A candidate that seemed to have come out of nowhere was former Republican and mayor of New York Mike Bloomberg. Millions of dollars were spent on advertisements, and the former mayor of New York was in the race to be the Democrat nominee but came up short and dropped out. With the presidential election coming up, Democrats have been scrambling to secure a nominee who can challenge President Trump. In the first caucuses, Bernie Sanders was leading with the most delegates; however, since Super Tuesday, Joe Biden has secured more than Bernie. Bloomberg’s campaign had a horrible start with the Nevada caucus and the other few that followed. Bloomberg was slammed by Elizabeth Warren during the debate, which now has gone viral. “I’d like to talk about who we’re running against,” she said. “A billionaire who calls women ‘fat broads’ and ‘horse-faced lesbians.’ And no, I’m not talking about Donald Trump. I’m talking about Mayor Bloomberg.” This comment was referring to the multiple allegations of misogynistic and sexist comments that he has made. Sekkio Sakai Garrison was a sales representative for Bloomberg until she was terminated in 1995 and ended up suing him in 1997, where she complained that Bloomberg and other male employees sexually harassed and demeaned female workers. Warren called for Bloomberg to release women he had in nondisclosure agreements to silence women who have had allegations against him and his company.
Not only have allegations of sexual harassment popped up for Bloomberg, but past policies as his time as New York Mayor have come back to haunt him. In the Nevada caucus debate, Bloomberg defended his controversial policy of stop and frisk by saying that it “́got out of control.” The stop and frisk policy refers to a brief, supposedly non intrusive police stop of a suspect. The problem with this is that most of the suspects were people of color. A past statement from 2015 of Bloomberg defending stop and frisk has resurfaced from journalist Benjamin Dixon. “Put those cops where the crime is, which means in minority neighborhoods. So, one of the unintended consequences is people say, ‘Oh my God, you are arresting kids for marijuana that are all minorities.’ Yes, that’s true. Why? Because we put all the cops in minority neighborhoods. Yes, that’s true. Why do we do it? Because that’s where all the crime is. … And the way you get the guns out of the kids’ hands is to throw them up against the wall and frisk them. And then they start, ‘Oh, I don’t want to get caught,’so they don’t bring the gun. They still have a gun, but they leave it at home.” The former Mayor has taken major blows from just about everyone in the political world. Most media outlets agree that Bloomberg failed horribly at the Nevada caucus and in his campaign overall. Bloomberg is a classic example of how skewed the election process is to be President. Two days before entering the race, he donated up to 320,00 dollars to the DNC, which ended up changing its rules in the middle of the year. The new DNC rule dropped how many donors are needed to qualify for the debates. It appears the DNC changed its rules to help Mike Bloomberg qualify for the debates, although it’s still unknown.
Bloomberg’s biggest opponent seemed to be himself since his past reputation is so controversial. During the debate in South Carolina, he called Bernie Sanders a communist: “We’re not going to throw out capitalism,” Bloomberg said. “Other countries tried that. It was called communism, and it just didn’t work.” The audience booed after Bloomberg spoke. It seems like Americans are getting tired of rich candidates that just trash talk others, and are more interested in candidates that are speaking about policies and issues Americans care about. Since he has dropped out, he announced that he will now be endorsing Joe Biden. Although many make fun of Mike Bloomberg for his epic failure to secure the nomination and all the millions of dollars he spent on ads and staff for his campaign, 500,000 was barely a scratch to his vast wealth. He is one of the richest candidates in history to run for the Democratic nomination. Maybe if he had started his campaign earlier he might have gotten further. We will see later in the race if money really rules politics; with the support of Bloomberg, it seems like the 77 year old Joe Biden will have a better shot at beating Bernie.
