he believes him more than US Intel services
- Mike didn't insinuate violence against his rivals (he didn't even attack anyone other than Trump in this cycle)
- Mike didn't call Latin American countries as s-holes, neither did he call Mexicans rapists
- Mike didn't mock a disabled reporter
- Mike didn't attack an American war hero as "coward" and insulted him after dying of brain cancer
- Mike didn't attack Gold Star families
- Mike didn't call for a Muslim ban or tried to implement it
- Mike didn't accuse American Muslims of cheering on 9/11


Should I go on?


But yeah, Wall Street Mike is clearly worse than Trump. How can any Democrat support him over Trump?

[Morning in Atlas]

https://twitter.com/MikeBloomberg/status/1229369357471551488?s=19

Bloomberg's got a new ad criticizing Bernie's inability to control the Twitter mobs and get them to act like decent people. I don't approve of Bloomberg, but now that Sanders is seen as a front-runner, he is getting getting attacked as all front-runners do. In light of the culinary union situation it seems likely that he will face questions about this at the next debate.

Let's unpack this further.

* One of these is urging a gun activist to back Bernie in the general. (Seriously, one of the most underrated stories is how one of our most prominent "gun violence activists" is a fraud who will back the NRA and Trump if Bernie gets elected)

* One of these is using the center's tactics against them (funny how blacklisting consultants is suddenly so horrible and messed up when the left uses them)

* The coffin thing is from an unaffiliated group (not a Warren-supporting group, but nevertheless not affiliated with Bernie).

* One of these tweets is literally deceptively edited to remove the context (and even without isn't terrible enough to be condemned)

* Half of those aren't even bad enough to be condemned

* Another 25% of these are memes

Also using a racist and sexist slur in the ad, but it's not like his comments and policies didn't already reveal that.

[Tintrlvr]

Bloomberg is opening campaign offices in NYC, including this office just a few blocks from where I live. A clear indication that he's going to be in the race till the end of primary season, as New York doesn't vote until April 28, and I don't think any other candidate has offices in NYC yet, even Sanders.

https://www.brooklynpaper.com/bloomberg-opens-first-brooklyn-campaign-office-in-boerum-hill/

[GeneralMacArthur]

Any Mike 2020 supporters want to explain the WaPo article?  The campaign doesn't even appear to have an explanation beyond "it was 25 years ago, he was a different person then."  But if he's running on his experience as a CEO, well, that's what he's running on, and that experience as a CEO includes, apparently, telling pregnant employees to get an abortion, regularly objectifying women with sexually explicit comments in front of their colleagues, abusively berating female employees for a variety of things, casual sexism and racism, etc. and it's not just one or two quotes, or only coming from one source, it's a whole mountain of them coming from a multitude of sources.

I've seen and heard a lot of Bloomberg over the last decade and would never have guessed that he was that kind of guy.  He always seemed calm and thoughtful, curious, detail-oriented, mild-mannered but confident, determined to look at both sides of every issue yet passionate about the things he cares about.  That's the kind of guy I think would make a great president.

And yet, this WaPo story seems unimpeachable and paints a completely different portrait of what he is, or was, like behind the scenes.  At my company we have to take these courses from HR every year telling us how not to behave, and we joke about how exaggerated or obvious some of the examples are, yet these are things Bloomberg is quoted as having said or done.  How on earth did he get elected in NYC?  There must be more to the story.

[Adam Griffin]

You can’t support Bloomberg and be a Democrat. Period. He’s literally worse than Trump in my opinion, if mostly because he’d be far more competent a Republican.

Well, let's see:

- Mike supports a 15$ minimum wage ["I've never been in favor of raising the minimum wage"]
- Mike supports immigration reform with a pathway to citizenship, plus statehood for Puerto Rico [doubtful, given he thinks Latinos "don't know how to behave" - though if he does, I imagine because he wants to hire them for less than the minimum wage]
- Mike supports higher taxes for the wealthy [Taxing the rich is 'about as dumb a policy as I can think of"
- Mike supports expanding health care [If you get cancer at 95, we should say "you’ve lived a long life, we can’t do anything"]
- Mike has a long history as an advocate for gun control [says a city mayor with guns all around his neighborhood]
- Mike has a long history as an advocate to combat climate change [says a city mayor whose neighborhood will get flooded]
- Mike is essentially a self-made billionaire, didn't inherit a fortune, pays his employees and campaign staffers a decent wage [the former is not a bragging point for a Democratic nomination; the latter is an expectation - and the wages are far above living wages and other campaigns so as to buy out talent]
- Mike actually knows something about foreign policy, doesn't embarrass himself [doubtful: just because he speaks in complete sentences doesn't mean he's more informed than somebody who is at least somewhat briefed daily on classified matters]
- Mike has acknowledged past mistakes, shown some self-reflection [one mistake - stop and frisk - and even then, his apology was basically "i'm sorry for the policy" without acknowledgement of what it did to hundreds of thousands of people]
- Mike has pledged to support any Democratic nominee including Bernie and is willing to outspend Trump in favor of Democrats (but is still accused of "wanting to buy the presidency") [that's a "buy-out" tactic: very doubtful he'll spend any money besides on the same pro-gun control candidates he did in 2018, along with probably throwing some money to the GOP like he has done in most cycles, unless he wins]

[President Johnson]

Any Mike 2020 supporters want to explain the WaPo article?  The campaign doesn't even appear to have an explanation beyond "it was 25 years ago, he was a different person then."  But if he's running on his experience as a CEO, well, that's what he's running on, and that experience as a CEO includes, apparently, telling pregnant employees to get an abortion, regularly objectifying women with sexually explicit comments in front of their colleagues, abusively berating female employees for a variety of things, casual sexism and racism, etc. and it's not just one or two quotes, or only coming from one source, it's a whole mountain of them coming from a multitude of sources.

I've seen and heard a lot of Bloomberg over the last decade and would never have guessed that he was that kind of guy.  He always seemed calm and thoughtful, curious, detail-oriented, mild-mannered but confident, determined to look at both sides of every issue yet passionate about the things he cares about.  That's the kind of guy I think would make a great president.

And yet, this WaPo story seems unimpeachable and paints a completely different portrait of what he is, or was, like behind the scenes.  At my company we have to take these courses from HR every year telling us how not to behave, and we joke about how exaggerated or obvious some of the examples are, yet these are things Bloomberg is quoted as having said or done.  How on earth did he get elected in NYC?  There must be more to the story.

Yeah, I this is something he needs to address. The lack of denial probably means he said this kind of stuff (or some of it) and it would be troubling, even if 25 years ago.

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

Any Mike 2020 supporters want to explain the WaPo article?  The campaign doesn't even appear to have an explanation beyond "it was 25 years ago, he was a different person then."  But if he's running on his experience as a CEO, well, that's what he's running on, and that experience as a CEO includes, apparently, telling pregnant employees to get an abortion, regularly objectifying women with sexually explicit comments in front of their colleagues, abusively berating female employees for a variety of things, casual sexism and racism, etc. and it's not just one or two quotes, or only coming from one source, it's a whole mountain of them coming from a multitude of sources.

I've seen and heard a lot of Bloomberg over the last decade and would never have guessed that he was that kind of guy.  He always seemed calm and thoughtful, curious, detail-oriented, mild-mannered but confident, determined to look at both sides of every issue yet passionate about the things he cares about.  That's the kind of guy I think would make a great president.

And yet, this WaPo story seems unimpeachable and paints a completely different portrait of what he is, or was, like behind the scenes.  At my company we have to take these courses from HR every year telling us how not to behave, and we joke about how exaggerated or obvious some of the examples are, yet these are things Bloomberg is quoted as having said or done.  How on earth did he get elected in NYC?  There must be more to the story.

Not one bit of this is surprising about him. The man is 78 years old. There is no such thing as him watching an HR video. He is the reason for those HR videos. He was in the same friend group with Trump, Clinton and Giuliani. These were seen as the best America had to offer.

He was elected literally two months after 9/11 - in a much different city than exists today. The make-up of every outer borough was very different than their 2020 stereotypes. Bloomberg didn't even become the candidate of Manhattan as he is so stereotyped until he needed them for his illegal third election power grab that he so narrowly eked out.

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2018/09/mike-bloomberg-comments-women-metoo/570448/
‘I’d Do Her’: Mike Bloomberg and the Underbelly of #MeToo
Disparaging comments. Demeaning jokes. As the mogul reportedly considers a 2020 presidential run, it remains an open question whether his long-alleged history of undermining women will affect his chances.

MEGAN GARBER
SEPTEMBER 19, 2018

If you find yourself seeking, in these turbulent times, evidence of steadiness among the chaos—proof that even as the seas rise and the winds whip and the world that was gives way to the world that will be, some things will remain the same—here is a fact that seems always to be true: Mike Bloomberg is considering a run for president.

The newest version of the old truth comes from an article published this week in The New York Times: The billionaire former mayor, the paper announces, validating the rumors, is again considering a presidential run—this time, however, as a Democrat. It would not be an easy candidacy. “Mr. Bloomberg,” the Times points out, “is plainly an uncomfortable match for a progressive coalition passionately animated by concern for economic inequality and the civil rights of women and minorities.” Indeed: In an interview with the paper, Bloomberg defends stop-and-frisk. And, voicing “doubt” about some of the revelations that have been made in the course of #MeToo, Bloomberg mentions as an example Charlie Rose, who had broadcast his show from a space in Bloomberg’s corporate offices. He declined to say, specifically, whether he believed the many allegations against Rose. “Let the court system decide,” the former mayor said.

What is not fully addressed in the Times article, however—and what is not fully explored in the many similar pieces that consider the current iteration of Mike Bloomberg’s presidential ambitions—is a series of stories about him, accumulated over decades, that suggests in the aggregate a distinct pattern when it comes to his treatment of women: reports of disparaging comments made about women’s bodies and appearances. Allegations of a deeply sexist work environment at the company that Bloomberg founded and, for many years, ran. Stories that linger like exhaust in the air every time Mike Bloomberg is mentioned as, potentially, the next president of the United States.

This is a time in America of accountabilities that are—this is the most generous way to put it—unevenly distributed. Some people bear the heaviest and cruelest of burdens; others move through the world with easy indemnity. Christine Blasey Ford makes an allegation of sexual violence against the Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh; she is attacked as a victimizer. The man who last sought the presidency of the United States admitted to—bragged about—his own history of assaulting women; he won the office nonetheless. Exhaust, exhausting: The impunities form their own kind of fog.

“Bloomberg’s Sexual Blind Spot” is how The Village Voice summed it up in 2001. “Anti-woman obnoxiousness,” Cord Jefferson, then at Gawker, called it in 2013. Part of that obnoxiousness involves the many reports related to what Bloomberg once told a reporter: “I like theater, dining, and chasing women.” (He elaborated: “Let me put it this way: I am a single, straight billionaire in Manhattan. What do you think? It’s a wet dream.”) In his 1997 autobiography, Bloomberg by Bloomberg, the mogul bragged about keeping “a girlfriend in every city” during his years working as a Wall Street stock trader in the 1960s and ’70s. He is reported to have said, of the computer terminal that made his fortune, “It will do everything, including give you [oral sex]. I guess that puts a lot of you girls out of business.”

There’s more: Bloomberg reportedly saying to a journalist and the journalist’s friend, as he gazed at a woman at a holiday party, “Look at the ass on her.” (He denied having made that comment.) Bloomberg, according to a top aide, seeing attractive women and reflexively remarking, “Nice tits.” Bloomberg, mocking Christine Quinn, the then-speaker of New York’s City Council, for going too long between hair colorings. (“The couple of days a week before I need to get my hair colored,” Quinn once said, “he’ll say, ‘Do you pay a lot to make your hair be two colors? Because now it’s three with the gray.’”) Bloomberg mocking Quinn again, she said, for failing to wear heels at public events. (“I was at a parade with him once and he said, ‘What are those?’ and I said, ‘They’re comfortable,’ and he said, ‘I never want to hear those words out of your mouth again.’”) Bloomberg, quoted by colleagues as saying, “If women wanted to be appreciated for their brains, they’d go to the library instead of to Bloomingdale’s.” Bloomberg being asked in a deposition, “Have you ever made a comment to the effect that you would like to ‘do that piece of meat,’ or I’d ‘do her in a second’?” Bloomberg replying, “I don’t recall ever using the term meat at all.”

[Forward]

You can’t support Bloomberg and be a Democrat. Period. He’s literally worse than Trump in my opinion, if mostly because he’d be far more competent a Republican.

Well, let's see:

- Mike supports immigration reform with a pathway to citizenship, plus statehood for Puerto Rico [doubtful, given he thinks Latinos "don't know how to behave" - though if he does, I imagine because he wants to hire them for less than the minimum wage]

That tweet gives no context and is extremely misleading. That’s not what Bloomberg was trying to say. Please watch the full video:

https://youtu.be/4KX6swK-JoU

Bloomberg has always been one of the most pro-immigration politicians in America:

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

Any Mike 2020 supporters want to explain the WaPo article?  The campaign doesn't even appear to have an explanation beyond "it was 25 years ago, he was a different person then."  But if he's running on his experience as a CEO, well, that's what he's running on, and that experience as a CEO includes, apparently, telling pregnant employees to get an abortion, regularly objectifying women with sexually explicit comments in front of their colleagues, abusively berating female employees for a variety of things, casual sexism and racism, etc. and it's not just one or two quotes, or only coming from one source, it's a whole mountain of them coming from a multitude of sources.

I've seen and heard a lot of Bloomberg over the last decade and would never have guessed that he was that kind of guy.  He always seemed calm and thoughtful, curious, detail-oriented, mild-mannered but confident, determined to look at both sides of every issue yet passionate about the things he cares about.  That's the kind of guy I think would make a great president.

And yet, this WaPo story seems unimpeachable and paints a completely different portrait of what he is, or was, like behind the scenes.  At my company we have to take these courses from HR every year telling us how not to behave, and we joke about how exaggerated or obvious some of the examples are, yet these are things Bloomberg is quoted as having said or done.  How on earth did he get elected in NYC?  There must be more to the story.

Not one bit of this is surprising about him. The man is 78 years old. There is no such thing as him watching an HR video. He is the reason for those HR videos. He was in the same friend group with Trump, Clinton and Giuliani. These were seen as the best America had to offer.

He was elected literally two months after 9/11 - in a much different city than exists today. The make-up of every outer borough was very different than their 2020 stereotypes. Bloomberg didn't even become the candidate of Manhattan as he is so stereotyped until he needed them for his illegal third election power grab that he so narrowly eked out.

Not to forget that he was endorsed by... Giuliani, and it mattered a lot 

[Gass3268]

https://twitter.com/sahilkapur/status/1229500032392531968?s=20

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

https://twitter.com/sahilkapur/status/1229500032392531968?s=20

So after terrifying article from WaPo Bloomberg's response was to leak-troll Hillary as VP, making an ad against Bernie Bros and now... troll-telling Trump is a Bernie Bro.


Quite lame if you'd ask me, but with his money... he's even made some voters to believe he's got Obama's endorsement... May be, it'll work, too.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

https://mobile.twitter.com/CANCEL_SAM/status/1229127380402393088

Are there any countries with single-payer systems where a 95-yr old would be likely to receive aggressive cancer treatments?

[Adam Griffin]

https://twitter.com/MikeBloomberg/status/1229369357471551488?s=19

Bloomberg's got a new ad criticizing Bernie's inability to control the Twitter mobs and get them to act like decent people. I don't approve of Bloomberg, but now that Sanders is seen as a front-runner, he is getting getting attacked as all front-runners do. In light of the culinary union situation it seems likely that he will face questions about this at the next debate.

...

Can't wait for Bloomberg's next hit social media video: a 47-hour-long slideshow in October of 2 million Trump supporters' quotes screaming "JEWS WILL NOT REPLACE US" and posting Merchant Man memes or whatever. If he thinks this stuff is criticism - 90% of which wasn't even aimed at him - then he's in for a world of surprises over the next few weeks and especially if he actually gets the nom.

[Tekken_Guy]

I think I’m starting to be sold on the anti-Bloomberg movement. I’m indifferent to him as a person but I can understand why others dislike him and feel he’d lose if he were the nominee.

Trump is much more in line with his party’s supporters than Bloomberg is with his.

[John Dule]

[Forward]

You can’t support Bloomberg and be a Democrat. Period. He’s literally worse than Trump in my opinion, if mostly because he’d be far more competent a Republican.

Well, let's see:

- Mike supports higher taxes for the wealthy [Taxing the rich is 'about as dumb a policy as I can think of"
- Mike supports expanding health care [If you get cancer at 95, we should say "you’ve lived a long life, we can’t do anything"]
- Mike has a long history as an advocate for gun control [says a city mayor with guns all around his neighborhood]

These are also very deceptive. Say what you want about Bloomberg, but he's always been to the left of the average Democrat on healthcare issues. In 2009, Bloomberg thought that Obamacare was not left-wing enough and called for a public option. In 2017, Bloomberg praised single payer. As it has been pointed out, that healthcare clip you posted is very deceptive.

Bloomberg voiced opposition once to raising taxes on the rich, but he has on several more occasions expressed support for raising taxes on the rich. He raised taxes on the rich several times as mayor. I think actions speak louder than words.

[Adam Griffin]

These are also very deceptive.

As it has been pointed out, that healthcare clip you posted is very deceptive.

Harry Reid: "Mitt Romney paid no income taxes"

Also Harry Reid, later that week:

[Rookie Yinzer]

There’s not a candidate on that stage that won’t have reason to eviscerate Bloomberg. I’m surprised he wants to get on that stage and ruin the narrative he’s set with his ads. It’s going to be guns a blazing

[Gass3268]

There’s not a candidate on that stage that won’t have reason to eviscerate Bloomberg. I’m surprised he wants to get on that stage and ruin the narrative he’s set with his ads. It’s going to be guns a blazing

I'm not sure he actually wants to be on the debate stage.

[Roblox]

Disappointed i'm not featured here. Time to step up my posting game!

[RI]

Bloomberg has nothing to gain and everything to lose by going to the debates.