Bloomberg responded: “I’m sorry, but, unfortunately, she’s misinformed on redlining.”
She really isn’t. This is something of a deal-breaker for me. If you can’t get the basic economic information right, then your policies will suck, as we’ve seen repeatedly with Republican policies over the past few decades.
We know beyond all reasonable doubt that redlining played little to no role in the financial meltdown.
It’s easy to make it possible for people to honestly say that about you when you can casually give $300 million to the party as if you’re dropping a $20 tip to a valet, even if at the same time you’re giving $30 million to Republicans.
Bloomberg is currently mostly helping himself, the same as Warren is doing.
Warren is conducting a live autopsy on Bloomberg - right there on TV - she reaches in and pulls out one of his lungs and waves it around … marvelous! amazingly impactful … but not as beneficial for Elizabeth Warren as Elizabeth Warren might want …
People are becoming much less fascinated by the Bloomberg potential … but they are not exactly becoming enamored with Warren for her dissecting skills.
Saying he’s helping Ds is ridiculous. He’s helping himself.
He’s hurting Ds from the PoV of crowding the field of moderates. He’s hurting Ds from the optics of the rich white guy having the debate rules changed to include him where previously candidates of color were excluded based on those rules. He’s hurting Ds from the PoV of shifting the expectation further toward being willing to except a literal lesser evil to the one they want to push out (he’s just less racist and less misogynistic and less authoritarian, and better at business and more rich, than the orange clown, but essentially he’s still all those same things) instead of a fundamental alternative that represents the positive values Ds want to embody.
The money he’s throwing away on this vanity project / wealth protection scheme could help Ds tremendously. Hell, as it’s been pointed out, for a fraction of what he’s spent he could have solved Flint’s water problem. He’s attacking Trump, but only as the only candidate who can beat him. That isn’t helping Ds. Not on the battle-field campaign level, and not on the ideological or party identity level, short or long term.
Most people are aware of what Bloomberg has said and done, and what campaigns he has donated to in the past. He’s made amends for much of this. Politicians change positions all the time. As long as they are evolving in the right direction is what’s important. Warren wants to treat him like an ex husband for whom forgiveness is never possible and it’s getting old. That sort of approach doesn’t fly in politics. She’s not getting any mileage out of it at this point. I’m happy Bloomberg is in the race and involved. We do need his money. Think of all the media space that is being bought up that could otherwise be occupied by opposing views? Does anyone not see the benefit of that?
There’s only so much ad space on social media and television, etc. Every space that Bloomberg occupies is one less space that opposing views from republicans can occupy. He’s buying up a lot of media space, so I’m not sure how that only benefits Bloomberg personally. He’s helping the Democrats way more than anyone.
Uh…no, they aren’t, and he certainly hasn’t. Someone who had made amends for something like stop and frisk would have done so on their own, before getting into the race, instead of only a couple of months in after an opposing candidate calls them out on it.
And he was supporting Republicans in the last election, barely over a year ago! I’ve never heard him say he changed his mind on Obama, let alone Pat Toomey and Peter King.