The “Who is running in 2020?” tea leaves thread, Part 4

[Mr. Morden]

More on Patrick: He is "taking and making calls" about such a run:

https://www.ktvz.com/news/politics/deval-patrick-taking-and-making-calls-about-potential-2020-run/1141182350

Deval Patrick is seriously weighing whether he could make a credible last-minute entry into the Democratic Party's crowded primary contest, two Democrats close to the former Massachusetts governor told CNN.

"He's taking and making calls," one of the Democrats familiar with Patrick's thinking said. But both Democrats said Patrick is well aware of the uphill nature of such a late candidacy and has not told friends whether he's reached a decision.

The conversations began before former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg stepped forward last week to tease a possible run, but have intensified in recent days. Patrick has told friends he regrets not moving forward with a 2020 campaign earlier this year and is trying to determine if it would still be possible.

[NYSforKennedy2024]

Endorsed.

Yang Gang

Bloomers

PatrickPals Rise Up!

[Pericles]

Why?!

[Podgy the Bear]

Booker would be a stronger choice, but he's going nowhere.  Why does Patrick he's going to be any different?  A stupid move.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

It's far too late for anyone without 100% name recognition or a war chest that can create it to jump in.

[Lourdes]

He's a director at Bain Capital. No thank you

[McGarnagle]

Bloomberg or Patrick would be losing candidates

How tone deaf do you have to be to not realize that Democratic voters don't want you, and they don't want guardians of the rich?

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

Really goes to show how out of touch so many Democratic figures are that they can look at the most popular (from within the party) and energized primary field in recent memory and decide that it's insufficient.

[538Electoral]

He's dated now.

[Mr. Morden]

Boston Globe on Patrick:

https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2019/11/11/deval-patrick-now-reportedly-considering-run/D1sJBlLjyDQpmNZhdUdWDM/story.html

One person familiar with Patrick’s thinking said he is “strongly considering” running and may announce his decision this week. This person also said Patrick had reached out to former vice president Joe Biden to let him know he was weighing the move. A second person said an announcement from Patrick could come Thursday.

Also:

Two of his closest former aides are tied up with other candidates. John Walsh, who served as Patrick’s 2006 gubernatorial campaign manager, and is a former head of the Massachusetts Democratic Party, is leading Senator Edward J. Markey’s contested reelection campaign. Doug Rubin, another close former aide who also worked on Warren’s 2012 Senate campaign, is working for billionaire candidate Tom Steyer.
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Mary Anne Marsh, a Boston-based Democratic strategist, said the only way Patrick could pull off a primary victory is if “the Obama operation from top to bottom — all of it — gets behind him.” Even then, she added, “it would be the longest of long shots.’’

Politico says many of the figures encouraging him to run are big donors with ties to Wall Street:

https://www.politico.com/news/2019/11/11/deval-patrick-democratic-primary-2020-069535

Patrick’s interest in the race advanced in recent weeks as top Democratic donors became increasingly concerned with the field, according to one friend who spoke to the former governor last week.
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“This is coming from Wall Street. They’re terrified of Warren. And these guys would help Biden. But they’ve been in a room with him up close and they have doubts,” the source said. “Deval wants this. He regrets not having done it. His wife was ill. But since then, she has gotten better. But the field has gotten worse.”

[Tender Branson]

Looks like a Booker substitute to me (who should drop out soon).

But if Booker didn't go anywhere, why would he ?

[This user has not been convicted of 34 felonies]

Part of me is okay with these moderate bootlickers getting in and stealing as many votes from Biden as possible.

Part of me doesn't like the optics of the party being in such disarray that we still have candidates jumping in a few months before Iowa.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Sanders is the problem, he isnt a viable candidate anymore and never was a he is taking votes away from Warren. AOC endorsed the wrong candidate..

Harris stole Booker's thunder, as she went down, so did Booker.  Patrick, a Booker sub will go no where

[96FJV]

AOC endorsed the wrong candidate? She literally got into politics because of Bernie. All this talk about Deval Patrick is insiders in the party terrified all their candidates they hyped up are falling flat. Kamala Harris, Beto O'Rourke, Mayor Pete, and Biden can't go 5 seconds without embarrassing himself. They know Bernie or Warren could coast to the nomination.

[Mr. Morden]

I’m not sure how to classify Bloomberg at the present time, when he’s still nominally “deciding” whether to run, yet filing for state ballots.  Maybe he’s a “candidate”, but not actually “running”.  This Axios story from the weekend says it may just be a “trial balloon”:

https://www.axios.com/mike-bloomberg-polling-2020-primary-974ea30b-0923-4e6b-8748-4fcde1ecbffa.html

Sources close to Mike Bloomberg tell Axios that last week's announcement was partly a trial balloon to gauge interest and preserve the former mayor's options — but his own very extensive polling remains far from convincing.

The big picture: Polling being studied by Bloomberg shows big, perhaps insurmountable hurdles, particularly if Joe Biden stays in. 

Why it matters: That's why Bloomberg didn't run in the first place, and still might not.

Bloomberg, reflecting his life in business, is practical and data-driven. His formal announcement has always been contingent on whether polling showed a convincing path to victory.

There’s discussion on the Wikipedia talk page for the 2020 Dem. primary about how the Alabama ballot filing includes a statement that you are a candidate for the office in question.  If that’s true, then it’s hard to define him as anything other than a candidate, no matter what he’s saying publicly.

In other news, this Mark Cuban story is over a month old now, but I missed it at the time, so here it is:

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/30/mark-cuban-says-he-needs-his-familys-permission-to-run-for-president.html

Self-made billionaire, “Shark Tank” star and owner of the Dallas Mavericks Mark Cuban won’t be attaching “2020 presidential candidate” to his name, at least for now.

“My family voted it down. ... If you can change their mind I’m all in,” a smiling Cuban said in an interview Monday with Neil Cavuto on Fox Business Network.

[Mr. Morden]

Clinton: Never say never, but a 2020 run isn’t in my plans:

https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/12/politics/hillary-clinton-2020-presidential-race-pressure/index.html

"I, as I say, never, never, never say never and I will certainly tell you I'm under enormous pressure from many, many, many people to think about it," Clinton told BBC Radio. "But as of this moment, sitting here in this studio talking to you, that is absolutely not in my plans."

CNN previously reported that Clinton, the 2016 Democratic nominee, has been taking calls from other members of her party asking her to enter the 2020 race, but it remains unlikely she would do so.
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"A lot of people are talking to her, which isn't helpful," another person close to Clinton told CNN. "They get into her head because she so dislikes Donald Trump that she can't see straight."

However, a longtime confidante stated more bluntly: "She is NOT running."

[LabourJersey]

Clinton: Never say never, but a 2020 run isn’t in my plans:

https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/12/politics/hillary-clinton-2020-presidential-race-pressure/index.html

"I, as I say, never, never, never say never and I will certainly tell you I'm under enormous pressure from many, many, many people to think about it," Clinton told BBC Radio. "But as of this moment, sitting here in this studio talking to you, that is absolutely not in my plans."

CNN previously reported that Clinton, the 2016 Democratic nominee, has been taking calls from other members of her party asking her to enter the 2020 race, but it remains unlikely she would do so.
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"A lot of people are talking to her, which isn't helpful," another person close to Clinton told CNN. "They get into her head because she so dislikes Donald Trump that she can't see straight."

However, a longtime confidante stated more bluntly: "She is NOT running."

This speaks more to the delusions of Clinton's closest allies than anything else

[NYSforKennedy2024]

Deval Patrick likely in.

https://devalpatrick2020.com/

Website is the only Deval-related domain that's locked the same way Tulsi's was a few days before her announcement.

[Mr. Morden]

At the bottom of https://www.mikebloomberg.com , it now says "Paid for by Mike Bloomberg 2020".

[Mr. Morden]

Patrick pulled out of a Wednesday speaking engagement in Colorado Springs at the last minute:

https://www.milforddailynews.com/news/20191112/patrick-pulls-out-of-wed-speaking-engagement

Presumably clearing his schedule to continue 2020 deliberations.

Conference organizers announced Tuesday afternoon that Patrick, who is a managing director at Bain Capital, would speak on the main stage about “the power of impact investing to build companies that deliver both competitive financial returns and meaningful, measurable social and environmental good.”

Then just hours later, organizers confirmed that the former governor had backed out of the engagement, and a replacement speaker was being sought.

[Skye]

https://twitter.com/jaketapper/status/1194704712727179264

[Former Crackhead Mike Lindell]

He has, apparently, maybe, the nebulous and vague concept of "Obamaworld" behind him. How that manifests itself, we don't know. An Obama endorsement? Hell no, obviously not, are you kidding? But... David Axelrod joining the campaign? Maybe? Now *that* would be a game changer!!! Wait, no it wouldn't.

[Mr. Morden]

Already mentioned this in the ballot access thread, but Bloomberg won't file for the New Hampshire ballot:

https://apnews.com/f4e282b393f940c9a7d70cf5218c75e8

Bloomberg’s team says the billionaire media mogul will not file in the state ahead of a Friday deadline to get on the ballot.

Bloomberg is still deciding whether to seek the Democratic nomination. If he does run, his advisers have said he would skip early contests in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina and instead focus on the crush of states that vote on March 3 and beyond.

An adviser says Bloomberg doesn’t want to set any expectation that he will compete in New Hampshire and therefore won’t put his name on the ballot.

In any case, we were promised that a Bloomberg decision was "days" away, but that was almost a week ago.

[Mr. Morden]

Bloomberg had been scheduled to make a trip to China next week, but is skipping that in order to continue his decision making process over whether to run for prez (which he’s sort of already doing):

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-bloomberg-china/bloomberg-to-skip-his-own-china-forum-next-week-as-he-mulls-presidential-run-idUSKBN1XP2F8

Meanwhile, he’s set to spend $100 million on online ads targeting Trump in swing states, regardless of whether he ends up running or not:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/michael-bloomberg-launch-100-million-161806863.html

The online advertisements Bloomberg is funding, which have not yet run but are slated to begin Friday, will target four states: Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The advertisements are slated to run through the primary season, regardless of whether Bloomberg decides to run for president, the aide confirmed. The details were first reported by The New York Times.

[Mr. Morden]

Microsoft hires Eric Holder to head up a special project:

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/microsoft-hires-eric-holder-audit-anyvision-over-use-facial-recognition-n1083911

Microsoft has hired former United States Attorney General Eric Holder to conduct an audit of facial recognition company AnyVision to determine whether it complies with Microsoft's ethical principles on how the biometric surveillance technology should be used.

This doesn’t sound like someone who’s urgently clearing his calendar in order to make a hurried last minute decision about a presidential run.  It’s looking more like Eugene Robinson’s suggestion that Holder was still reconsidering was erroneous.