By Edward Luce
America may be about to get its most memorable lesson to date on how money cannot buy elections. Having spent more on television than Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton combined in 2016, Mike Bloomberg (pictured below) is running a distant third or fourth in the national polls. That number has been falling since his disastrous Las Vegas debate last week even as his spending has risen.
Moreover, his numbers are running at or below the key 15 per cent threshold in the big windfall states such as Texas and California, which vote on Super Tuesday next week. If you fall below 15 per cent, you get no delegates. Though a large share is apportioned by congressional district, this could severely limit Bloomberg’s haul. In his rosiest scenario, Bloomberg will come a distant second to Sanders on Tuesday.
In the worst case, he could easily come fourth. Should that happen, the second and third place candidates — presumably Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren — could legitimately call on Bloomberg to drop out and put his money behind the best-placed rival to Sanders. Either way, half a billion dollars in spending does not get you as far as Bloomberg might have imagined.
What was he thinking?
Rana, I know you’re a Bloomberg fan. I can see his virtues, including a record of genuine competence. That quality is even more important in a crisis, such as the potential spread of the coronavirus in the US.
Today’s voters are clearly in the mood to take a flutter on burn-down-Washington candidates when the risks are low, or where they feel they have nothing to lose, as is the case with Trump, and in different ways with Sanders.
A global pandemic could change that sentiment overnight.
Qualities such as calm, empirical competence and executive assurance would suddenly seem a lot more valuable. This would surely benefit Bloomberg and possibly Warren.
Let us hope that proposition will not be tested.
Even if the US suffered a serious outbreak of coronavirus, it would probably come too late for Bloomberg to overcome the maths.
By next Wednesday, Sanders is likely to be on course to win a plurality of the delegates.
The next question is who would be best placed to take him on in a second ballot at a contested Democratic convention in July.
Biden, Buttigieg and Klobuchar are too centrist for the Bernie base even if Bloomberg agreed to get behind one of them.
My guess is that Warren is the only candidate who could plausibly win Sanders’ voters in a general election without alienating Bloomberg, though she would have to modify some of her positions.
In another note, I’ll look at whether Warren has the dexterity to execute a manoeuvre that sensitive. There are signs her political ear is becoming less tinnish.
The question remains: how could Bloomberg have so misread the politics? For the same reason as everyone else. He underestimated the depth of anti-establishment feeling. There is a world of difference between Sanders and Trump. But they share a critical trait — each personify contempt for politics as normal.
Alas, Bloomberg is too much of a technocrat to see that, let alone embody it. He performed a little better in this week’s South Carolina debate than he did in Vegas. As one wit tweeted, his finest moments came during the advertising breaks when his glossy videos were aired.
Most of them have very high production value. Sanders would be a fool to reject Bloomberg’s money (as he said he would) should he be the nominee.
Money cannot turn a bad candidate into a good one. But it can still make the difference between winning and losing.
Rana, am I writing Bloomberg’s campaign obituary too soon?
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