Mike Bloomberg Could Win Iowa, Despite Not Being on the Ballot
Many California voters will be receiving their mail-in ballots this week. As of today, ballots are being accepted at County Voter Registrars offices throughout the state. It’s time to start paying attention.
The big names at the top of the ballot are all jockeying for Golden State voters. What’s going on here is being driven by post-Iowa campaign strategies.
A recent Des Moines Register survey gave 20% to Senator Bernie Sanders, 17% to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, 16% for former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and 15% for Sen. Joe Biden. In California, Buttigieg has fallen out of the top tier and the other three are clustered at the top. Sanders is showing momentum. The most recent Berkeley IGS poll: 26% Sanders, 20% Warren, 15% Biden.
It may not have been worthy of breaking news bulletins in San Diego, but last week’s endorsement of Mike Bloomberg by Rep. Scott Peters is indicative of a larger strategy.
The San Diego Democrat, who will serve as national chair for Bloomberg’s climate, energy and environment council, is the fifth House member to sign on with the former New York mayor’s presidential campaign.
The 52nd District Representative’s blessing shouldn’t have been too much of a surprise, given that MaryAnne Pintar, district chief of staff for Peters, had recently taken leave of absence from her post to work on the presidential campaign.
Mayors and Council members throughout California have been lining up behind the former New York City mayor in surprising --for this early in the campaign-- numbers.
Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, San Francisco Mayor London Breed, San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo, Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs, Chula Vista Mayor Mary Salas, and Riverside Mayor Rusty Bailey have endorsed, along with San Diego City Council Member Mark Kersey and Imperial Beach City Council Member Mark West.
While the national news media has embedded itself in Iowa and we’ll be hearing news bulletins over the next few days about what happened and who the “winners” were, it is important to recognize that only 41 delegates are at stake in the Hawkeye State.
California has ten times that number of delegates (415).
Former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg has his eyes on that prize. His money (personal worth $56 billion) and campaign strategy are all-in on some combination of Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren making a strong showing in Iowa.
The loser in such a scenario could be former Vice President Joe Biden. He’s campaigned extensively, but attendance at his public events has been less than inspiring.
In contrast, Warren and Sanders have built their own infrastructure to drive caucus turnout. Her campaign is offering free childcare during the caucuses; his has a network of union organizers responsible for getting normally apathetic younger voters to show up.
The thinking is that Biden struggles in February could boost Mayor Mike in March as later-voting Democrats seek a more viable moderate — in fact, Bloomberg is banking on it. But even if Biden wins, Bloomberg still has a role to play.
Biden could knock out Bloomberg with a strong start in the early-state gauntlet. Or, an unexpectedly poor showing could put his campaign on life support, allowing Bloomberg to step into the void. The more likely outcome is somewhere between.
The worst-case scenario for establishment Democrats is that the two 77-year-olds end up dividing moderate support, at a time when the left is coalescing around one standard-bearer.
Bloomberg has no interest in playing spoiler, he’s made clear in conversations with Democratic officials, who relayed his thoughts to POLITICO. Implicit in one recent talk touching on a possible protracted delegate fight was that moderates, with the help of Bloomberg, could walk into the convention with enough votes to swing the nomination away from Sanders or Elizabeth Warren, the official said.
This week Mike Bloomberg is in California touching all the political bases, starting in Sacramento at an event with supporters and organizers, heading to Fresno where he’ll participate in an early voting rally -“Ganamos con Mike,”-- and then he'll head to Compton to kick off a nationwide bus tour.
Bloomberg says he’s running because, among other things, he was worried about the party drifting too far to the left with the ascension of the Sanders and Warren campaigns. He considers Medicare-for-all proposals financially dangerous and a political liability in November, but does support the “public option.”
So here we are. Bloomberg, Biden, et. al., see the primary thing to get done in this election is getting rid of President Trump. That’s akin to killing a fly but leaving the screen door open.
There is a systemic problem in America that goes way beyond Donald Trump and his merry band of Republican enablers. We’re beyond tweaks when it comes to fixing things. It’s not possible to, among other things, ignore the reality of so many elected officials acting as though the rule of law no longer matters.
It’s also true that Elizabeth Warren and Barry Sanders by themselves cannot fix these problems. And daydreams to the contrary, even if they could, it wouldn’t be overnight.
Rep. Scott Peters, who can’t support a Green New Deal and likely based on past votes is too beholden to the medical device industry to ever support Medicare for All, will still be in Congress come 2021, as will lots of other officials who think we can put band aids on the wounds to our national psyche.
The solutions to what ails us start at the bottom, not the top of your ballot.
Here’s my take on local candidates:
104 Candidate Profiles for City, County, State, Judicial and Federal Offices You’ll Want to Know About
Here’s one example of how big the understanding gap is…
What does inequality look like in America?
https://youtu.be/DANUXO-GQwU
****
Superbowl Geography ala Trump
https://twitter.com/streetnoodle/status/1224356826302636033?s=20
Mike Pompeo edition:
https://twitter.com/badgercrack/status/1224189374788554752?s=20
Hey folks! Be sure to like/follow Words & Deeds on Facebook. If you’d like to have each post emailed to you check out the simple subscription form on the right side of the front page.
Email me at WritetoDougPorter@Gmail.com