Thanks for your reply. Now back away from the organ and tell me why you wouldn't vote for him in any event? Who else can beat trump?

I just received the state voters pamphlet for our primary. Looking at Bloomberg he has given millions and a couple of Billion for such things as environmental protection and gun control. He gives because he can and it is important for him to make a positive change. That's a strong position.

I will not be seduced until it comes time to vote. Until then, I'm pumped that someone is tearing into DT. If Bloomberg can't stand up to it, then we'll see. I'm ok with you predicting that he won't but at this point, your prediction is irrelevant. I say, let's see them battle it out.
Lastly, none of the other candidates are seducing me. They are all battling each other instead of keeping their eye on the prize.

Bloomberg may be similar to #45 on many issues, but he wouldn't crush Democracy, carry out revenge, or turn his office into a criminal enterprise like Shitler has.

One way Bloomberg is distinguishable is that he apologized for his racial actions. Has our arrogant white supremacist leader ever apologized?

@BitFlipper He'd be more subtle about it. He is superficially strong on climate change, but gets a D+ from Greenpeace due to non-specific plans or targets, for example. He would be the more typical soft core back-room handshake corruption, but because Trump has so lowered the bar, I think you can also expect ham-fisted stuff similar to stop-and-frisk and the arrest of protesters before they even start protesting, etc. NYC has paid out millions in lawsuits lost to stuff like that. They just didn't have to cave until after Bloomberg left office.

In other words he's probably skilled and coherent enough to profit from office and consolidate power in ways that won't get him impeached. But again ... just because he's OUR plutocrat doesn't make him a better one.

In the latest "Atlantic" is a report "How America Ends." In part one it is stated, several times, history has shown the the power center is and has been slightly right of center. I am an independent and feel liberals are hypocrites on several especially environmental ones. I also read Bernies profile and have a lot of problems with several areas. Right now, in this country it takes a lot of money to get messages out. The one thing tRump has is the economy and his ability to get money to bully others. It will take someone with a lot of money to stand up to him and Bloomberg has shown he is willing and able. I see him as more of a centrist than Bernie. BTW, we have to be careful about our criticisms of candidates as this can play into tRumps little hands.

@JackPedigo There is the mathematical center and there are centrists. They are not necessarily the same thing. I think self-identified centrists generally imagine them to be the same thing. It's my view that in reality the center has moved way to the left, such that people who seem themselves as centrists are actually conservatives. That those who think they are conservative are actually reactionary nationalist nutjobs who are so far to the right that they can be rightly dismissed as extremists.

I speak here of party leadership. I do not think most of the GOP base is that reactionary. Sanders had a couple of Fox News town halls and had them eating out of his hand. They are persuadable. But they cling to what they know, and it's scary to disconnect from the learned helplessness / operant conditioning of GOP party solidarity. But I think it's far more brittle than generally realized. It will hold, until it doesn't. All it takes is a tipping point and some first-movers.

Sure Bloomberg is to the right of Bernie. I don't think anyone seriously disputes that. But he's no moderate. He embraced and extended a policy of slamming black and brown people against walls and frisking them without probable cause. He fought it when the courts ruled against it. He presided over an appallingly toxic workplace that repeatedly and unapologetically objectified and denigrated women and penalized them for taking maternity leave. He lives part time in a notorious tax haven and had repeatedly promoted business opportunities there. He's repeatedly said Social Security and Medicare need to be cut and medical services need to be curtailed to the very elderly. That is not "moderate", it is right wing. He would be completely at home in the GOP, and in fact WAS completely at home there until he left the GOP out of political expediency.

Trump has said he'd rather run against Bloomberg than against Sanders. Yes he's stirring the pot about DNC corruption against Sanders just for the chaos and division it creates, but he knows his real nemesis is Sanders, not someone who is ideologically far more similar to himself.

@dannydreamer A half-hearted and non-substantive apology with no discussion of what he's going to do to show any real repentance or make any of the damage right. You don't push a policy like stop-and-frisk, stubbornly, fight it when the courts say it's illegal, and then just mouth some words when it's politically inconvenient to be associated with your own established policies.

@mordant Ok, Bloomberg isn't an angel. And it's going to take more than an angel to win the election.

@dannydreamer What it takes to win is a broad, diverse coalition of voters backing substantive reforms that address the big money corruption that makes the likes of Trump and Bloomberg even possible as leaders, especially in the midst of crises like climate collapse. Yes it requires someone who can fight fair but "dirty" so to speak.

But what you are unintentionally arguing for is to rationalize a Strong Man as our best hope. A Strong Man is the problem we're trying to SOLVE.

@mordant Bloomberg was mayor 3 terms and obviously the citizens liked him. Beside politicians, just like ordinary people, learn. There are other issues at stake we haven't talked about. I will post an item and know there will be blowback.

@JackPedigo I suppose the question is which citizens liked him ... and of those who didn't, how many dared say so? Stop and frisk traumatized an entire community for years and years.

Of course if you didn't live in those neighborhoods you might be only tangentially aware of all that ... and if all you heard about it was what Bloomberg boasted of concerning it, you might even think you're actually safer because of it.

I mean, if I were living in my own little bubble here, I might say, I like Trump. He cut my federal tax burden about 30% and none of his policies have impacted me personally in a negative way so far. But I see the carnage with other people that he's causing, and to the rule of law and the institutions of our democracy and to our leadership on the climate crisis. It's a similar deal with Bloomberg. That he got elected 3 times means some people had no problem with him at a personal level. That's not really relevant to whether he's qualified to be the Democratic party nominee or whether he'll be effective against Trump or substantively any different than Trump if he wins.

@mordant I'm not arguing that I think Bloomberg is a great candidate. He is giving me the impression that he can beat Trump.
That's it.
I'm OK that you don't like him.
WHO ELSE CAN BEAT DT?
Give me a name.

@mordant My big question is what is he doing for the environment. Without that all the money in the world won't help. That should be our no. 1 priority and yet it completely escapes most people.
I just got a FB post from my daughter near LA. She showed a picture of the apartment mailbox which was ripped opened. I think we forget how crime can affect people. It's easy to judge when crime rates are down (like here on our island the police report is laughable). When the rates are up people will resort to anything to protect themselves and their property.
Any different than tRump???? Anyone or thing is different and better than this criminal.

@JackPedigo Bloomberg's climate plan gets a D+ from Greenpeace ... mostly for non-specifity, particularly with respect to timelines. I saw another group's release today which was similarly unimpressed. Didn't hang onto the URL though.

My guess is that if you dig around on his climate positions they talk a good game but don't go so far as to inconvenience the corporate world nearly enough.

@dannydreamer Sanders, hands down. He's the anti-plutocrat. He's right on healthcare and climate change and social justice. He's been consistent on it for decades, and so can be trusted. He has the most diverse coalition of supporters, the most $$ (none of it from big donors, none of it dark) and is bringing countless new voters into the party. He appeals to moderates and conservatives as well as liberals, when you actually look at who is supporting him and why, and see how he connects with voters of different backgrounds -- rather than listening to MSM narratives and the DNC. He can -- and, I believe will -- win this thing. He's also, critically, running to reform the Democratic Party, not just to defeat Trump, Trumpism, and the Republicans. Big money corruption isn't limited to the GOP.

Finally, he's the front-runner, especially with people of color and the young, but basically anyone under 45 as well as, of course, overall.

I think this will end up being a two-way race with Bloomberg and since Bernie eats the ultra-wealthy for breakfast I'm pretty optimistic about the outcome.

Interestingly both Trump and Bloomberg are on tape in the past as saying that Bernie would have won in 2016 if he had been the nominee. Well that is Bloomberg's statement; Trump simply said (this is on the Lev Parnas recordings) that Sanders was the only VP pick he did NOT want Clinton to make. He's also said publicly in the past week or so that he'd rather run against Bloomberg than Sanders. While Trump can always be pulling what he says right out of his dusty rectum, I think in this case he's being honest in that weirdly, offhandedly vulnerable way that he can say things sometimes.

Of course we should never inconvenience the corporations. Also, I don't have a lot of faith in Greenpeace nor the Sierra Club. I don't know if you have seen my question posed by my late partner (from Iran) to her 2nd graders; what is more important people or dirt? Climate Change is not a problem; it is a symptom of a much bigger problem. I am a Malthusian and former chapter board member of ZPG. Now belong to the Overpopulation project and NPG. Yes your are right, many do talk about the environmental crises but most talk centers on helping the victims and not viable but difficult solutions.

@mordant Somewhere between getting chewed up and spit out by tRump, Bernie will probably have another heart attack.
Somehow you didn't mention his delicate health, shaky age, and his equally unimpressive appearance.

@dannydreamer He has two stents, same as Bloomberg. He's released his health info and has a clean bill of health to run. He looks relaxed and energetic; even before the heart attack, his mostly young staff had trouble keeping up with him. He's always been fit; he was a star runner in high school and has kept up the habit of exercise and walking rather than driving around.

This week he did rallies in 3 cities (Denver, LA, Tacoma) totally 37,000 people and then he did a town hall last night in Vegas and looked completely fit and at ease.

Several candidates are in their 70s and don't get the same scrutiny.

A lot of people's perceptions around this are informed by stats that say if you have an event like this the odds are x that within y years you'll die. But that's predicated on the fact that most people who have an initial heart event are already in terrible physical shape and have co-morbidities in play. Sanders on the other hand, has none, and his prognosis is excellent.

Don't listen to the ageist rhetoric around that. Look at the actual facts.

Of course, all that said, he is what he is. Anything can happen to anyone in office. I think the best predictor of how he'll handle the stress of office is the way he's doing fine in the stress of the campaign. If he picks a good veep then it's not a concern to me; I'd rather have a truncated single term with Sanders than a whole term doing business as usual with the others.