Business Mogul Bloomberg Joins Race For 2020 US Presidency. – TheNigerialawyer

Billionaire and former New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg
joined the race for the Democratic presidential nomination on
Sunday, adding new uncertainty to the party’s already unsettled
contest to pick President Trump’s challenger in 2020.

After more than a decade of exploring a White House run,
Bloomberg, one of the richest men in the world, enters the race
with a huge financial edge over his Democratic rivals — but also
with big vulnerabilities. The former Republican is banking on the
collapse of Joe Biden’s candidacy, casting himself as a steadier
and more viable moderate than the former vice president.

“We cannot afford four more years of President Trump’s reckless
and unethical actions,” Bloomberg said on his campaign website. “He
represents an existential threat to our country and our values. If
he wins another term in office, we may never recover from the
damage.”

Bloomberg’s advisors acknowledge he is starting too late to
compete effectively in the states that will hold the party’s first
four nominating contests in February: Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada
and South Carolina.

But Bloomberg will have a virtually unlimited budget to
advertise in California and more than a dozen other states that
hold Super Tuesday contests on March 3. He is spending at least $31
million on a week of television advertising starting Sunday in New
York, Los Angeles, Chicago and dozens of other cities across the
nation.

“He has the ability financially to flood the airwaves and
digital media,” said Dean Spiliotes, a Southern New Hampshire
University politics professor who is skeptical of Bloomberg’s
potential. “He’s going to be criticized for trying to buy the
election for sure.”

In his first TV commercial, Bloomberg is cast as a businessman
who “took charge of a city still reeling from 9/11″ and “helped
bring it back from the ashes.”

Bloomberg promises higher taxes on the rich, but did not offer
specifics. In the past, he has criticized the proposal of
Democratic rival Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts senator, to
impose a new tax on the assets of Americans with personal fortunes
of more than $50 million.

Bloomberg also makes clear in the ad that he rejects the
“Medicare for all” plans of Warren and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders,
the two leading progressives in the Democratic field. He says he
would ensure that “everyone without health insurance can get it and
everyone who likes theirs” can keep it.

Polls have consistently found most Democrats are satisfied with
their current roster of candidates. Nonetheless, Bloomberg is not
the only one to make a late entry: Former Massachusetts Gov. Deval
Patrick joined the race earlier this month.

Bloomberg had announced in March that he would not run for
president, but he changed his mind after Biden’s candidacy started
to falter and Warren and Sanders emerged as the most popular
alternatives.

“This is a pipe dream,” said Democratic consultant Paul Maslin,
who is unaligned in the White House race. “I just think it’s
preposterous. You don’t win this thing by getting in late. You have
to go out and earn it.”

Bloomberg said he would be “the only candidate in this race who
isn’t going to take a penny from anyone and will work for a dollar
a year.” His refusal to take campaign contributions could appeal to
some voters, but it will effectively disqualify Bloomberg from
participating in debates sanctioned by the Democratic National
Committee. A broad donor base is one of the party’s criteria to get
on the debate stage.

If Bloomberg’s candidacy gains traction, he could pose an
especially serious threat to Pete Buttigieg. The mayor of South
Bend, Ind., has positioned himself as a moderate with appeal to
Democrats who fret that Warren and Sanders are too liberal to beat
Trump in crucial battleground states. Buttigieg has surpassed Biden
in recent polls of likely Iowa Democratic caucus voters.

Since Bloomberg left office as mayor six years ago, he has spent
heavily on Democratic campaigns and causes, most notably on gun
control and the fight against global warming. He mentioned both in
his campaign announcement.

Still, some party strategists see an older white billionaire as
poorly suited to inspire the diverse constituencies of Democrats
who are yearning to oust Trump.

Bloomberg’s history of making boorish remarks about women and
supporting police stop-and-frisk tactics risks alienating two of
the party’s core factions: women and African Americans. Recently,
at a black church in New York, Bloomberg apologized for mandating
stop-and-frisk when he was mayor; he defended the tactic as
recently as January despite its outsize effect on people of
color.

Warren and Sanders have made billionaires a prime target of
their campaigns, saying the rich buy off politicians in Washington
and harm Americans struggling to afford healthcare, college tuition
and other day-to-day expenses. Another billionaire, former
hedge-fund chief Tom Steyer of San Francisco, declined to enter the
race before — like Bloomberg — changing his mind. Steyer has been
stuck near the bottom of the pack in both national and early-state
polls.

Hugh Winebrenner, a political science professor emeritus at
Drake University in Iowa, called Bloomberg’s candidacy a long shot,
saying the former mayor will surely draw brutal attacks from
opponents.

“They’ve been in there working their tails off, and all of a
sudden he comes in and says, ‘Take me over them,’ and I suspect
that’s not going to make some people happy,” he said.

Bloomberg’s age is likely to be a campaign challenge: He is 77,
nine months older than Biden, who turned 77 on Wednesday. The
oldest Democrat in the race is Sanders, who is 78. Warren is 70,
and Trump is 73.

“Just what the field needs, another septuagenarian,” Maslin
said.

Bloomberg was a Democrat until 2001, when he registered as a
Republican to run for mayor of New York City. He won the election
and served three terms. Bloomberg abandoned the GOP in 2007 and
became an independent. In October 2018, he registered again as a
Democrat.

Bloomberg has been a staunch opponent of the tobacco and soft
drink industries. His foundation has spent hundreds of millions of
dollars to curb tobacco use in the developing world.

He made plans to run for president as an independent in 2016 but
ultimately stayed out of the race. He has been a brutal critic of
Trump, a fellow New Yorker who recently said there was no one he’d
rather run against than “little Michael.” At the Democratic
National Convention in 2016, Bloomberg described Trump as a “risky,
radical and reckless choice” for president.

“I’m a New Yorker, and I know a con when I see one,” Bloomberg
said.

Bloomberg, who grew up in the Boston area, was a Wall Street
investment banker before he founded Bloomberg LP, the information
technology and media company that produced his personal fortune.
Forbes estimates his net worth at $54 billion.