Los Angeles Times - 26.11.2019

A2 TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2019 LATIMES.COM

Billionaire Michael R.

Bloomberg announced his

run for president on Sunday

and immediately demon-

strated the power of his

wealth by launching a mas-

sive television ad campaign

that cost tens of millions of

dollars.

The former New York

mayor joins a crowded field

of Democrats that has been

jostling for months over the

direction of the party and

who is best positioned to

take on President Trump

next year. He has already

been attacked by his rivals

over his wealth and has

fended off accusations that

he is trying to buy the elec-

tion. Bloomberg’s affluence

is the primary reason his

candidacy is getting the at-

tention it is.

Here’s a look at the man,

the money and the message:

Who is Michael R.

Bloomberg?

Bloomberg, 77, is a

businessman and the for-

mer three-term mayor of

New York. His estimated net

worth is $54 billion, making

Bloomberg one of the rich-

est men in the world. He has

spent large amounts of

money on his favored politi-

cal causes, such as fighting

climate change and sup-

porting education reform.

In 2018, he donated $

million to federal candi-

dates, political parties and

committees.

Bloomberg previously

flirted with and ruled out

presidential runs, including

earlier this year. But on

Sunday he publicly declared

his candidacy as a Demo-

crat and began a $37-million

weeklong ad blitz that same

morning.

How did Bloomberg make

his money?

After graduating from

Harvard Business School,

Bloomberg went to work as

a Wall Street banker at

Salomon Brothers. He

eventually made partner,

but was laid off in 1981.

He owned $10 million

worth of equity in the firm,

which he used to start a

business that provided

news, analytics and data to

financial companies

through terminals at a

premium cost. The com-

pany, which was named

after its founder, grew to

include a news wire service,

radio stations and other

media.

How much does he plan to

spend on his campaign?

“Whatever it takes to

defeat Donald Trump,”

Bloomberg advisor

Howard Wolfson told

CNBC.

Do his campaigns for

mayor offer any clues?

They most certainly do.

Bloomberg spent at least

$268 million altogether on

his three mayoral cam-

paigns, according to the

New York Times.

How do self-financing

candidates tend to do?

Just ask California Gov.

Meg Whitman or Presidents

Ross Perot and Steve

Forbes.

The answer is, poorly.

There is a long list of

wealthy candidates of both

parties who made a lot of

political consultants rich

but failed to win office.

Perot, who ran as an

independent in 1992 and

Forbes as a Republican in

2000, each spent the equiva-

lent of a little over $110 mil-

lion in today’s dollars, mod-

ern-day records. Bloomberg

and Tom Steyer could easily

break those records if they

keep spending at the same

pace. In the 2010 gubernato-

rial race, Whitman, a Re-

publican, spent a record-

breaking $144 million of her

own money — and lost to

Democrat Jerry Brown by 13

points.

There are exceptions —

Democrat J.B. Pritzker

shattered Whitman’s record

by spending $171.5 million of

his fortune on his successful

2018 campaign for Illinois

governor. Republican Rick

Scott spent $63.6 million of

his own money to become a

U.S. senator representing

Florida that same year.

The question is whether

Bloomberg will prove the

exception or the rule.

Doesn’t the 2020 Demo-

cratic field already have a

self-financing billion-

aire?

Yes — see California’s

very own hedge-fund-man-

ager turned environmental

activist Steyer. In the first

three months Steyer was in

the race, he spent $47 mil-

lion largely to meet donor

and polling qualifications to

appear on the Democratic

debate stage. He has spent

untold millions of dollars

since then, but remains a

low-single-digit after-

thought in the polls.

Steyer has a fraction of

Bloomberg’s wealth.

Is Bloomberg really a

Democrat?

Bloomberg is a regis-

tered Democrat. But his

party registration has

changed over the years.

Until he ran for mayor in

2001, Bloomberg was a

Democrat. That year, he

changed his registration to

Republican. Then in 2007 —

two years after he won his

second mayoral term —

Bloomberg registered as an

independent. Then, shortly

before the midterm election

in 2018, Bloomberg again

registered as a Democrat.

Bloomberg isn’t the only

candidate who was once a

Republican. Sen. Elizabeth

Warren of Massachusetts

was a registered Republican

until the mid-1990s, a point

that has been criticized by

former Vice President Joe

Biden.

Why is Bloomberg run-

ning for president?

A top advisor said this

month that Bloomberg had

grown increasingly worried

that no one in the Demo-

cratic field — more than a

dozen candidates before

Bloomberg jumped into the

race — would be able to

defeat Trump.

Bloomberg’s decision

also comes after months of

questions about Biden’s

shaky front-runner status,

and at a time two other

candidates at the top of the

polls — Sens. Warren and

Bernie Sanders of Vermont

—offer economic policy that

Bloomberg finds entirely

too liberal. (Earlier this year

he invoked the crisis in

Venezuela as he trashed

Warren’s wealth tax propos-

al.)

Does Bloomberg’s late

entry to the race hurt his

chances?

The rest of the Demo-

cratic field has been court-

ing voters for months, an-

swering questions at town

halls and visiting coffee

shops in Iowa, New Hamp-

shire, Nevada and South

Carolina. Those four states

are the first to vote for the

presidential nominees in

both parties, giving their

voters outsized influence.

Bloomberg has already

conceded that he entered

the contest too late to com-

pete in those states, so

instead he plans to focus on

Super Tuesday, when more

than a dozen states includ-

ing California hold their

primary elections.

Bloomberg’s unusual

strategy comes with many

challenges. He will have to

blunt the momentum of

candidates who do well in

the early states, while simul-

taneously campaigning in

multiple states with expen-

sive media markets.

But Bloomberg, with an

unlimited campaign war

chest, can do something no

candidate has done previ-

ously — mount an all-out

coast-to-coast television

campaign.

Aside from entering the

race late, does Bloomberg

face other obstacles?

Many.

Bloomberg’s campaign

website brags about the

decrease in crime in New

York City while he was may-

or. But a pillar of his admin-

istration’s approach was

stop-and-frisk, a policing

technique that has been

widely blamed for racial

profiling of black and brown

residents. Bloomberg stood

by the policy until last week-

end, when he apologized for

it at an African American

church. Successful Demo-

cratic presidential candi-

dates need the support of

minority voters in primary

and general elections.

Bloomberg has a history

of making crude remarks

about women, both in busi-

ness and when he was may-

or. A Bloomberg spokesman

told the New York Times

this month that the billion-

aire now views some of his

past statements as “disre-

spectful and wrong.” These

chapters of his life — nota-

bly on Wall Street during the

1970s and 1980s — are cer-

tain to be reexamined in the

post #MeToo era.

Bloomberg’s business

ties will also be under the

microscope — already,

media critics are outraged

because the editor in chief of

Bloomberg News an-

nounced over the weekend

that its reporters would not

scrutinize Bloomberg’s

wealth, foundation or family

nor those of his Democratic

rivals as they continued

investigating the Trump

administration.

In addition, Bloomberg’s

fortune is a particular prob-

lem in this year’s election,

when much of the Demo-

cratic debate is about in-

come inequality, the gap

between the haves and

have-nots, and the ability of

the rich to use loopholes to

aggregate more and more of

the nation’s wealth.

A closer look at Bloomberg

What are the leading obstacles for the three-time New York mayor?

By Seema Mehta

THEN-NEW YORKMayor Michael R. Bloomberg, with former Mayor Rudolph

W. Giuliani, left, greets the crowd at the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in 2005.

Chris HondrosGetty Images

Alfred Chestnut hugs his mother, Sarah, after his release from prison Monday. He was exonerated, along

with Ransom Watkins and Andrew Stewart, after 36 years in prison in the slaying of a Baltimore teenager.

“On behalf of the criminal justice system, and I’m sure this means very little to you gentlemen, I’m going to

apologize,” a judge told the men. The three were cleared after Chestnut obtained documents through a

public records request that showed witness statements about another suspect had been suppressed.

1,000 WORDS:BALTIMORE

Jerry JacksonBaltimore Sun

CLEARED IN 1983 KILLING

A different path

to the nomination

Bloomberg won’t raise

money, which means he

won’t be in the debates,

but that’s all part of his

grand plan. NATION, A

■ ■■ELECTION 2020 ■■■