The former mayor of New York’s lavish spending and weak rivals make him a contender
afternoon in Chattanooga, the queue for Mike Bloomberg trailed around the block. Eleven weeks into his presidential campaign, the former New York mayor and world’s 12th-richest man is already well known in Tennessee. This was his fourth visit to the state, one of 14 that will hold its primary vote on March 3rd.
The back-to-front oddity of Mr Bloomberg’s campaign has drawn a lot of scorn. Presidential primaries have traditionally been decided by the first four early-voting states which, because of his late entry to the race, he is sitting out. His politics, as a former Republican, once synonymous with racially insensitive policing, also looked hopeless to many leftist commentators. Yet self-made billionaires tend not to be bad at reckoning their odds.
There are two reasons for his rise. First, the vastness of his spending. He is estimated to have splurged over $300m on, radio and digital advertising alone. To put that in perspective, Amy Klobuchar, a rival moderate, recently had $5m in hand. Mr Bloomberg has also assembled a huge and talented campaign team—with so far 2,100 employees, many of whom earn twice what other campaigns pay. The resources and professionalism of his rallies are on a different level from his rivals’.
In reality, no candidate looks able to unite Democrats as Mr Obama did: Mr Bloomberg would certainly alienate many Sandernistas. Yet the best argument for his candidacy may be that he is unusually able to focus wandering Democratic minds on the common enemy: Mr Trump. The many symmetries between the two New Yorkers are glaring and unfailingly to Mr Bloomberg’s credit. He is a self-made billionaire; Mr Trump inherited his wealth and bankrupted his companies.
A bigger fear is that, instead of capitalising on the Democrats’ divided field, he may fracture it further. He could nab enough of Mr Biden’s support with non-whites to stop Mr Buttigieg or Ms Klobuchar uniting the centre-left, yet be unable to do so himself. Perhaps his qualities are worth the risk. But if it backfires, he will have done more than almost anyone to make Mr Sanders the nominee.
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