Mike Bloomberg Is About to Enter the Highly Dangerous Phase 3 of All Fresh, New Presidential Candidates

Just a quick reminder: every primary features a series of interesting “new” candidates. This year Mike Bloomberg is one of them. If they have anything at all going for them,¹ they typically gain popularity at first when no one really knows anything about them; they peak when the media starts running mildly critical stories about them; and then they decline as the oppo starts and the media starts printing the “investigations” it’s been working on for the previous few weeks. Here is a helpful diagram drawn on the back of a paper napkin:

Bloomberg is at the peak of the mostly nontoxic learning phase and just transitioning into the extremely toxic oppo/investigations phase. Today, for example, the New York Times is running a moderately combative story about Bloomberg’s philanthropy while the Washington Post is running a very damaging article about sexist comments and a hostile environment for women at his eponymous company. Meanwhile, the oppo folks are busily dumping audio of Bloomberg making arguably racist comments about stop-and-frisk. Bloomberg is highly likely to lose some of his support over the next couple of weeks, after which he will either recover or he won’t. It all depends on how well everyone else is doing and how good a job reporters and oppo researchers do in digging up damaging material. In any case, there’s no need to panic just yet.

FWIW, this is also approximately where Amy Klobuchar is at. She’s a little less vulnerable than Bloomberg since she’s been in high-profile campaigns before and probably doesn’t have a lot of skeletons waiting to tumble out of her closet, but this is also the stage where people who are sort of interested in her start to learn more about positions she’s taken that maybe they aren’t too thrilled with. Stay tuned!

¹For example, $50 billion.

BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate