TAMPA, Fla. — Michael Bloomberg has been the only Democratic presidential candidate advertising his candidacy in the Tampa Bay area over the past two months, but he made his first live appearance in the flesh on Sunday morning in Tampa.
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The former New York City Mayor has flirted with potential presidential runs over the past decade, but appeared to close the door on those ambitions when he announced last March that he would not run for the Democratic nomination, with the implication being that his centrist political persona couldn’t break through in a party whose left wing has become ascendant since Bernie Sanders failed run in 2016.
“Well, it is true that the challenge is to get through the Democratic party, but that was not the reason why I decided not to run,” Bloomberg told Spectrum Bay News 9 exclusively after speaking to over 200 supporters at Embarc Collective, a startup hub in downtown Tampa.
“I give away a lot of money and spend a lot of money on philanthropic stuff and I like running my company and there were eight-ten-twelve candidates and I thought, look at it: you don’t have to go through all of that craziness, you can still make a difference in this world. I can make the country and the world better for my kids, so I said 'no.'”
But he said that as more candidates dropped out, he said to himself that the ambitious plans of Sanders and Elizabeth Warren were too expensive and wouldn’t pass Congress. He also believed that none of the Democrats in the field were tough enough to defeat Donald Trump.
“I thought long and hard about it and I finally said, 'you know, I sort of owe it to this country to go and give it a shot.”
If he does win it, it will be like no other major party candidate has done so since the political parties start holding primary elections. Bloomberg is bypassing the traditional early states of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada, and instead is spending massive amounts of money (over $200 million to date) on broadcast and cable television ads in states like Michigan, California and Florida.
He has been gaining — slowly — in the polls, and his best chance seems to be if maybe if former Vice President Joe Biden falters in the early states, since they both are considered to be more centrist-oriented candidates who can appeal to independents and disaffected Republicans.
“This is a campaign for sanity, for honesty, for inclusion, for compassion, for human decency,” he told the audience at Embarc Collective, where he was introduced by a very enthusiastic Bob Buckhorn.
The former Tampa Mayor says his choice for the nomination is either Bloomberg or Biden. But he said it was vital that President Trump be voted out of office in November.
“Four years ago, we elected somebody who doesn’t understand … what it means to be an American,” said Buckhorn. “Somebody who would rather divide us than unite us, someone who would rather demagogue parts of this community because they happen to be black or white or Hispanic or Jewish or Hindu or Muslim. He doesn’t understand that this America belongs to all of us. It’s time for a change, ladies and gentleman. It’s time for a change.”
One Democrat who doesn’t think that Bloomberg’s electoral strategy is that crazy is Ramsey McLauchlan, a former party chair in Pinellas County as well as in New Hampshire.
“I think part of what happens in the first four contests, it gives the candidates a chance to establish their credibility, which in turn allows them the ability to raise money to stay in the race for the long haul," McLauchlan explained. "[Bloomberg] has the money to stay in there for the long haul, so he doesn’t have to do that, which is one of the things he says, he’s not taking contributions from anybody."
"So that positions him in a very unique way, so we’ll kind of see what happens," McLauchlan went on. "Super Tuesday is incredibly important for delegates. He’s positioning himself to do well there, so his strategy is certainly viable. Nobody’s ever done it before, but it could work.”
In his fifteen minute speech, Bloomberg talked up his achievements as mayor in New York (2002-2014), including getting same-sex marriage legalized with a Legislature which was fully half Republican. He said his administration had created 500,000 jobs, 750,000 affordable housing units, reduced street homelessness by 28 percent and reduced the number of people without health insurance by 40 percent.
And he vowed, he would never tweet if elected president.
Before making his campaign stop, Bloomberg met up with Tampa Mayor Jane Castor and her family at Trip’s Diner in Tampa’s Seminole Heights neighborhood. Bloomberg said he had "inhaled" an order of French Toast while at the establishment.