Iowa’s Democratic leadership disgraced itself and finally sealed the fate of their state’s first-in-the-nation privilege. If the DNC does not replace the Iowa caucuses with a more representative state like Michigan, it will be guilty of political malpractice. Coming out of the debacle, furthermore, are two deeply flawed candidates–a rather green Millennial mayor and a socialist. Democrats, especially in battleground states like North Carolina, do not need a savior, exactly, but they need to think hard about whom they want to represent their party in what is looking like a tougher and tougher general election.
Without endorsing anyone, I propose that Tar Heel Democrats take a careful look at Mike Bloomberg. You may roll your eyes at his bloated ad budget, but he is running a serious campaign that has much to recommend it in the context of an unraveling party. While it is counterintuitive that the former mayor of New York City would run well in a Southern state, Bloomberg is in many ways a good fit for NC.
Bloomberg’s commitment to North Carolina is beyond question. Shortly after announcing his campaign, he made it a priority to build an infrastructure in the Tar Heel state. Eighty Bloomberg staffers are working full time here to promote his campaign and the Democratic ticket more generally. In a conference call, he called North Carolina the “new Virginia,” expressing faith in the state’s future political development. It is assured that we would receive extensive attention and resources from the Bloomberg campaign.
And the former mayor has a good profile for North Carolina. A clear pattern has emerged over the last forty years of presidential elections here: moderates do relatively well, left-liberals get destroyed. Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama (who ran to the right of Hillary Clinton and John Edwards) carried the state, and Bill Clinton came agonizingly close to winning in it in 1992. By contrast, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis and John Kerry lost by thumping margins. Polarization will likely ensure a single-digit margin no matter who the Democratic nominee is, but a socially progressive, fiscally conservative pragmatist would do far better than someone like Bernie Sanders.
Drilling down a little further, Bloomberg is a particularly good fit for the voters Democrats need to win to carry North Carolina. The future of the NCDP lies in suburban areas and, eventually, exurbs like blue-trending Cabarrus County. Polls consistently show that suburban Tar Heels value fiscal prudence above activist government, and tolerance and plularism over culture wars. Bloomberg, with his pro-business centrism, is a good exemplar of this style of politics. In fact, he resembles North Carolina business progressives like Jim Hunt to a remarkable degree.
North Carolina Democrats need to start winning federal elections. Democrats have lost three straight Senate races here as well as the last two presidential elections in a row. The party needs a candidate who fits the state and has a real chance to win, and Mike Bloomberg is as good a bet as anyone currently in the field.
Alexander Jones is an original contributor to PoliticsNC.
He has large number of staff here as he can afford to pay those staffers. What have we Become that We look to billionaires to save us from… the Billionaires? As another person commented, If we don’t address giving people the adequate social safety net (healthcare etc) they deserve, as we do pay taxes….and urgently address the climate… we will slide into fascism or chaos. Chris Hedges gives an insight into how it can happen more quickly than one thinks
I find myself in a very odd place with regard to Mike Bloomberg. I lived in NYC for 42 years and spent over 30 of them as an advocate for the non-profit cultural sector. (Not lobbyist; they get paid a lot — advocates are lucky to get a regular modest paycheck.) I dealt with Mayors Beam, Koch, Dinkins, Rudy Guiliani and Bloomberg. I also worked very, very hard in the first Dinkins campaign. And I dealt with the needs of the cultural sector at both the State and City level, and for several years also at a national level. The cultural sector of NYC has roughly 950-1000 professional cultural groups, an estimated 800-900 emerging, preprofessional groups, and no one knows how many groups exist in the immigrant communities. In addition, there are literally hundreds of community based cultural efforts. In short, it is enormous and very diversified, ranging from groups with budgets in the quarter million dollar range to small $80-100,000 groups. It’s economic impact is greater than that of the construction industry.
Nothing happens in a vacuum when one is trying to ensure adequate funding for a sector of this type. Libraries need money, parks need money, public education needs money, hospitals, sanitation — the list is long and it is essential to know how the mayor stands, not just the City Council. Based on those decades, and many, many days of working to get an appropriation equal to the needs of the cultural sector, not to mention convincing elected officials to not do dumb things that would damage the cultural groups, here is how I rate the mayors. (Please keep in mind that my grades come not only from what they did or did not do for the cultural sector. I lived in the City and my day to day life was impacted by their conduct just as any other person’s was.)
Beam gets “C” from me. Koch for three terms about a “B-” and Dinkins a “B”. Rudy a “D” and Bloomberg a “B+” even though he did not get my personal support until his last term. He is honest, hard working, smart, had mostly good agency appointments which is critical in a city that is composed of FIVE counties and nearly 9 million people. His budgets were rational and unlike Rudy, did not contain hidden pockets of money that allowed the Mayor to later spend as he saw fit.
Bloomberg was seriously wrong in allowing Police Commissioner Kelly to use “stop and frisk” as he did. It was weaponized against poor communities, mostly black and Latino by the Police Commissioner. He deserves real criticism for that, but do not translate that into racism. The issue is more complicated. Greater safety in those neighborhoods was the goal, and safety was improved. Nonetheless the price was too high, especially for young men of color. But overall, a lot of the daily governance of the City was decent and sometimes actually good.
NYC is very, very hard to govern. It is full of activists, has a strong union presence, and sometimes bitterly divided by the old curse of Manhattan versus the “outer boroughs (Queens, Brooklyn, Bronx and State Island), all of whom believe that Manhattan gets preference in the allocation of resources. It is also a media center and has local newspapers and TV stations as well as the national press — all of which cover the City in differing ways. AND, it has the behemoth of Wall Street, coupled with several dozen Fortune 500 company headquarters. It takes a tough hide to ignore all those different groupings. Bloomberg did it well.
Bloomberg earned his money (unlike Trump) and was already using a lot of it for causes he felt were worthwhile. There were no personal scandals and no nasty behind the scenes in fighting in his cabinet. He was actually pretty boring a lot of the time.
I found him to be almost apolitical. I don’t think he could have easily explained what separated the Democrats from the Republicans on a day to day basis. He uses data and believes in experts. With rare exceptions, his appointments were genuinely good. Like every other person who puts himself out there for all of us to judge, he certainly has an ego, but it is not one in which he lashes out at a perceived slight or has to have his way or you get a temper tantrum.
As for Bloomberg “buying” an election, it is just not an issue for me at this point. I don’t like it, but until Citizens United is eliminated, a lot of people we don’t even know about are pouring money into their favorite candidate’s race. The only candidates who flatly refused PAC or hidden money are Sanders and Warren. Bloomberg apparently has the best staffed and largest staffing of all of the candidates and has emphatically said that his staffing will stay to work as needed by whoever the nominee is — and he will pay for them. That is a serious commitment.
Bloomberg is not my personal preference for president, but there are other candidates I think are less qualified and whose expertise is not equal to his. If he is the nominee, I will vote for him. I hope others will re-think their quick responses to him because I have seen and heard too much that is just not accurate.
This is one election where we must all vote unless we want Trump to serve another four years. Turnout is going to be essential.
I am a centrist, and I am loosing hope in Biden. Klobachar and Mayor Pete are both capable, but I question their ability to win a national election. Bloomberg has the funds and the experience to take on Trump and the GOP. Yes, he was a Republican at one time, but he was a centrist. Presidents who are in the middle of the road get more done than those who are far right or left. And they can get elected! If Biden continues to slip, I see Bloomberg as the best hope. Warren is also slipping, and Bernie would not be able to do most of what he champions. I am moving toward Bloomberg as our best hope to defeat Trump.
I do not want billionaires buying elections by themselves I believe we should just add a crown to his head if he wins I will not support or vote for him. This is a big mistake we need more politicians who eschew money from the richest and work for the poorest. This country is on the verge of breaking if we do not care for all and keep enriching the few. Wake up America. We deserve the kinds of social supports almost all countries in the world have but us
Linda Spallone
While I hate to see how billionaires have bought their way into politics, I think that a certain amount of pragmatism is needed. If Bloomberg will commit to advance progressive issues once elected, Democrats may actually have a chance of getting a progressive agenda adopted. After all the #metoo events, 2010 should be the year of the woman on a national ticket. I think the mostly likely winning ticket will be Bloomberg and Kochabar. Warren scares too many of the public, despite her support of working Americans and consumers. Bernie is not a real Democrat–he is a bitter socialist who comes up every 4 years to help destroy enough votes to get Rethuglicans elected.
Since Jimmy Carter’s loss, I have witnessed the extreme left wing help elect rampant reactionaries by not accepting true Democrats who can do nothing until they get elected. As I read comments from “progressives,” I an seeing more and more of then turn their attacks against Democratic candidates instead of cheering them as allies with only slightly more moderate views.
Do not be fooled by flashy advertising and PAID staff in a place. There is no way Bloomberg cares about people like me or you. He has $60 billion dollars and instead of using it to lift people up, he is spending it on lifting himself up. This is just an egotistical person who thinks just because he is rich, he is entitled to be President. hmmm..that sounds alot like the guy who is in the White House right now. Bloomberg was a REPUBLICAN mayor in NY for 2 terms and an independent for 1 term. Remember he started Stop and Frisk in NYC and ONLY apologized for it when he threw his hat in the ring. NO MORE BILLIONAIRE PRESIDENTS. He could NEVER and will never represent people like us.