Back in 2018, we urged Mike Bloomberg to enter the Democratic 2020 race to be a voice for sanity and moderation. Well, he did jump in, and that side of the party is now ascendant — despite his personal humiliation in Super Tuesday’s voting.
He spent half a billion of his money and failed to win, or even place second, in any of the 14 Super Tuesday states. In five, he didn’t even manage to finish third.
Perhaps he would’ve done better if he hadn’t joined the mad dash to the left on so many issues — not only disavowing the stop-and-frisk policing tactic that he so long defended, but embracing massive federal tax hikes ($5 trillion over a decade) and other hard-left policies.
At least he did add one sane line in the Nevada debate, when he called it “ridiculous” to “throw out capitalism,” as socialist Bernie Sanders plainly would love to do.
And perhaps his $500 million in ads did sway voters in one key way: At the least, they pushed them to consider whether the hard-left likes of Sanders and Sen. Liz Warren (who was surging in national polls when Bloomberg entered the race) made for the best nominee against President Trump.
Yet the left didn’t buy his new shtick, and moderates wound up deciding that good old Joe Biden was the best bet.
Bloomberg’s failure to prepare for the debates, where he came off as arrogant and robotic, didn’t help. (On the other hand, he drew fire that might have otherwise damaged Biden.)
Above all, his massive personal spending clearly backfired: Democrats, who decry “money in politics,” saw it as a cynical bid to buy his way to the top. Many resented his wealth; Sanders said billionaires shouldn’t even “exist.”
What now? Well, Bloomberg’s endorsement of Biden (especially if paired with some of Bloomberg’s money) may help stop Sanders, who still threatens to bring down the party.
The ex-mayor might also think about bringing his focus back home: New York’s charter schools, perhaps his proudest legacy, are under siege from City Hall and the lefties who now control the Legislature.
That’s tens of thousands of children who sure could use a billionaire champion.
