'This Was a Grift': Bloomberg Staffers Explain Campaign's Demise

[brooklynite]

The Nation

ichael Bloomberg ended his presidential campaign on Wednesday after being walloped on Super Tuesday. But, according to nearly a dozen members of his campaign staff, the former New York City mayor’s presidential dreams really died when Elizabeth Warren eviscerated his record on live television during the February 19 debate in Las Vegas.

Not a single Bloomberg staffer that I spoke to was surprised by the campaign’s implosion. Speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of professional reprisal and because of the campaign’s nondisclosure agreements—which The Nation obtained a leaked copy of in February—campaign employees cited that bruising debate as well as a general lack of enthusiasm for Bloomberg among the staff as main factors ending his presidential run.

“Ever since the first debate all of us faced a ton of hostility [when knocking on] doors…and could hardly get any volunteers,” one field organizer told me. “I once had a woman chase me back to my car demanding that I say you can’t buy the presidency.”

Several members of the campaign described Bloomberg’s debate as the beginning of the end. As another field organizer put it, “The people who liked Mike initially didn’t care about the sexual [harassment] allegations or stop and frisk, but they got turned off because they thought he made himself look weak and that he had let Warren walk all over him.”

[irisblue]

1. Warren ripped his throat out in public. no text

[Sloumeau]

2. brooklynite, thank you so much for posting this. :)

In reality, Bloomberg turned out to be a bit of a Paper Tiger.

[brooklynite]

3. As a candidate; yes. As a media manager, no...

While Bloomberg was never going to get nominated, his total vote haul was 1.7 M...almost as many as Warren. That came from his TV advertising, which he's going to launch as an IE against Trump.

[lapucelle]

4. Where is the quote in your headline from? N/T

[brooklynite]

5. Para 10

[Indykatie]

8. Really? It's Hardly a Grift When You're Spending Your Own Money

If this claim is buried in paragraph 10 of the article it obviously wasn't the major focus of the article.

[brooklynite]

9. You miss the point...

...a section of the article refers to staff with no loyalty who took the campaign's money and worked for other candidates.

[lapucelle]

10. So it was the STAFFERS who were grifting, not Bloomberg. That's a very misleading headline

from The Nation.

Staffers described an almost total lack of belief in Bloomberg himself. “Most people knew this was a grift,” one campaign official explained, describing even leadership as being unwilling to fulfill basic campaign responsibilities. “At our first office meeting, my [director] said, ‘We don’t need to canvass. We can just make calls, right guys?’ And everyone was like, ‘Yeah, that’s sensible.’”

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/bloomberg-campaign-warren/

Good to know.

[Baked Potato]

6. Elizabeth Warren did Democrats a favor.

A big favor.

[blm]

11. ✔️

Totally the major block Biden needed to recover.

[Baked Potato]

12. Yes, exactly.

[zentrum]

7. Thank you Elizabeth.