Bloomberg's end game

[martin_malin]

While Bloomberg’s candidacy is donezo after the brutal beating he took last night, his ego is intact, and I don’t see him giving up. At 78, this hyper successful Blue/Orange hybrid is seeing his life work being heavily critiqued by Green and he simply can’t take it. Since it’s all about survival for him going forward, it will be interesting to see if he’ll spend a billion attacking Sanders. 

What do you guys thnk? 

Edited February 20, 2020 by martin_malin

[Vladz0r]

He's probably looked into a brokered Democratic Convention, judging by the debate.
I can see him maybe getting salty and returning to his republican roots and backing Trump or trying to keep making a push nationally to shoot for that brokered convention with bribed superdelegates. Bernie's uphill battle starts after Super Tuesday, I feel. Democratically he should win, and he'll have the most delegates throughout the primary season most likely, but this isn't really a democracy we're looking at when you throw in the DNC Convention and superdelegates. The media will try and pitch Sanders as a non-moderate or non-democrat or some dumb thing and overturn the loud majority of primary voters, and there will be backlash. Unfortunately, this is where the socialist label negatively affects him. In a perfect world, all citizens would be required to watch a bit of "real" news each few weeks to at least learn the policies and records of the candidates. Bernie's main flaws for democrats are the socialist label he used, and his past support over specific USSR and Venezuela policies that wound up not working well when coupled with authoritarianism and dictatorships. People conflate communism with authoritarianism, so this issue will continue.

[Leo Gura]

The biggest danger is that once he loses the Dem nomination he could run as 3rd party against Sanders, splitting the vote and thereby re-electing Trump.

He probably sees Bernie as worse than Trump, so he will not have any qualms about doing so.

[Joel3102]

@Leo Gura that’s optimistically assuming he even gets the nomination. He should get the most votes but I think the super delegates are gonna screw him

[Forestluv]

300 million in ads can't overcome Bloomberg's deficiencies. He is looks like Trump-lite to half of Democrats. Warren's take-down of Bloomberg on sexism and NDAs was a thing of beauty. It was one of the most precise attacks I've ever seen in a debate. And Bloomberg had huge self-inflicted wounds. That eye roll and saying "they just didn't like a joke" is a terrible response to give to a democratic audience.  

With another 300 million in ads, he may be able to sustain 10% - the people that watch a lot of TV and are not engaged in politics. I'm more concerned about what he might do behind the scenes to sabotage other candidates or a brokered convention. And if he runs third party, it would favor Trump.

56 minutes ago, Joel3102 said:

@Leo Gura that’s optimistically assuming he even gets the nomination. He should get the most votes but I think the super delegates are gonna screw him

One of my biggest concerns last night was that Bernie was the only candidate that said he would support nominating a candidate with a plurality of votes - this has been the tradition in the Democratic party and it's concerning that every other candidate refused. If Bernie wins a plurality of votes and they deny him the nomination with super delegates on a second ballot - it's over. It would be 100x worse than the Clinton shenanigans. No way the Dems win. 

 

[Vladz0r]

The superdelegates are totally going to screw him, honestly. Last night's debate was sad. A total mockery of democracy. Trump has kept up his momentum so the DNC is looking to tank the party if they take down Bernie. Get prepared for the cold war. Better brush up on your Mandarin and Russian.

[Forestluv]

Another view is that Bloomberg would be the Right's take-over of the Left. There would no longer be a Left to counter the Right. In a way, that's more dangerous than Trump. 

[Vladz0r]

Yeah, I mean Bernie is already considered a moderate in every European country as far as his social policies go. 
This video is pretty relevant if you feel like watching. Basically it's on how Bernie is the moderate progressive that we're "settling for" over a hardcore transition to socialism, and everyone else is essentially right-wing.

 

[Leo Gura]

48 minutes ago, Cykaaaa said:

@Leo Gura Doesn't USA have the sore-loser law, which prevents losers from running as another party?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sore-loser_law

First time hearing of it.

I sorta doubt that vague "law" would stop Bloomberg.