WaPo: Hey, Michael Bloomberg, no one wants you to run for president [View all]

[crazytown]

Hey, Michael Bloomberg, no one wants you to run for president

On Thursday, reporters learned that former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg is preparing to enter the Democratic primary. Scores of Democratic donors rejoiced at the news, and tens of families in the Hamptons erupted in cheers. In this era of increasing racial diversity, gender equality and rising populist anger, the Democratic primary clearly needed a septuagenarian white male billionaire to enter the race. Thank God Bloomberg is here to save the day!

Snark aside, Bloomberg 2020 is a bad idea. Polls suggest that Democrats neither want nor need a Bloomberg candidacy, and his strategy seems seriously flawed. Democratic donors have been sounding the alarm about their front-runners, but even if they’re right, Democrats already have better options than Bloomberg in the race.

Real-life, non-million-dollar-donor Democrats are happy with the candidates they already have. In July, Pew Research Center found that 65 percent of Democrats had a “good” or “excellent” impression of the candidates running for the Democratic nomination, 25 percent said their sense was that the field was fair, and only 5 percent had a “poor” impression.

By historical standards, those are excellent numbers. In 2015, only 51 percent had an unambiguously positive impression of the field, and in 2003 just 44 percent did. Democrats are about as happy with the field as they were in 2007, when Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards were leading the Democratic primary and the party was on its way to a landslide victory. According to a Economist/YouGov poll, only 22 percent of registered Democrats who plan to vote in primaries wished they had more choices, and Pew found that 63 percent of Democrats are excited about several of the party’s candidates.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/11/08/hey-michael-bloomberg-no-one-wants-you-run-president/

Democrats have an excellent field this time round. If Bloomberg want's to be useful, he can set up a super PAC to kick the shyte out of trump and the GOP, organize a voter registration drive, and flood Facebook.