This morning on GMA, some clown was reporting on Bloomberg's pseudo run for the presidency. The reporter pointed out the last person to skip the initial primaries and win the nomination was Hubert Humphrey in 1968.
That is true on a very superficial level. But only that.
Plumbing my memory banks from 1968: Humphrey was, at the time, LBJ's veep. LBJ was running for reelection until Eugene McCarthy nearly beat LBJ in New Hampshire. LBJ then dropped out and others entered the race, including Robert F. Kennedy (the father of the moron who thinks vaccines are bad). Kennedy emerged from the California primary as the front-runner for the nomination, but he was assassinated that night. Humphrey then was the front-runner and he won the nomination.
So unless Bloomberg is counting on an assassin to kill off whomever is in front, he's got as much chance as his money will buy him.
Which hopefully is damned little.
When They Have Beef With Your Menu
1 hour ago
4 comments:
Ironically,(but also logically),I think the current concentration of hyper-wealth may lead to a plateau or even diminution on the ability of money to affect elections. massive lipstick purchases are only worth it if it makes voters want to kiss the pig. Bloomberg would probably be better served by leasing someone more relatable, but there's that billionaire ego getting in the way.
Perhaps he'll siphon just enough Biden votes to get Warren nominated.
That would burn his duck.
-Doug in Oakland
Unfortunately, Bloomberg's run is anything but "pseudo." And don't underestimate the power of a massive and well-executed advertising campaign to sway elections and — more importantly — primaries. The power of Bloomberg's ads even persuaded the citizens of New York, perhaps the most cynical bunch of citizens in America, to ignore his overturning of the term limits law for which they had recently voted, to vote Bloomberg back in for a third term.
All of this speaks to Elizabeth Warren's call for taxation of extreme wealth — a call that might well be Bloomberg's motivation for running. Once elections can be effectively bought by a single person, with advertising campaigns so massive that they are the civil equivalent of a nuclear bomb, Democracy is finished. True, Bloomberg would be considerably better than Trump. So would a three-legged coyote. But one could hope that America will not merely replace Trump, but also reverse the disastrous direction in which we're traveling.
One additional thought. If Bloomberg gets the nomination with massive advertising expenditures, but then somehow manages to lose the election, he had better be prepared to spend most of his life abroad, because he will have made himself a pariah among half the voters of this country.
Yours very crankily,
The New York Crank
which is the crux of the biscuit. Being able to jet to one's private island has a tendency to distort one's definition of"we".
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