Warren and Sanders Have a Lot to Attack in Bloomberg’s First Presidential Ad

“Elections should not be for sale.”

Starmax/ZUMA

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire former New York City mayor, has officially thrown his hat into the ring of the Democratic presidential primary.

“I’m running for president to defeat Donald Trump and rebuild America,” Bloomberg said in a statement on Sunday. “We cannot afford four more years of President Trump’s reckless and unethical actions. He represents an existential threat to our country and our values. If he wins another term in office, we may never recover from the damage.”

Bloomberg’s entry into the crowded field, while late, is not surprising. In recent weeks, he’s been quietly filing all the right paperwork; one of his advisers recently tweeted that the boss has become “increasingly concerned” with the current Democratic field. But those purported anxieties likely only sharpened the criticism coming from the candidates who are now officially his rivals for the nomination. “Elections should not be for sale, not to billionaires, not to corporate executives,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren said at a campaign event on Saturday. Sen. Bernie Sanders went one step further, proclaiming that he is “disgusted” by Bloomberg’s presidential ambitions and his recent $34 million ad buy

Bloomberg’s first presidential video isn’t likely to diffuse that anger. In fact, for Warren and Sanders, the spot contains a lot they could potentially criticize.

The video plays up Bloomberg’s distant, middle-class roots, with only passing references to the $54.4 billion fortune he currently enjoys. It goes on to portray his 2001 run for New York City mayor as his heroic, personal response to the September 11 terrorist attacks. “When New York suffered the terrible tragedy of 9/11,” the narrator reads, as images of the Twin Towers’ rubble flash on the screen, “he took charge, becoming a three-term mayor who brought a city back from the ashes.”

That narrative leaves out the record-breaking $50 million that Bloomberg, a Republican at the time, personally injected into his 2001 bid, while omitting the crucial endorsement he received from Rudy Giuliani late in the race, which helped propel him to a narrow win against Democrat Mark Green. 

That line also displays a curious pride in having served three terms, which for the uninitiated sounds reasonably impressive. But in addition to spending a staggering $102 million for his final mayoral run, Bloomberg famously worked with then-city council speaker Christine Quinn to overturn the law that would have limited him to two terms. And Quinn lost her own bid for mayor four years later, partly due to the perception of a back-door deal with Bloomberg.

The rhetoric in Bloomberg’s video isn’t exactly new, either. As the New Yorker wrote in 2013:

In his speech, Bloomberg reminded everyone of these achievements. He also spoke of the earlier prophecies of New York’s post-9/11 decline, which turned out to be short-sighted. But his defense of his three terms in office was so robust that, at times, he seemed to come close to suggesting that he had single-handedly saved the city. In the wake of unprecedented uncertainty and fear twelve years ago, he said, “New Yorkers were lucky enough, or I was lucky enough, or we were lucky enough I guess is the way to phrase it, to be elected, this administration.”

There are, of course, legitimate accomplishments listed in Bloomberg’s video, including his work on gun control and climate change—causes that have indeed benefited from his enormous fortune. But in a year when Democratic contenders are lining up to decry the political influence of big money, it remains to be seen whether Bloomberg’s story will resonate with voters.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

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