Bloomberg's stated goal is to prevent Bernie from getting the nomination. And Bernie would not take his money anyway.

If you want to ignore the corrupting influence of money in politics there is still plenty not to like about Bloomberg on policy. Greenpeace gives his climate plan a D+ for example, largely for lack of specifics and clear targets. Like a lot of his policies, he talks a good game (sometimes) but doesn't deliver. Meanwhile he's terribly vulnerable on a host of issues -- stop and frisk, decrying medicare and SS as too expensive, advocating not giving medical treatment to the elderly, some 40 lawsuits against him for sexual discrimination, and a lot more. Finally he's so like Trump that he's a bridge too far even for many "vote blue no matter who" folks.

He's the last thing we need right now.

Let there be trillions of wasted PAC money, like an oil spill.

Bernie has raised more $$ than any other candidate ... without taking OR being big money.

Bloomberg is just Trump with a bit more coherence.

@mordant There is no other like trump, not even close. That is a silly statement.

Shoeleather, social media, phones, hope and votes are our weapons against the force of corruption and big money. Do whatever you can to help.

@Sticks48 I thank the fates another Trump doesn't exist.

@Sticks48 Both are wealthy plutocrats. Both switched parties to run. Both are racists. Both have issues with women. Both mistreat their employees. Both are corrupt.

Yes Bloomberg can string together complete sentences and is a more facile liar. But I have always said if we aren't careful, we'll get something worse than Trump: at least trump lacks discipline and faints at the sight of blood. The next guy will have Trump's naked ambition and dishonesty and corruption, but will have follow-through. And THAT is what Bloomberg is.

@mordant Sorry ain't buying it. What is your proof? Other than "stop and frisk", which he inherited and continued which was wrong, what did he do as mayor that bothers you? Not one of these people excite me. I will vote for whomever gets the nomination, period.

@Sticks48 He's not a good plutocrat just because he's OUR plutocrat.

You can read the same news from multiple sources as I can.

Search for "bloomberg" and things like "sexual harassment" or "racism" and you'll get plenty of info such as [cityandstateny.com].

You'll find the 40 lawsuits from nearly as many women over various sexual overtures or gender-related workplace discrimination. You'll find stuff like:

[thegrio.com]

Why would Democrats allow such a deeply flawed man to buy his way into the election? Do they hate reform that much? I guess they must.

[prospect.org]

@mordant I really don't care. If he gets the nod I will vote for him. I am not excited aboutany of them, and that may be our down fall. Dems get very juvenile when the person they support doesn'[t get the nomination. The Dems have shot themselves in the foot before and will probably do it again. I hope not, but it does scare me.

@Sticks48 I have said in the past I'd vote for a lamp post rather than Trump, but I didn't mean it so literally that I'd take it so far as to vote for someone as toxic. What would be the point. I mean if you want some sense of the toxic environment Bloomberg runs his companies with ...

[washingtonpost.com]

At any rate ... if Bloomberg "gets the nod" it's because people sit idly by while the DNC executes its function of protecting the right from the left, and don't oppose it.

@mordant You think the Dems are all far left. Only a little less than 50% of Dems identify as Progressives. Whether you or I like it or not this is a centrist country. I like Bernie, but he is a dumbass for calling himself a socialist in this country. Progressive would have been just fine. There is a huge number of folks in this country, most Boomers and a bunch of ignorant rednecks who immediately think communist. This has nothing to do with the DNC. People will vote for whomever they want to vote for. If it gets fucked up, it will be the far left who will fuck it up as they have in the past. They are the ones who get all pissy and don't vote or waste it on the Green Party or write in a candidate. Sometimes you vote for the lesser of two evils. If one doesn't vote, one should shut the fuck up. It is our only power.

@MissKathleen It is how they survive. It is a bad system.

@Sticks48 It is funny how "unity" only counts if it's behind a centrist candidate. Otherwise it's fine not to unify.

Sanders is the front runner both in reality and in the national polls, by a wide margin and he's running away with POCs. In any other universe the party would unite behind him. Instead he's faulted for not unilaterally disarming and uniting behind someone other than his own supporters. And he's faulted for bringing so much diversity and new voters into the fold. Crazy sauce, if you ask me.

And now, to add insult to injury, Sanders supporters are faulted for not uniting behind Bloomberg / Trump Lite (or maybe not-so-lite; I've always said if we're not careful we'll end up with someone worse than Trump, someone without bone spurs who doesn't faint at the sight of blood, is more broadly intelligent and focused ... I just never thought it would come from the DEMOCRATIC party).

As for this being a centrist nation ... I think the truth is that we are becoming more like Europe. What we call centrists would be conservatives over there (or in Canada for that matter). What we call progressives or democratic socialists would be unremarkable liberals to them. What we call Republicans would be right wing nutjobs who can only hope to have any power in coalition with other fringe minorities.

So what I see happening in another couple of election cycles, if we're not wandering some dystopian wasteland because of climate collapse by then, is the GOP collapsing into a smoking ruin that can't win any elections, and the Democratic party splitting. Let's call them the Democratic party (current centrists) and the Progressive Party. They will be the new left / right parties in our 2 party system.

There's other ways it could play out of course but that seems increasingly likely to me.

@mordant Who is saying unity only counts if it is behind a centrist? The people will either get behind Bernie or they won't. Show me a Democrat who got elected since Johnson who didn't track toward the middle. You can think what ever you want, it really doesn't matter. Facts matter. I believe in the Socialist/Capitalist governments that make up most of Europe. I am not most Americans. When the Boomers are pretty much gone we may get there. The first step is to get rid of trump period. Political Parties change all of the time and these will too. The republicans are going through a major right now, not a good one, but it is changing.

@Sticks48 Who says that is the DNC / Democratic party leadership. They are constantly on about how Berners are "divisive" and "not uniting" when it is they who should be uniting behind their own front runner.

It is true that all things being equal people will simply choose their champion ... in reality there are a lot of vested interests with outsize influence working against it. Not least Bloomberg with his bags of money buying influence and strange bedfellows all over the place.

Absent that I think Sanders would sweep his way to the nomination. In its presence, he'll have to fight tooth and nail. Either way it's my hope he wins.

Getting rid of Trump implies having someone with different loyalties and policies and views of the way forward. It does not involve replacing him with more of the same. I can (in some cases, just barely) rationalize any of the other Democratic candidates besides Sanders would be different than Trump in mostly better ways ... at least to the point of staunching the short-term damage to the Republic. But Bloomberg ... I can't find my way to the same calculus. No amount of nose-holding will work there.

@mordant trump ain't more of the same. Anyone would be better, except Mitch. People will vote for who they want to vote for. The DNC has nothing to do with that. if folks like what Bernie says he will get that vote. If Bernie gets the nod I will vote for him. If Bernie doesn't get the nod will you vote for whoever does. If you don't and do something stupid like voting for the Green candidate then if trump wins you are part of the problem. The Green vote for Nader in Florida delivered us Bush. Being idealistic is fine, but if you don't add a bit of reality to that idealism you are doomed to lose. I am from that 60's generation and have felt the way you feel and it got our ass kicked. Don't make the same mistakes.

@Sticks48 I think you meant to say Bloomberg isn't more of the same. Bit of a Freudian slip there.

Yes in principle people vote their own conscience. In practice, though, they are influenced by mostly bogus narratives floated by their leadership and various elites and mainstream corporate media. The actual value proposition of any candidate that machinery is directed against, has to break through the fog created by such folks. Now ... you may say this is just politics and has been true forever. And to an extent you'd be correct. But Sanders is running as a reform candidate ... not just generally, but of the Party he will, I believe, shortly lead. In addition, Trump has firmly established us in a post-truth era where the bar is greatly lowered and factual data is just a small voice in the toxic stew that's actively brewing. As a result I believe this rises to levels we haven't seen in recent history.

I have long said I will vote for the eventual nominee but I did not anticipate the Party tolerating / floating / backing someone like Bloomberg who is ideologically nihilistic and self dealing in similar ways to Trump. If the nominee is Bloomberg or anyone like him I will vote down-ballot only. Because in that scenario it literally won't matter which candidate wins the Presidency. I might be convinced otherwise but I doubt it.

Trust me it's enough of a nose-holding stretch that I might have voted for Biden or Buttigieg or whatever Warren has devolved into ... I would not press your luck with the likes of Bloomberg, because a lot of progressives feel like I do. It is not silly idealism or petulance, it is just a pragmatic realization that there's no point if you can't expect even short-term mitigation of the implosion of the republic. As one commentator said, electing Bloomberg would not stop the rot, it would just calcify it.

@mordant Well if you vote down ballot only , you are just part of the problem. If people are not smart enough to investigate and find out who they are voting for there is nothing you or i can do about. You can't fix stupid. This is the most complicated large country on the planet. There may be a perfect candidate for you and what you want. Not everyone will feel the same. This is how democracy works. Give some take some. Your attitude is no different than a trumper. You either get what you want or fuck it. Be child like on someone else's time, not mine.

@Sticks48 I went to some lengths to delineate my thinking and motivation and you still revert to styling me as some kind of mindless "Bernie or bust" purist. I just SAID I'd hold my nose and vote for virtually ANY of the other candidates who become the nominee. Just not a cartoon character like Bloomberg. Show me some way based on something other than pious hope that he will be substantively better than Trump at the end of the day and I'll consider him. Hell, he might get real and open up about exactly how his views have changed and why he now understands his earlier views to be terribly wrong, and I might be coaxed. But Bloomberg, apart from his similarities to Trump, has the same sense of entitlement to be the Anointed One as Clinton had ... and it will be his undoing, just as it was Clinton's.

(Full disclosure: I voted for Clinton in the general. So it's not like me and others doing that mattered)

I mean why are you going to such lengths to argue for an asshat like Bloomberg? Why not keep it simple and say, look, you didn't have a ground game, you don't have an organic constituency, I'm for Biden / Klobuchar / whoever and fuck you -- who do you think you are, Michael?!

The Democratic party immune system should have prevented this, not welcomed it.

@mordant I'm not arguing for Bloomberg. I will vote for whomever gets the nomination, period. It is that simple. The Democratic party will always be a mess because it is so diverse. The Dems are very bed at messaging and have been for a long time. It is always complicated and loses people. The republicans are great at a simple unified message whatever it is at the time. Don't forget trump used to be a Democrat. He saw how easily the stupid folks are to manipulate and went for it. It worked.

Got my megaphone and hard head.

Usually they rely on donors to buy elections and scream scream scream for more money, and decry those who take big donations as beholden to someone (duh). So they eschew big donors and say they are beholden to no one - and then attack a canidate who doesnt need cash as buying the election when that's the ideal they want for everyone - not to be beholden to donors.

And no, taking 20 bucks a pop from a fuckton of people doesn't mean they're beholden to those donors - there's to many of them for that - so in effect they are also beholden to no one, but man does it ever play well with the masses. What a fucked up system we have where we need to send money to people so we can vote for them.

The fact is money influences elections and candidates are always attacking the source of other candidates money.

EDIT: Not aimed at you personally, just a rant in general that landed here.

@1of5 the problem with Bloomberg is and Steyer is the fact that they're Billionaires, though Mike out does Steyer by 10x.
Bloomberg is swamping the airwaves with commercial and hasn't worked for the support as others have done. When you can throw Millions at TV accountants,that Buys attention.
Warren and Sanders are the only candidates that have eschewed corporate donations, and really are dependent on small donors.
They are only beholden to US.

@Charlene the problem is thier policies, not thier money. Both are the natural product of our society and electoral proccess. This is neither a unforseen nor desirable effect of our system.

Beholden to US means what, excately? Can you call them and have a nice 5 minute convo with them? Or is this just a "We'll we'll vote them out if we don't like them" statement - which holds true for any canidate?

@1of5 Get real. A candidate working for the people cannot have a five minute chat with 25,000,000 voters. It's also true of corrupt politicians who cater to the billionaires. Thus, the billionaires now have an unfair advantage because they can call their bought officeholders.

@EdEarl Excately! So how, please, are they who don't take big donations beholden to ANYONE? They can't be per your own numbers, so how is this better than someone who's self funded?

I'm not a Bloomberg supporter and think that getting money out of campaign considerations is the single best thing we could ever do for the country.

We have to send money to people in order to vote for them. That's so fundamentally fucked up on so many levels I don't even know where to start. If this gets worked right maybe we can significantly alter the way campaign funding is done.

@1of5 There are people that do altruistic things because they like to.

@EdEarl no shit, I'm even one of them. If we squint our eyes and wish hard enough one raises enough money to get elected about .5% of the time.

So I take it you have no answer.

@1of5 Really good people can make a difference.

@1of5 it simple really, publicly financed elections.

@EdEarl yes, IF THEY'RE FUNDED.

@Charlene getting there is the problem. The return on buying a politician is to good for those doing it to say "sure, let's change it". Nullifying the effect of their money and exposing that influence is about the only good we can hope for from Bloomberg. - and that's if we're lucky.

@1of5