Frederic Aurelien/Contributing Writer
If you’ve been keeping up with the Democratic primaries this year, you know that the past couple of debates have been quite the spectacle. Multi-billionaire and former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg has finally taken the stage and joined the other candidates in the race toward the presidency.
But his approach has been very non-conventional and a bit worrisome, to say the least.
Although most of the Democratic candidates have spent more than a year organizing, collecting donations and pushing their campaign at the grassroots level to stay in the race, Bloomberg pushed himself into the top tier within the past few months by using his own money to fund and mass-market himself.
As a result, he has received more recognition and actual support from American voters, which has enhanced his chances of actually securing the nomination.
Bloomberg spent $188 million on the first quarter of his campaign alone, according to a source from The Guardian, and is currently at $460 million in total expenditure. He has vowed to spend a whopping $1 billion of his own wealth in order to win the presidency, but by the looks of things, he may go well over that projected number sooner than later.
This amount of self-funding for a presidential campaign is unprecedented in American history. Fellow Democrats like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have accused Bloomberg of trying to “buy the election,” as he has leveraged his extreme amount of wealth to avoid the democratic process of receiving donations (what are essentially votes) from the American people.
The Democratic Party has a tough fight ahead of them in 2020, and if they want to defeat Donald Trump, it will be in their best interest to choose the strongest candidate on their stage. A candidate that is popular and well-liked by their constituents, a candidate that can win over voters in swing states and, most importantly, a candidate with a good track record.
Unfortunately, Bloomberg may not be eligible for meeting any one of those criteria, especially when taking a look at his track record while he was mayor of NYC.
Under his administration, the New York Police Department’s “stop-and-frisk” program disproportionately targeted young men of color in minority communities. It was so much so that the policy was pulled back after he left his position as mayor, as it was deemed unconstitutional in the court of law.
Another concern for a Bloomberg nomination is his not-so-good history when it comes to dealing with women in the workplace. His business information company has dealt with several lawsuits over the years, according to the Washington Post, which alleged that Bloomberg created and fostered a culture of sexual degradation where women were discriminated against in the workplace.
Obviously, we would be remiss to believe that having a past filled with scandals, sexism and racist behavior would eliminate one’s chances of becoming the next president (as we have learned from past experience). But the fact that his campaign would have so many vulnerabilities raises doubts when assessing his chances of electability against sitting President Donald Trump.
Bloomberg has spent over $124 million dollars on advertisements alone, according to The Guardian, and although he entered the race in November 2019 with 3% support, a recent NBC poll revealed that his support jumped to 14%, putting him behind Senator Bernie Sanders and Vice President Joe Biden.
According to polling data, older Americans are the demographic that makes up most of Bloomberg’s grassroots support, whereas his support is very weak among young voters, as reported by BBC News.
Young progressives in this country are hungry for major change, change that entails a democratic society that works for the average American instead of maintaining the status quo. Unfortunately, a Bloomberg presidency would represent the maintenance of the status quo, another weakness in his campaign that he will need to improve if he has any intention of winning in 2020.
If Mike Bloomberg is able to successfully buy his way into becoming the Democratic nominee, the biggest problem the party will face is convincing voters that if elected into office, he will push legislation that represents working-class Americans, not the wealthy. If they are unsuccessful in doing this, then we may come across a scenario very similar to 2016, where voters felt forced to choose between a lesser of two evils. And we all know how that turned out for the Democrats.
The stakes are high this year and the pressure is on, but if Bloomberg is the nominated candidate, the Democratic Party will be looking at a very difficult and uphill battle to reclaim the White House.
Featured photo by Gage Skidmore.
DISCLAIMER:
The opinions presented within this page do not represent the views of PantherNOW Editorial Board. These views are separate from editorials and reflect individual perspectives of contributing writers and/or members of the University community.
Have questions or comments for our writers? Send an email to opinion@fiusm.com with your name and the name of the column in the subject line.