Michael Bloomberg dropped out of the Democratic primary race yesterday, the day after Super Tuesday. Super Tuesday showed the limits of a multi-billionaire trying to buy his way to the nomination. Bloomberg truly spent $500 million for 53 delegates. Of course, if there was a charismatic billionaire who wasn’t a sexist toolbox, maybe the $500 million would have made a bigger dent. As it was, Bloomberg burned brightly for a few weeks, only to get murdered on the debate stage by Elizabeth Warren. That was one of the few bright spots of this primary season. Bloomberg first withdrew with a written statement endorsing Joe Biden:
“Three months ago, I entered the race for President to defeat Donald Trump. Today, I am leaving the race for the same reason: to defeat Donald Trump – because it is clear to me that staying in would make achieving that goal more difficult. I’ve always believed that defeating Donald Trump starts with uniting behind the candidate with the best shot to do it. After yesterday’s vote, it is clear that candidate is my friend and a great American, Joe Biden. I’ve known Joe for a very long time. I know his decency, his honesty, and his commitment to the issues that are so important to our country – including gun safety, health care, climate change, and good jobs.”
After that, Bloomberg – to his credit, I guess – came out and did one last speech for his (well-paid) troops. Honestly, this video and the photos from his farewell speech made me feel *slightly* sorry for him. I mean, he’s still a misogynist dirtbag who pushed racist policies. But… props to him for his clear-eyed, necessary and immediate push to focus on defeating Trump. I guess.
Meanwhile, it’s said that Elizabeth Warren is thinking through her next steps. It’s clear she’ll step down at some point, but no one knows when. And no one is sure who she’ll endorse once she does step down. According to Bernie Sanders, they spoke on the phone for a while after Super Tuesday and she’s weighing everything. I… will be so disappointed if she steps down and immediately endorses Bernie Sanders. Please don’t do that, Senator Warren.
Update: Senator Warren is suspending her campaign today. No word yet on who she will endorse, or if she will endorse anyone today.
Photos courtesy of Getty.
Bloomberg is going to continue to pay his staff through November and will continue to make and run anti-Trump ads.
Great use of his money!
I was glad to hear this.
This is great, because it will continue to knock dump off his game. He can’t help himself, he HAS to respond. I mean really, “Mini Mike” — ooh ouch. I’m sure Bloomberg has been called worse to his face by people who actually matter.
Mini Mike sits extremely high on his wallet–something dump can’t say about himself, and which drives dump crazy. dump is always robbing peter to pay paul, and all Bloomberg has to do is take out his atm card. LOL
Who else would she pick?
Once again the best candidate was defeated and once again it’s a woman. Today I say she should pick no one because I’m pissed. Tomorrow I’ll pull it back together and support an old white dude. She will too.
Biden.
The other Democrat running…
Thre one whose staff and supporters didn’t attack her viciously and who is not another Kremlin puppet: Biden
Go Bloomberg, use your money to help Democrats regain Senate & Supreme Court.
Political hack Chief Roberts just criticised Schumer but is fine with Trump attacking 2 female progressive justices.
Good. It’s time to pick and candidate, close ranks, and redirect to the real war ahead.
Warren champions some of the same issues as Sanders, but she is not a socialist. I will be surprised if she endorses him.
they have the same voting record in the Senate. If she endorses Biden, then it’s clear that she’s about her career and not about policies as her and Bernie are the most similar on the issues.
Or maybe she’s about the good of the country and recognizes that Dems need someone, even an old white man, who can beat the mobster currently squatting in the WH, and not some other old white man who couldn’t even turn out his vaunted youth vote.
Or maybe she doesn’t want to endorse someone who benefits from nasty supporters and maybe called her a liar?
Bloomberg has good intentions- backing Biden is fitting with our forward theme- our economy will likely tank & our health care is going to be all over the place. Some will need affordable health & some will want their doctors & current plan. We can’t go messin Bernie style right about now
Elizabeth- I beg you…. do not endorse Bernie, please!!!
It’s also worth noting that Bloomberg later stated that he would be diverting all if his campaign funds and staff to Biden. That’s huge. Now imagine if he and Tom Steyer had simply backed candidates to begin with instead of leading with their egos?
I hope Warren endorses Sanders. Why voters here are ok with a sexist, racist old man with cognitive decline so long as it’s not Trump is beyond me.
I will only vote for progressive candidates from now on.
Sanders is sexist and racist as well…
Yeah, I love this narrative that Bernie Sanders is some paragon of virtue. He’s not.
I don’t mind Sanders the way some people do (though I preferred Warren because of her legal experience), but I’ll never forget his willingness to compromise on pro-choice in some of the redder states. I get why, but at the same time, it’s antithetical to his anti-establishment message that an issue that so profoundly impacts women’s poverty is worth letting slide.
And while it’s not his or Biden’s fault that the system is inherently sexist, neither of them had complaints about the way their female competition was held to a notably higher standard or straight up erased from the narrative. Benefited from it, even. It was a grim reminder women will always be on their own in that fight for the most part. They don’t understand it. They can’t. *shrug* I think both mean well, but we can’t pretend even openly progressive candidates have their blind spots.
Watch Bernie goes for the jugglers of Biden my next week. Bernie is no prize, I hope Biden goes after him as well, no more letting Bernie and his bros intimidate people who do not believe he can do the things he’s promising.
Also, Watch Bernie and his bros goes after EW if she does not endorse him. Elizabeth committed murder and suicide going after Bloomberg, she brought MB down the first debate, then she killed herself at the same time, By going back at MB the during the second debate. She should have taken out Bernie the next debate, instead she went back to MB. EW is out and Bernie is still hanging in.
@B n A fn. The Bros have already been viciously attacking EW because she hasn’t dropped out, therefore she’s selfishly stealing votes from Bernie. She’s part of the Establishment’s rigging of the primaries to deny the throne to the most popular politician in the country and yadda, yadda, yadda. Ridiculously childish.
Unless you build a base nationwide with progressives occupying mayors’ offices, governorships, school boards, city councils, etc., you’re going to be whistling in the wind, imo. Progressive works in more enlightened communities, but still scares too many who eat up that “Commies taking your guns away and free abortions at nine months” garbage. Build a base, show what progressive really means.
In the meantime, don’t be so shortsighted as to condemn the world to four more years of trump criminality.
I mean, progressive policies can be really popular if presented well; my senator Sherrod Brown has been handily re-elected multiple times (most recently 2018) in a state trump won that generally does go red. He’s an unashamed progressive who knows how to impart the benefits of his plans, something I thing Warren can do as well. The problem in her case is not being a man, sadly :/
I mean, progressive policies can be really popular if presented well; my senator Sherrod Brown has been handily re-elected multiple times (most recently 2018) in a state trump won that generally does go red. He’s an unashamed progressive who knows how to impart the benefits of his plans, something I thing Warren can do as well. The problem in her case is not being a man, sadly :/
Spoken from a point of privilege. And that of course is your right to support whomever you choose. But for many of else, we lack that privilege and have to be pragmatic about who will do the least harm and be best for all of us, not just some of us. There is no perfect candidate and everyone of them has flaws and weaknesses. But we have to make a calculated guess and choose someone that the majority of people will support.
Oh, Sanders isn’t nearly progressive enough for me. I am far to the left of him on guns, women’s rights, civil rights, and immigration. I find him to be centrist, at best, on those issues, and frankly more of a righty on several of them.
If she endorses Biden over Sanders, I will be convinced she is about her own career. It would be entirely disingenuous of her to not endorse the candidate with the most similar voting record and policy.
I loved Warren before this primary, but she moved right on a lot of issues important to progressives and then tried to play dirty with Bernie. She was still my number 2 choice after Sanders, but I have soured on her quite a bit during this race.
As her constituent who voted for her Tuesday, I will be upset if she gives my vote to Sanders.
Considering how vitriolic and bullying Sanders supporters have been towards her I hope she not only endorses Biden but gives him her delegates. Bernie doesn’t deserve either. And EW is a Dem and has flat out stated that she is not a Dem Socialist so I hope she endorses the ACTUAL Democrat.
these purity tests are kind of ridiculous. Bloomberg and Warren were both registered republicans. And honestly, a lot of people are fed up with each party. I could not care less about what happens to the DNC as an organization. I’m for progressive policies, not giving a crap about towing a party line. I’ll vote for the dem nominee regardless bc its better than the alternative. But some of the attacks on Sanders are just as idiotic as the sexist attacks on warren. They have the same vision for the country. Not everyone that supports Bernie is a bro and dismissing them as such even when we have real policy reasons we prefer him, and polling data from the last few months that shows hes a stronger candidate, we get told we are “bullying.” everyone can defend their candidate except Sanders supporters
J. the local Sanders troll is back!
There’s a report on NYTimes titled ” Excerpts from the Sanders Files in a Russian Archive ” showing his long past as a Russian asset. Anyone can see he’s very much like Trump, so Sander’s already doing the “Press is the enemy of the people” diatribe that Trump does to discredit negative reports.
Why shouldn’t she endorse Bernie? He’s problematic, but her vision and policies for 2020 are in line with his.
Sanders should have dropped out and endorsed Warren when he had the heart attack. Honestly this whole thing is ludicrous. Only a white man can get away with this nonsense. He refuses to release his medical records, just like trump. If he had done the right thing, Warren could be very viable right now. But Sanders has spent his entire career holding back women. That’s a fact. He won his first seat in Vermont by sliming his woman opponent and claiming he was a better feminist than she was. She still talks about it. I really don’t get how any woman supports Sanders over Warren. I DO get how women support neither of them and went with Biden, but not Sanders over her. It makes zero sense, sorry.
I’m convinced Sanders will run with or without the Dem nom. Calling it now. Biden gets the nomination, Bernie throws a fit, teams up with Tulsi Gabbard and runs third party.
IDK why, but this has been my feeling for some time.
I have no idea why no one has vetted Bernie, if and when he gets vetted he will be done. There are so much shady things in his and his wife’s background, if he runs 45 will eat him for breakfast, lunch and dinner. #45 is dying to run against Bernie because he will take him out easily.
@Rapunzel I suspected this too. I would’ve thought the DNC would have been smart enough to make sure any candidate would agree not to do a 3rd party run. Tulsi said over and over again that she wouldn’t.
There are entire worlds in the word “problematic.” I sure hope she doesn’t endorse the jerk. He is the opposite of everything g she is in terms of getting stuff done.
He’s not at all, and they have the same voting record in the Senate. She moved more centrist in the race to distinguish herself from him and it backfired spectacularly bc her being so progressive was what drew her support in 2016. When she moved right on healthcare, on policing etc she lost a lot of people to Sanders and didn’t gain enough moderates because well, there were an insane number of moderates already running. She played bad politics and lost. She didn’t help her cause by trying to play dirty with Sanders
Uff da, amster, if you’re willing to give Bernie a pass on his bad politics, you might need to look a some other things, too.
I’m talking purely strategy for this election. Sanders came in with more name recognition, and a fired up base from 2016. And warren and him were the same in terms of policy votes and vision. Many sanders supporters loved warren as well, but sanders came in with an edge. Then there was a sea of moderates. Warren moved somewhere in between, so Bernie supporters stuck with him and she failed to pull enough moderate support. Did sexism play a role? Of course, but two things can be true and she played the wrong cards.
Bernard played dirty tricks with Warren, now his trolls are trying to rewrite the not-so-long past!
There are a couple of really strong reasons for Warren to endorse Biden:
— He’s more likely to win against Trump. He’s more palatable to the general electorate, and the more party members (which doesn’t include Bernie, who is an Independent) coalesce around Biden, the more we can focus on defeating Trump.
— Warren is smart enough to understand that we are not going to get any progressive change without winning down-ballot races. Bernie, since again, he is not a democrat, cannot deliver those the way Biden can.
— Bernie allowed his supporters to harass Warren online in a pretty vicious way without coming to her defense. He called her a liar in a debate. He betrayed their friendship.
I am a big old lefty, but I seriously cannot believe how many progressives are taken in by Bernie’s schtick. Maybe it’s because I lived with an affable, charming narcissist that I can spot him a mile away, but for real: Bernie is all about Bernie. You can see it in how defensive he’s been about his poor Super Tuesday showing, blaming everyone around him and taking zero responsibility. If Bernie cared more about the country than himself, he would have recognized four years ago how crucial a role he could have played in building a progressive coalition down-ballot the way power-players on the right built the Tea Party coalition.
I’ve posted this before, but I know people who have worked with Bernie on environmental issues. He cannot deliver because he refuses to compromise and work with others to get things done. He wants all the credit and none of the blame. That’s not going to work for a president.
My way or the highway. Just like trump. Both with rabid cultists for good measure.
@Jerusha Yep.
THANK YOU. The continued blindness that so many lefties have around Bernie’s narcissism is shocking. Who cares if you’re the purest when you can’t get anything done and fully a third of your 2016 couldn’t be bothered to vote for Hillary? Be a grown up and choose the least bad option.
I saw it on twitter and I’m stealing it to here: voting isn’t marriage, it’s public transportation. Get on the next bus that will get you to where you’re going.
Well said, salmonpuff! Couldn’t agree more.
Would Bernard endorse her, if it was the other way? Or would he do what he did in 2016 and hold on till the last minute, causing damage to her campaign?
Since the majority of his ads have been anti trump, and not really about policy, he’ll probably just do a little editing and continue. I’m not sure about Liz..i thought her 3rd place in Mass was the writing on the wall.
I don’t think Warren is so popular in MA anymore. I mean, coming in 3rd place behind two old fossils in your home state where you are a sitting US Senator…the writing’s on the wall there. I hope she isn’t taken out, is she up for reelection in the midterms? I hope not because that could cause a problem for us in the Senate. Remember Scott Brown. I think she’s a very effective Senator, and this showing really worries me.
Who people think can take on Trump isn’t the same thing as who they want representing them in the Senate. Frankly, I’d predicted from the start that the race would whittle down to Biden vs Sanders. People voting against Trump are just too afraid of what four more years means to risk their vote on anyone who would get held back by race or sex, much less the skirmishes over policy.
The issue isnt that she’s unpopular in MA. The issue is that people didnt feel she had a path to the nomination and they would simply rather she stay their Senator. Which truth be told she IS needed in the Senate. Bernie? Not so much. He’s ineffective and gets nothing done. EW is an effective Senator.
She won re-election in November 2028 with 60 percent of the vote. Those are Ted Kennedy-type numbers. Bernie Bros are threatening to primary her in 2024 with some unknown guy on the Cape. Because we here in MA don’t have any other contenders who can actually win elections and might want a Senate seat like Maura Healey, Katherine Clark, Suzanne Bump, or Ayanna Pressley.
Canadian here. Why is it revolutionary to want health care for everyone? It’s doable. I think Bernie’ s ideas are bang on. I’m grateful we have it here, it works very well. Am I missing something?
Lots of people like their private insurance and don’t want to let that go, which both Warren and Sanders have said they want to do away with.
Thanks, I didn’t know that. But Bernie keeps banging on about people who are under insured, have no insurance, and die because they can’t get to a doctor. So why doesn’t he just expand Obama care and make sure everyone is covered? For sure taxes will go up if he gets elected and implements his plan. I had a death in my family from Cancer everything was covered, I didn’t pay a cent, and we got excellent care.
Obamacare is still mostly through private companies and the premiums are still quite high. Not to mention drug and treatment prices are out of control
@Maria – search me. I happen to loathe my private insurance – I think I had to pay 80% of the cost of an upper endoscopy to see what my ulcers look like/biopsy for Barrett’s esophagus/h. Pylori, for example, last year.
I don’t know much about insurance or health care, so I’m not really one to get in the weeds about it, but I think it is a crying shame that people cannot afford medical care. That’s not a modern nation, that’s the dark ages.
@Maria, Population of Canada is much less than the population of the United States, Canada can afford to cover everyone, I believe. The United States the population is over 300,000,000. There is no way Bernie will get enough money from the Senate to cover everyone. Also, most people like their health insurance and wants to keep it. Some people are covered on their jobs, retirement plans, Medicare and are afraid that they may lose what they have for a pie in the sky, IMO.
The US economy is exponentially larger than Canada’s, so that’s not a valid point. Stop wasting money on foreign invasions that no one asked for and spend that money on making life better for your citizens.
Remember, the president does not fund any program, it has to go through the congress then the senate before the money will be released. IMO, there is no way Bernie would get that money to cover everyone in this country. I agree with you to stop waiting money on foreign invasion ect, but IMO that will never happen.
I’m pro-public health option, but having worked in medicine for more than ten years, I can say it’s a hard sell for people because it will not be an easy transition.
The United States is geographically massive with ten times the population of Canada. Infrastructural development is going to be a huge issue; rural areas already have issues with healthcare access. Taxation changes are a big issue, and that’s a hard sell for people when long term savings are placed in abstract compared to the notable and immediate loss of income – and you have to convince a group of millionaires to agree to legislation that would tax them more. You have to undo years of misinformation campaigns to make people afraid of nationalized healthcare.
Then there’s the fact that it is very deeply built into the economic fabric of the culture. Healthcare business is nearly TWENTY PERCENT of America’s economy. All of those insurance companies? Those jobs? What do you do with them? Do we use the existing corporations and gradually shift them to government only? Or do we create a hybrid model where those companies are subject to certain rules and have to compete with each for a shrinking pool of candidates as more people go to government insurance? Do people who purchase private insurance get an exemption from paying for nationalized healthcare? That sort of thing. It’s not a simple solution. It will take decades to implement, and it’s going to take a long time to hash out in the first place – that’s IF we can get a Congress progressive enough to push it through without the other party trying to tear it down at every angle.
Frankly, I’ll be surprised if we see nationalized healthcare before I’m fifty. That’s how long I think it’s going to take for the attitude to shift, even as medical bankruptcy moves to the most common form of economic hardship.
Medicare currently contracts with those insurance companies to act as intermediaries processing claims. Many states contract with them too to manage Medicaid programs so any all-encompassing federal plan would probably keep all those jobs somehow.
I think it’s the smartest option, myself, because then the administrative infrastructure is already there. How that shakes out in terms of corporate structuring really depend on how they choose to go forward with a public model, whether it’ll be a better version of the current public option exchange (hybrid) or just overall nationalized plan across the board with the right to private insurance otherwise. I think it’s a shift worth making in the long run for those companies because it would slash so much of the administrative waste, but it’s a common concern I see arise from people who work in the insurance sector, which is why I mentioned it.
Maria it’s because they’re afraid of the high taxes
This shit show of presidential runs gives me a damn headache. I hate what we’ve become. Again, our options are old rich white men.
Agree that the Dems need to pick a candidate who can defeat Trump.
That is #1.
#2. organize, pull together, win the WH and retake the Senate majority.
#3. Pick 3 top issues..i.e. health care, corona virus, saving Social Security, we have a sh*t to of problems Trump has caused..win and get to work.
Any reasonable person can see this logic.
Bloomberg using his resources to push Dems to a win? Great! Please do.
Warren is playing a long game. The last time Obama put her in charge of forming the Consumer protection agency. This time, if she backs the winning candidate, she may be put in charge of another project dear to her conscience, student debts.
And Bloomberg …I am looking forward to his being the burr under Drumpf’s saddle.
Yeah now that Bloomberg is out I can enjoy him ruining Donnie’s day.
For anyone too pure to vote for Biden if he’s the eventual nominee, please consider the people you’re putting at risk. This is one small example.
https://twitter.com/connieschultz/status/1235553020076855301?s=21
I’ll vote for Biden, just like I voted for Clinton despite being a “bernie bro.” And all my friends will/have done the same. But 4 years of Biden only feels marginally better than Emperor Orange Tiny Hands, if only for SCOTUS appointments that aren’t a disaster
I was for Warren, but a Biden administration should ensure fewer criminals and outright incompetent nincompoops in positions of power. And, hopefully, fewer cabinet positions filled by ideologues installed with the purpose of destroying the division they oversee. At his age I doubt he’d run again, even if he completes a term, so VP pick is crucial. I voted for Bernie in 16, then for Hillary in the general. In my ideal world the prez would be a young progressive who would reverse every single thing done by trump and would round up every member of the administration and prosecute them for their criminality, treason and outright stupidity. But that’s not gonna happen in this fractured, toxic America we’re in now.
Progressives and left/libs need to work together and start infiltrating city/county/state governments. We see what the Tea Party did. There has to be a way to counter that. At least, I hope so.
This is my 52 year of voting-for Gene McCarthy, Shirley Chisholm, McGovern, Carter, etc. The good guys haven’t always won and the bad guys are getting worse. It’s dispiriting.
BTW here’s a quote from Shirley Chisholm who ran in 1972- “When I ran for Congress, when I ran for president, I met more discrimination as a woman than for being black.” The more things change, ….
@Jerusha – I love that quote. I’m not black so I can’t speak to its accuracy, but I do see how more people seem to understand that racism is bad, but who seem to accept sexism as just the natural order of things, like the tides or the sun rising.
Nonsense at marginally better @amster.
Warren for VP! Warren for VP!
Seriously though, I want to know what the plan is if we take back the White House and Senate and they refuse to leave? All they have to say is there were “anomalies” and the results cannot be trusted. With the SCOTUS in their favor, who will rule otherwise? I’m still expecting them to find a way to cancel or “postpone” the election.
We still need to show up and cast our ballots but I no li get trust the process.
I cannot forgive what happened to many in NYC during the reign of Bloomberg. I will never FORGET the way Biden “interrogated” Anita Hill. Elizabeth Warren SHOULD BE THE DEMOCRATIC NOMINEE but she won’t. Bernie’s ideas will never get thru Congress and Senate HELLO!!!
I cannot forgive what happened to many in NYC during the reign of Bloomberg. I will never FORGET the way Biden “interrogated” Anita Hill. Elizabeth Warren SHOULD BE THE DEMOCRATIC NOMINEE but she won’t. Bernie’s ideas will never get thru Congress and Senate HELLO!!! Of course Bloomberg will endorse another money man…
Remember when, maybe a month ago (although at this point if feels like years), Elizabeth confronted Bernie with, “Did you just lie about me on national television?” after he flat-out did so in the debate? For that reason alone, I think she’ll wisely decline to endorse him. Maybe she won’t endorse either one and will instead put her energy into female candidates for down-ballot offices. Fingers crossed.
Fingers crossed indeed.