32 ms·
Bloomberg bankrolls a social-media army
- Bostonian 7y agoExcerpt at http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3817721/posts http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3817721/posts .
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- Fjolsvith 7y agoIf he was Russian, this would be so uncool.
- nkrisc 7y agoIf he was Russian, he wouldn't be running for president.
- sigmaprimus 7y agoTrue enough they already have their guy in the Whitehouse!
- notaharvardmba 7y agoOne of Bloomberg's grandparents was Russian and one was Belarusian... I mean, Russian Jews != Soviets or Putin Russians but it's interesting.
- MeltySmelty 7y agotrump and putin aren't even on good terms and he is assisting ukraine. turn off cnn, bud.
- tyfon 7y agoI don't even.. wow.. Talk about buying the election. Are anyone going to be fooled by this? Edit: does facebook and twitter require that you disclose any payments you get for posting?
- user00012-ab 7y agoYes, 90% of the population is fooled by this.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- EvenIf_He_Loses 7y agoThing is, I'm not opposed to people holding up a mirror, to demonstrate what this kind of thing looks like. There's this constant and pervasive snark that roils through the internet at large. Pantomiming it, right in everyone's face, should serve as a reminder that being shitty about opinions need not be a winning move. So, you have these dicks showing up, with obnoxious, poorly drawn cartoons, and when it looks just like the opposition, yet inverted to point in the other direction, both look the same, and it sort of nullifies both, resolving to an undecided outcome, at least for anyone still sitting on the fence.
- oth001 7y agoIs this based on facts or just your opinion? I'm willing to bet 90% of the population isn't fooled by it.
- trevyn 7y agoIsn’t fooled, but doesn’t really care, and it has the intended subconscious effect.
- throwaway2048 7y agoDo you think advertising is ineffective?
- 7y ago
- werber 7y agoAre they requiring them to #ad the posts?
- drenvuk 7y agoThis is a really good question and I'd like to see some fines dished out if they're not.
- gjs278 7y agoI wouldn’t. there’s no reason anyone should have to disclose if something is an ad.
- MrStonedOne 7y agoExcept, well, the FTC requirement that says literally that.
- jdck1326 7y agoI'm not sure the person was speaking about the law or current rules.
- derivagral 7y agoFTC, for a start. Political ads have more scrutiny as well, though I don't know the details. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2019/11/ftc-releases-advertising-disclosures-guidance-online-influencers https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2019/11/ftc-r...
- werber 7y agoThis is way more stringent than I realized (especially the buried in hashtags part) although the example at the end of doing #BrandNamePartner seems like it could be used disingenuously, like would #TeamMike satisfy the FTC requirements?
- 7y ago
- claudeganon 7y agoIf Bloomberg succeeds in buying the election, we will never have another president who isn’t a billionaire again. This is a far greater, long term threat to American democracy than anything posed by the Trump administration’s lawlessness.
- khc 7y agoDonald Trump spent less money on the election than Hillary Clinton maybe a counter example that people don't like
- eej71 7y agoI think that this is true, though I have no numbers to back it up. He appeared to run a cost effective campaign. The endless free coverage provided by pundits and commentators who continuously mocked was transformed (by him) into a strength. He also made full use of social media to reach as many people as he could. I'd be hard pressed to name another candidate who so effectively used twitter. The slogan and the hats too. Make fun of him all you want - but it was an effective and cheap marketing campaign. More importantly - its a message that resonated with a lot of people. That's how you win elections.
- octonion 7y agoPopulists win elections by scapegoating groups like Jews, socialists, intellectuals, Muslims, blacks or immigrants (depending on which year it is).
- eej71 7y agoThis is a popular narrative, but I suspect the reality is - many of these named groups also voted for Trump. Consider this front line report in Ohio. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/feb/21/outside-coastal-bubbles-to-say-america-is-already-great-rings-hollow https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/feb/21/outside-coas... "“OK. You want to talk about Trump? I voted for Trump!” I asked him if he was pulling my leg. He laughed. “No way. I may be a Muslim, but I am a businessman first and I am not stupid. Many Muslims here did. Under the table.” He added with a big smile: “We are Americans. We have diverse views also.”"
- 300bps 7y agoArchive of full story: http://archive.is/WuPf8 http://archive.is/WuPf8
- turk73 7y agoHow much did he pay the Russians?
- draw_down 7y agoI guess this is ok when an American oligarch bankrolls it. When a Russian one bankrolls it, then we have a problem, apparently.
- sigmaprimus 7y agoI'm looking forward to the debate tonite, hopefully Bloomberg will get to show everyone what kind of candidate he really is. I still think his entire campaign is just a twisted way to get around campaign contribution limits and possibly a bulwark to keep the wacko socialist candidates from winning the nomination. Hopefully he proves me wrong and is a real candidate that will be able to stand toe to toe with President Trump and we will see a good old fashioned dust up between the two of them this summer!!
- inferiorhuman 7y agoWere you paid to post that?
- octonion 7y agoImproving society is "wacko"?
- rudedogg 7y agoI don't think the OP meant it in the way you think. My guess is they're speaking of the riskiness of Bernie winning the nomination, where as someone more centrist seems like a safer bet. But who knows, the experts said Hillary would win too. Edit: Nevermind, the OP meant what you thought :D
- sigmaprimus 7y agoActually I do agree with your statement, your statement is a much more nuanced PC way of getting to the point of my original comment. I tend to far more blunt with my comments probably because I just get a kick out working up the zealots on both sides.
- hnaccount141 7y ago> I tend to far more blunt with my comments probably because I just get a kick out working up the zealots on both sides. HN is not the place for that sort of thing.
- anonAndOn 7y agoWhat a fascinating choice between two New York billionaires. A populist carnival barker vs. a man who built his own personal tech/media empire. I'd bet dollars to donuts Mike's got a tech team in place right now that is running rings around the DNC's haphazard patronage party.
- akhilcacharya 7y agoThey're building it, and seem to be recruiting heavily from Google/Facebook/Amazon etc. From a political science and historical perspective it's absolutely astonishing. Mike has a lot of baggage but a lot of cash and talent behind him, including ~100 pretty excellent TV and online ads.
- mAEStro-paNDa 7y ago> What a fascinating choice between two New York billionaires. Sounds more like a lack of choice.
- nostromo 7y agohttps://i.imgur.com/w9vZ8lz.png https://i.imgur.com/w9vZ8lz.png We keep pulling from the same small pool of rich, connected household names and expect different results.
- dannykwells 7y agoClearly these tactics are despicable...and they work. Bloomberg is just demonstrating that he's the only one who really learned from Trump how to win in the modern era. Trump, of course, had Russian trolls posting rather than these folks...but potato/potaato. And he's right - he went from nothing to third place (in national polls) solely through (mostly internet) ad spend. What I don't understand is why every candidate isn't taking a similar approach. These guys are showing it's not about events, likeability, policies, history, etc. It's just about mass manipulation enabled by the internet.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 7y agoIt may be an unpopular opinion, but I am ok with Bloomberg spending some of his money. Granted, 300MM to him like approximately $20 to me, but still.. Do not misunderstand me. His attempt to simply buy an election is.. annoying, if not unseemly. That said, I am perfectly fine with him finally spending at least some of his vast fortune instead of hoarding it like a dragon. Hell, he wants to pay me $2500? I will pocket that and then vote for hopefully less obnoxious candidate.
- BitwiseFool 7y agoAt the very least, a billionaire is cashing out a decent chunk of his assets and the money is going to other people. I personally think he's wasting his money, but I guess it's helping the economy?
- pb7 7y agoSurprised to see such naive takes on HN. Wealthy people don’t “hoard wealth like a dragon”. It’s invested in companies that translate to products, services, and jobs.
- chrisco255 7y agoThis is generally true. Most billionaires are there because of their stock ownership in large corporations. And if they were to cash out their stock they'd lose control of their enterprises.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 7y agoCompanies are assets and as such they are still part of his wealth. It is not like I said he sleeps on gold coins in a vault. No need to get literal.
- ericd 7y agoSure, and those companies spend his money to make things happen. Hoarding implies the wealth never gets used for anything.
- 7y ago
- m0zg 7y agoHe's just protecting his fortune against Bernie. Spend a billion, keep the remaining 39. Good deal. He will lose even if he does get nominated, and he's OK with that. This is a page directly from Trump's playbook: Trump routinely puts himself into situations where there are several ways for him to win and no way to really lose.
- slumdev 7y agoI don't like this idea of buying elections. But at the very least, I'm happy to see the Democratic machine upside-down, with all of the designated incumbent royalty falling behind the outsiders.
- jacob019 7y agoI appreciate the sentiment, but for those of us who have been negatively impacted by the policies of the current administration, it is worrying that a candidate with broad appeal has failed to materialize at this point.
- danenania 7y agoBased on approval polls, Bernie Sanders is one of the best-liked politicians in America. He has often literally been number 1 in these polls. So I think he does have broad appeal, just not to rich and influential people (who make up a small minority, despite their outsized ability to have their voices heard).
- slumdev 7y agoYou've got one, but the machine keeps sabotaging him. I don't think there are ten Democrats who oppose what Bernie Sanders stands for. But there are millions of Democrats who oppose what they think he stands for.
- davexunit 7y agoThe candidate with broad appeal is Bernie Sanders.
- whatshisface 7y agoBroad appeal among democrats, but the candidate with the best chances in the national election is not the center Democrat, it's the center American, which if you imagine Democrats and Republicans being two ranges butted up against the center, is the rightmost Democrat!
- rdtsc 7y agoInteresting. Now that the cat is out of the bag any mention about him from any acquaintance is just going to make me think they got a check from Mike and make me dislike him more each time. Does buying support like this work? "Hey family, Mike Bloomberg is awesome, we should all vote for him". That just feels so artificial and fake, but maybe if the phrase gets repeated enough people start believing it... > Outvote also allows users to look up whether their friends have voted in past elections by matching their contact lists against public data. That's a good way to lose family and friends. "I see you haven't voted, if you want to stay friends and be invited out, better vote or donate to Mike's campaign". > it is important to be transparent about paid commercial promotions, but he views the ethics of political activism as less clear. ... “it took decades for TV and radio to figure out what disclosure for ads should be.” So promoters don't have to put disclaimers in their messages. Does that open the door for his opponents to pretend to be Bloomberg's supporters but say ridiculous stuff to make people dislike him.
- jacob019 7y ago"Repeat a lie often enough, and it becomes the truth." -Joseph Goebbels, Nazi
- hbosch 7y ago> Does buying support like this work? Definitely. When a voter is in the booth, and has to make their decision for once and for all, name recognition and the opinion of your community matters a ton. Further, the type of social media content that is being produced is painting him as sort of a benevolent, rich, goofy guy. It's intentionally anti-establishment, but not in the radical way or the thoughtful way... it's a safe type of rebellion and that is endearing to a massive amount of people. > Does that open the door for his opponents to pretend to be Bloomberg's supporters but say ridiculous stuff to make people dislike him. This has happened for a while and will continue to happen, although this kind of stuff is mainly isolated to niche Twitter... as we run up to election time, I think you will see more of this Clickhole/Onion type posting of anti-support-support.
- grumple 7y agoSo he's hiring a bunch of barely-over minimum wage workers to spread his message... and? What do you think the other politicians are doing with the millions they raise? This isn't a story.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 7y agoIt seems a lot of people seem upset is because it works ( as in, polls reflect some movement ). That said, Biden was up in polls initially based on name recognition alone.
- morelisp 7y agoMostly other politicians are running ads and campaign offices as politicians have done for decades - maybe with a social media manager or two per major office. Bloomberg is doing that, also at a level of intensity not really seen before, but then also managing a uniquely expensive social media campaign. Clinton's total campaign was something like $600e6. Bloomberg has already spent half of that, within the span of three state primaries. I would not be surprised if he spends at least that on the primary, and if he somehow gets the nomination, a billion minimum for the entire campaign. It's unreal.
- Stranger43 7y agoBloomberg 2020 campaign is really weird, not only is he not pretending to have an grassroots campaign so far he haven't even been on the ballot at a primary.
- jimmaswell 7y agozero delegates won so far too, last time I checked.
- ineedasername 7y agoIt's only barely over minimum wage if it takes you a full-time job's worth of time to do it. This seems like the type of thing you could do in a little bit of spare time. As for why it's a story: Well, there's was (and still is) a bit of controversy over the role that technology, specifically social media, played in the the 2016 election. What Bloomberg is doing fits right into that theme. It also raises questions about what is advertisement, and what is individual "speech", because the former generally has to be identified as such in the context of a political campaign. Posting a status update on Facebook isn't by definition an ad, posting such an update in support of a political candidate doesn't have to be either... but if you're making those posts and you also happen to be getting paid by the campaign? Does each update and DM need to say, "This tweet was paid for by 2020 Bloomberg for President"? Does it need to have a link to Bloomberg stating, "I'm Michael Bloomberg, and I approve of this ad."? Logistically how would he even do such a thing for each and every paid social media interaction? In short, it's a story because it sits are the nexus of technology, politics, and general societal discourse.
- sjg007 7y agoA populist President can be mitigated by Congress if they choose to act and also take back some of the executive powers they gave the President.
- jaywalk 7y agoCongress doesn't give the President anything except money. Executive powers come from the Constitution, not Congress. To put it simply: the President does not serve at the pleasure of Congress.
- sjg007 7y agoYes the executive powers in the Constitution are obviously not governed by Congress but Congress has indeed delegated some their responsibilities to the President. These, known as the emergency powers, are what I am referring to. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/01/presidential-emergency-powers/576418/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/01/preside...
- jaywalk 7y agoThat's all well and good, but those are powers that have never been used since they've been granted, and that article is just a bunch of "Trump is so scary, look at all this stuff he could do!" tripe.
- Der_Einzige 7y agohave you ever heard of the "Take care" clause?
- pjlegato 7y agoMany here seem upset at the idea that Bloomberg is spending a lot of his own money to run for president. Running for president is very expensive. All other candidates are also spending a lot of money -- but they're spending a lot of _other people's money_, to whom they are now beholden. What do those other people expect to get in return for their financial support? Surely they don't just give away millions of hard earned dollars to install someone in the most powerful office in the world out of faith in democracy. Donors and their groups -- especially the large and important ones -- are almost always aligned with explicit policy (and often persoanl) quid pro quo expectations, should the candidate win the election. Bloomberg, by contrast, is spending his own money. He's not beholden to anyone's interests or greed or kickbacks or special interests. Whether you like or dislike his policy proposals, surely this point, at least, is better than a candidate with a wealthy donor network of obscure motives pulling the strings behind the scenes.
- vanusa 7y agoMany here seem upset at the idea that Bloomberg is spending a lot of his own money to run for president. No - it's not that he's spending his own money. But rather, how he's spending it. And they're not "upset". They're calmly pointing out the obvious: that this kind of attempted influence buying is profoundly dystopian and antidemocratic.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- pjlegato 7y agoAll of the other candidates are also doing that; there's nothing special about how Bloomberg is spending his money. The others are doing the same, but with other people's money -- people who will now expect to wield influence behind the scenes. Is that not worse?
- danenania 7y agoPerhaps stating the obvious here, but if the money comes in small increments from millions of people who are broadly representative of the population (ahem, Bernie Sanders, ahem), then the politician will be beholden to the people they're actually supposed to be beholden to: the voters. If we allow the extremely wealthy to have an extreme advantage in campaigns, we'll end up with a government that only serves their interests. Why would we expect anything else? The solution to this is public funding of elections that puts all candidates on an equal playing field, or at least overturning Citizens United and only allowing direct donations under the maximum including from yourself.
- allovernow 7y agoShilling on social media appeared overnight. Literally a switch was turned on and suddenly hundreds of "totally organic" posts about Bloomberg are popping up everywhere mimicking local forum/board subcultures. Many of the people seem to be posting somewhat ironically, though it seems his campaign has attempted to embrace the same style of "no press is bad press" attention that undoubtedly contributed to Trump's election. It's pretty gross to watch someone literally buy an election. I hope he fails. But there's a good chance he'll get far, because though he is running as a Democrat, many of his past statements regarding women, minorities, and stop and frisk appeal to the non-PC Republican sentiment that worked in the last election. And you can count on the fact that the average person won't understand that none of this buzz is organic.
- at_a_remove 7y agoThe results are even clunkier than when Correct The Record began. Those were obvious and a little insulting. So far, Bloomberg's shills are staggering about like 1950s robots, emitting electoral noises on some kind of shrill, buzzing loop.
- whatshisface 7y ago>mimicking local forum/board subcultures I wonder what the HN ones look like, maybe like this: "I disagree with the article and also with the parent comment..."
- cabaalis 7y agoI see this also for Bernie, in odd locations. I've been playing Warcraft 3 reforged lately, and the general chat that shows up on the main menu in-game has been all kinds of people extolling the values of Bernie Sanders. Of course, it could be grassroots. I just doubt it.
- nacho2sweet 7y agoI am paid to shill in warcraft 3 general chat. I can vouch for this.
- neonate 7y agohttps://archive.md/MCRbf https://archive.md/MCRbf
- dukoid 7y agoWhy doesn't he just buy Fox News?
- akhilcacharya 7y ago...it's not for sale? Never really understood this line of attack.
- dukoid 7y agoIt was a serious question where I don't know the answer... Shares are publicly traded at NASDAQ. The Murdoch family seems to hold 39% (of the shares with voting power?) according to Wikipedia... Not sure how feasible it would be to buy enough of the rest if money wasn't an issue?
- Thrymr 7y agoThat would require a hostile takeover, which is no simple thing. News Corp has a market cap of >$8.6 billion. It almost never happens that anyone can buy a controlling interest (of a sizeable corporation) on the open market without an explicit agreement from the board of directors.
- hacym 7y agoI've watched enough of Succession to know that everything is for sale.
- three_seagrass 7y agoUnderrated TV show. They even had one of the media conglomerate kids running for president.
- three_seagrass 7y agoIt's certainly not doing well though. Disney specifically ditched it as part of the Fox takeover.
- jdkee 7y agoWhy is it healthy for American democracy to have an oligarch purchase the U.S. Presidency like a shiny, new yacht?
- takeda 7y agoYeah it's really sad, Bloomberg essentially is Democratic version of Trump.
- Loughla 7y agoNot really. He's the centrist/right leaning version of Trump.
- takeda 7y agoI was referring to his current party. He was in Republican party when he was a mayor and only changed his party affiliation in 2018 (most likely after noticing 2018 election results)
- brightstep 7y agoIn some ways he's far more dangerous. He implemented a truly scary authoritarian police state during his term as mayor of New York City.
- ColanR 7y agoThis is the allure of libertarianism - since a free democracy can't predict the quality of its leaders, representatives, and lobbyists, the government should be given as short a leash as possible to prevent things like a "truly scary authoritarian police state".
- arrosenberg 7y agoOf course, the flip side is that such a government can't accomplish anything positive either.
- SubiculumCode 7y agoAll I have to say to Bloomberg is: Okay Bloomer.
- zelias 7y agoI'd respect the hell out of Bloomberg if he came out and said "damn right I'm buying this election...because the rules are that messed up" followed by a comprehensive plan to forever get money out of our elections.
- omegaworks 7y agoI respect the guy that's said that very thing since he started running. Bernie is proving that we can win without corporate PAC money and he has a plan to get dark money out of politics.
- zelias 7y agoI'm with you there, no doubt, but lately I've wondered how effectively Bernie could accomplish this. Only Nixon could go to China, as the saying goes. EDIT: I don't mean this in terms of electability -- I think Bernie can beat Trump hands down. What I mean is accomplishing what he sets out to do in terms of policy implementation -- which, as the Obama years have shown us, is not as easy as it sounds.
- omegaworks 7y agoWon in New Hampshire Tied in Iowa, won popular vote Polling strong in Nevada. The momentum is there. EDIT: Regarding policy, with so many Supreme Court Justices up in age, the next President will likely get the chance to set the tone. Citizens United is the ruling that enabled much of the financial influence in the government, and Bernie is committed to dismantling it.
- arrosenberg 7y ago> Regarding policy, with so many Supreme Court Justices up in age, the next President will likely get the chance to set the tone. Terrible strategy. Bernie replacing Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Stephen Breyer isn't going to advance the agenda. Clarence Thomas is only 71 and won't step down if a Democrat is president. The only way Bernie passes his agenda is by getting significant portions of the country to strike until Congress complies.
- 12xo 7y agoI wonder if the entire race could be won by offering an incentive of sorts. Say a $50 Amazon gift card for every (new) voter who sends a pic of their vote receipt or something... Granted its a lot of money, but so is gifting billions to the media conglomerates for more (useless) ads...
- tomjakubowski 7y agoSecret ballots prevent that kind of attack. Everywhere I have voted in the US, at least, doesn't include ballot selections on the receipt.
- zelly 7y agoI saw someone recording a video of themselves selecting the choices on the voting kiosk. No one is going to stop you from doing that, nor would it be practical to try.
- ninkendo 7y agoWho cares? Just set up kiosks and give gift cards to anyone that votes. Pick the key districts (i.e. where people are likely to vote D but have low turnout) and you could easily push the electoral college over the tipping point for a few billion.
- zelly 7y agoIt's entirely possible. Make a publicly facing form on darknet to send in your vote receipt along with your full name, SSN, voter registration number, etc. (cross referenced against leaked databases) to prevent double dipping and spoofing. Send over $50 of Bitcoin (better yet Monero) on verification. Literally no one can stop this.
- Anon84 7y agoBloomberg is showing everyone how to beat Trump at his own game. Let's hope they learn in time.
- ajoy 7y agoThis is the game that is being played : https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/03/the-2020-disinformation-war/605530/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/03/the-202... (The Billion-Dollar Disinformation Campaign to Reelect the President). The article is a little biased, but shows the sophistication required to play. To bring a contrarian pt of view: If you are a billionaire and you ask for donations, people might say, "Why are you asking us for money, why don't use your own?"
- solinent 7y agoPaid shills tend to have a strange effect where they polarize people in the other direction than intended since their arguments are not always well founded and honest, and they will always suffer from some form of groupthink. It's a slingshot effect--at first people fall for the farce, but soon they realize they have been mislead. It could even spoil the election and get some to vote in the opposite direction. I think it's also pretty easy to spot these days and we're armed much better to fight it at the platform-level. I don't think this will end well for Bloomberg, he has a long way to climb, and his name is literally associated with big money. He may have already reached saturation, and this is a dying move.
- elihu 7y ago> Paid shills tend to have a strange effect where they polarize people in the other direction than intended since their arguments are not always well founded and honest, and they will always suffer from some form of groupthink. Another aspect of this is that when one encounters a positive comment about Bloomberg on the Internet, the default assumption for a lot of people is going to be that Bloomberg slipped them a twenty. Even honest supporters of Bloomberg are going to have their statements viewed with extreme skepticism. > I think it's also pretty easy to spot these days... Is that really true? Some forms of astroturf are transparently obvious, but just because some of it is easy to spot doesn't mean it all is. > I don't think this will end well for Bloomberg... Same here. I'll take him seriously as a candidate once he's defended his ideas and his record in an adversarial setting (such as tonight's debate) and has won some delegates.
- harry8 7y agoThere's a lot of engagement on some issue or other, such as this one of how easy it is to spot paid shills and then while making a pretty reasonable point about it stating something very contentious as fact. Just like we see from Bernie and his total commitment to call communism by another name. And that last bit is 1% of the interest and is tangentially related so it doesn't totally jar. Look out for it. You get the same ones repeated again and again like that. It may be totally organic too because Assange is a narcisist rapist who is lying about being afraid of being extradited to the USA so lots of people have said so. Keep repeating and it becomes fact undermines anyone with a different point of view. Full disclosure I am not an Assange supporter nor a Bloomberg or Bernie supporter. Paid shills are actually really hard to spot. I strongly suspect most of what jars as paid shills aren't paid.
- newshorts 7y agoIf Bloomberg get elected and successfully purchases the presidency, I’m moving my family out of the US. I will no long contribute to our collective GDP or pay taxes. I’ll vote with my feet if I can’t vote with my rights as an American citizen.
- seemslegit 7y agoWhich country gets that GDP in such a case ?
- tsycho 7y agoWhat if Trump wins?
- onetti 7y agoDonald Trump spent on his campaign almost half the money of Clinton's campaign, and he won the presidency despite having raised less than any major party presidential nominee since 2008 [0]. So, if your concern is a candidate "buying" an election, Trump would be the worst recent example one could use. [0] https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/graphics/2016-presidential-campaign-fundraising/ https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/graphics/2016-presidentia...
- vojta_letal 7y agoKudos for citing Bloomberg as a source.
- i_am_nomad 7y agoDon’t forget to pay your exit tax.
- MuffinFlavored 7y agoIs this real?
- deleted 7y ago
- seemslegit 7y agoHe would probably never do that, but I wouldn't begrudge Sanders if in case of a contested convention and having amassed the most delegates he would go 'Your call, but if you throw this to Bloomberg you should plan on a scenario of him running against Trump and myself as Independent' of course Bloomberg could do that too and in fact might be counting on it. And then it will be a game of chicken with a 2nd Trump presidency as the cliff, or maybe they'll just give it to Klobuchar
- Mountain_Skies 7y agoJeb Bush spent $130 million to lose the Republican primary. Hillary Clinton spent probably an order of magnitude more to lose the general election. Both outspent Donald Trump just to lose to him in their respective races. Money isn't everything and Bloomberg is risking alienating voters with his ham fisted advertising. His ads on YouTube are non-skippable. He paid extra for that yet it's more likely to anger viewers than to get their votes. If his social media army is just as obnoxious in their campaigning for him, well, a fool and their money are soon parted.
- athrowaway3z 7y agoYesterday it struck me that a quality i look for in a leader is integrity. E.g. their unwillingness to be bribed by wealth and luxury. I think some Americans might be misinterpreting Trump's and Bloomberg's position. Their personal wealth made them jaded, not immune or uninterested in the idea.
- animalnewbie 7y agoHere is what will happen : Bloomberg will be anointed the nominee. Trump will win again and the democratic party will blame russya to deflect blame.