Who will challenge Trump? Who you like?

[Corso]

Bloomberg: New Yorkers out there, what did you think of him, his time a mayor?
I'm ignoring the Hillary fake news...

What say ye?

[HorsCat]

Senator Obama's voting record stands for itself. Maybe he shifted right as President, but as we all know, perception is everything. My opinion is that he was was left,resulting in a shift to the right-Trump. Hell, yeah, I'm over simplifying, but there it is.

Obama's voting record as a senator is irrelevant to the question of where his 8 years as president falls on a political spectrum. Your opinion of him is similarly irrelevant in the context of the actual facts, which overwhelmingly favor a conclusion that his presidency was, generally speaking, pretty centrist. Don't get me wrong - you're well entitled to your opinion; you aren't, however, entitled to your own facts. The plain truth is that a substantial number of Americans simply couldn't abide a black president. Another plain truth is that the white guy born inches from the home plate is mooching off the economy built on the back of a black man (not for the first time in America's history, I'll add).

[j44ke]

Bloomberg: New Yorkers out there, what did you think of him, his time a mayor?
I'm ignoring the Hillary fake news...

What say ye?

Bloomberg is a technocrat with a keen nose for the expedient and absolutely no patience for whining or talking about your feelings. No interest in talking to special interest groups who want their needs addressed in every civic decision. Just wants to get things done and keep things moving upwards and improving. A man of statistics. Someone who understands good business principles.

But that means he isn’t really interested in listening to a sizeable percentage of the public who is being demoralized by their treatment by police. Isn’t interested in the details of law enforcement, just wants the statistics to show improvement. Doesn’t understand why he has to keep pregnant women on staff if they aren’t working. Doesn’t really get the human component to a lot of aspects of daily life. Doesn’t get racial inequality. Doesn’t understand why people don’t just move to alleviate difficult situations. Seems to see things as assets and costs. Not a great public speaker. Does not have a winning public personality. I suspect getting into the debates in Las Vegas will actually be bad for him.

He is probably one of the best mayors in terms of the machinery of NYC. He is probably one of the most tone deaf in terms of the people who lived there.

His biggest mistake was getting city council to allow him a third term. If he had left, people would remember him more fondly. However, he felt he had more things to do or to finish, so why wouldn’t he finish them? He didn’t get the concept of overstaying his welcome, or that his enemies would also become more effective.

I thought he tended towards fascism. His relationship with the police created the problems we have now. He added hundreds to the police force and basically stayed out of day to day policing until the very end. Now we have entrenched behavior that NYC worked for years to get rid of, and a lot of it was because of poor screening on mass hirings and far less than adequate training for recruits. More training would be expensive. More screening would have slowed down hiring.

He and the cops really screwed up the RNC. Ended up costing the city millions. They got better when it came to the Occupy movement, but they still screwed up and still ended up paying out millions for poor management of arrests and violence by officers. I always felt Bloomberg viewed managing enforcement situations was one thing and legal issues afterwards was completely separate. Again, results based. The goal is to prevent protestors from ruining the Convention and keep delegates safe. Let the courts sort out the victims of police actions afterwards.

But I dont think anyone else would have been able to get bike lanes done. Or Citibike. Or begin the process of fixing the subways and buses. Those things required someone who didn’t care what anyone was saying and could block out the contrasting opinions and just get it done. There are plenty of other examples.

I think he would be a good President but he wouldn’t be popular. He never seemed interested in popularity except to get enough votes to win the election. He always seemed very results-based, and not so interested in building consensus. A good idea is a good idea. See: Olympics and congestion pricing for Manhatten, two projects that to him seemed so obviously the right thing to do he didn’t try to build a consensus with or lobby anyone. Here’s the idea. Do it.

I doubt he will get elected.

[jclay]

Senator Obama's voting record stands for itself. Maybe he shifted right as President, but as we all know, perception is everything. My opinion is that he was was left,resulting in a shift to the right-Trump. Hell, yeah, I'm over simplifying, but there it is.

>>A new study suggests Obama had the most liberal voting record in 2007.

(CNN) - Barack Obama has demonstrated his appeal to independent voters and even some Republicans as he campaigns for president, though a just-released study from the National Journal indicates the Illinois Democrat was the most liberal senator in 2007.

Chief rival Hillary Clinton held the 16th most liberal voting record last year, the non-partisan survey of 99 major Senate votes found.

The study also shows both senators have moved to the left compared to previous years. In 2005 - Obama's first year in the Senate - he was ranked the 16th most liberal, and he came in at number 10 in 2006. Hillary Clinton has long held a moderate voting record: she debuted on the list at number 25 in 2001, and has been as high as 34. In 2006, the New York senator was ranked 32.<<

The rest of the country is ok with saying the Democratic Party can be generalized as Left, I have no problem in keeping things simple: Den-Left, GOP-Right.

Why The Democrats Have Shifted Left Over The Last 3 Years | FiveThirtyEight

Each took me about 10 seconds to find, about all the time I want to spend debating the point. Let's move on

Those (538) are polling results and most folks are not terribly well informed wrt history, economics or policy. There is a reason that it's not a joke to call the dems the party of fake left, go right.

In important ways the Democratic establishment moved in a more conventional, conservative direction starting at the latest with Clinton's Third Way and adoption of neoliberal economics (which has zero relationship to cultural liberalism). Certainly from social and cultural perspectives Clinton and Obama made all the right noises, and some positive (and perhaps not so positive) policy changes in efforts to address certain social issues. But in the realm of economics, foreign policy, support of a burgeoning MIC and unprecedented global military footprint, weakening regulation of the financial services sector (leading directly to the collapse of 08 and then failing to reinstate Glass Steagal), failure to even attempt or call attention to the need to attenuate industrial off-shoring, failure to stop excessive consolidation within our largest industries, failing to address the revolving door situation with former regulators gaining positions of power at companies they once regulated, and visa versa, the dem party is anything but left or progressive. It became solidly right of center in that arena and generally a sell out to big industry and big money. It is far, far from any sort of lefty, exponent of socialism, something of which it is daily and unfortunately (for our country and population) accused.

Drilling down in order to understand those details is necessary to understanding what's been going on, why, and then making intelligent restorative decisions going forward. Which, I suppose, is why I have little hope for the future; few will question their beliefs, perceptions and idealogical self identification, never mind do the work, or make the time to read and observe widely enough to understand the details. Turning this (not you, but larger society) into Left/Right or Blue/Gray doesn't promote awareness of the realities, never mind rational evaluation and consideration of remedial options.

In the meantime, if you have the URLs handy for the first couple of studies you cite, I'd be interested in reading them, just to check my position. In the past three years, certainly the democratic electorate, as opposed to the democratic establishment, has moved in a progressive direction; proposals that we change to become a socialist economy are not being advanced by anybody. We are, and will remain, a hybrid economy, like every other first world country.

[davids]

Bloomberg: New Yorkers out there, what did you think of him, his time a mayor?
I'm ignoring the Hillary fake news...

What say ye?

One of my oldest & best friends is not only a New Yorker but a former employee of Mayor Bloomberg. (She ran this btw.)

She hasn't given me the hard sell, at least not yet, but I know she's supporting him.

[Corso]

The plain truth is that a substantial number of Americans simply couldn't abide a black president.

Total BS---as fact, but if that's your belief.


To quote another Salon Contributor: You have the data to back that up?


Funny how a substantial number of Americans elected him twice, but couldn't abide by him...

[Corso]

I guess when facts are presented, you deem them irrelevant. If the voting "right" had this voting record record in mind, (as well as not ever voting across the aisle, not once) it was in their minds. Period.

Why you go all Trump-pussy grabbing, 3 marriages, tv star etc, - what occurred before he was President, it's the same net result: what people remember.

[Saab2000]

Right now I like Mike. He’s said and likely done some things he wishes he could unsay and undo. But who hasn’t? I know I have. Hopefully we learn from our mistakes.

He seems far more grounded in reality than the current president and frankly, some of his presidential rivals.

He certainly has my attention.

[davids]

I'm going to second Corso here. And remind him to abide by it too...

I've certainly seen and read about racism towards Obama anecdotally. And there's clear and consistent evidence that our current president's behavior regarding Obama (and many other African Americans) can only be described as racist. Start with his support of the ridiculous Birther movement and go from there.

But let's be consistent, no matter what your political position. Unless you can back up the "plain truth" with evidence, it ain't plainly true.

[davids]

Bloomberg is a technocrat with a keen nose for the expedient and absolutely no patience for whining or talking about your feelings. No interest in talking to special interest groups who want their needs addressed in every civic decision. Just wants to get things done and keep things moving upwards and improving. A man of statistics. Someone who understands good business principles.

But that means he isn’t really interested in listening to a sizeable percentage of the public who is being demoralized by their treatment by police. Isn’t interested in the details of law enforcement, just wants the statistics to show improvement. Doesn’t understand why he has to keep pregnant women on staff if they aren’t working. Doesn’t really get the human component to a lot of aspects of daily life. Doesn’t get racial inequality. Doesn’t understand why people don’t just move to alleviate difficult situations. Seems to see things as assets and costs. Not a great public speaker. Does not have a winning public personality. I suspect getting into the debates in Las Vegas will actually be bad for him.

He is probably one of the best mayors in terms of the machinery of NYC. He is probably one of the most tone deaf in terms of the people who lived there.

His biggest mistake was getting city council to allow him a third term. If he had left, people would remember him more fondly. However, he felt he had more things to do or to finish, so why wouldn’t he finish them? He didn’t get the concept of overstaying his welcome, or that his enemies would also become more effective.

I thought he tended towards fascism. His relationship with the police created the problems we have now. He added hundreds to the police force and basically stayed out of day to day policing until the very end. Now we have entrenched behavior that NYC worked for years to get rid of, and a lot of it was because of poor screening on mass hirings and far less than adequate training for recruits. More training would be expensive. More screening would have slowed down hiring.

He and the cops really screwed up the RNC. Ended up costing the city millions. They got better when it came to the Occupy movement, but they still screwed up and still ended up paying out millions for poor management of arrests and violence by officers. I always felt Bloomberg viewed managing enforcement situations was one thing and legal issues afterwards was completely separate. Again, results based. The goal is to prevent protestors from ruining the Convention and keep delegates safe. Let the courts sort out the victims of police actions afterwards.

But I dont think anyone else would have been able to get bike lanes done. Or Citibike. Or begin the process of fixing the subways and buses. Those things required someone who didn’t care what anyone was saying and could block out the contrasting opinions and just get it done. There are plenty of other examples.

I think he would be a good President but he wouldn’t be popular. He never seemed interested in popularity except to get enough votes to win the election. He always seemed very results-based, and not so interested in building consensus. A good idea is a good idea. See: Olympics and congestion pricing for Manhatten, two projects that to him seemed so obviously the right thing to do he didn’t try to build a consensus with or lobby anyone. Here’s the idea. Do it.

I doubt he will get elected.

Thanks Jorn. That's some valuable insight.

Plus he's 78. These old guys worry me.

[j44ke]

One of my oldest & best friends is not only a New Yorker but a former employee of Mayor Bloomberg. (She ran this btw.)

She hasn't given me the hard sell, at least not yet, but I know she's supporting him.

A friend worked in the city environmental department. Bloomberg's concept of avoiding Superfund status for huge swathes of Long Island City and Brooklyn waterfront made a lot of sense. His idea was to trade development rights for Superfund-level cleanups to expedite the transition of lands from problems to developments. That part was mostly a success, but he was far less interested in enforcement of the cleanup standards, which has possible repercussions later if developers did stupid things instead of proper and safe cleanup.

He also decided that the city needed to maximize the property taxes per square foot to weather future economic downturns, so the administration basically rubber stamped any and all development of buildings in the city. The result has been near constant construction which has a real effect on quality of life in the city. And now we have a glut of upper middle to wealthy apartments for sale ($2mill and above,) partly due to Trump's targeted tax changes but also due to a lot of rubber stamping without attention to type & cost of apartments being built.

I'd say that often with Bloomberg, if there were 5 things to get done to bring the city kicking and screaming over some seemingly insurmountable hurdle, he'd get 4 of them done when most mayors might only get 2 done (or in De Blasio's case - "I'll do it later. I am headed to Iowa.") But that last one thing was often a real doozy of a missed opportunity.

[vertical_doug]

Total BS---as fact, but if that's your belief.


To quote another Salon Contributor: You have the data to back that up?


Funny how a substantial number of Americans elected him twice, but couldn't abide by him...

I think you are wrong on this. Although Obama won twice, there was definitely a substantial number of Americans who hated having a black president. That's just the reality of America.

216 United States presidential election - Wikipedia

212 United States presidential election - Wikipedia

28 United States presidential election - Wikipedia

Just look at the red sections. I have been to county fairs in Georgia which displayed some t-shirts with catchy confederate sayings which 'are just not right'

Having said that, not every one that supported Trump is a racist. But some are.

Did Hillary lose because of that? No, that she did by her own hubris.

[theflashunc]

If the root problem of our politics today is unfettered money, the solution is not the billionaire who was a Republican until it became politically expedient to run for Mayor of New York City.

He's an Eisenhower Republican in the vein of Obama, but given how the Overton window has shifted so far right in this country he's a Democrat now. Stop and frisk alone should disqualify him from serious national candidacy, regardless of his (quite good) work on gun control.

If he's the nominee, he gets my vote, but it's a sad state of affairs when the Party somehow finds room for him on the debate stage, but not Harris, Castro et al.

[vertical_doug]

If the root problem of our politics today is unfettered money, the solution is not the billionaire who was a Republican until it became politically expedient to run for Mayor of New York City.

He's an Eisenhower Republican in the vein of Obama, but given how the Overton window has shifted so far right in this country he's a Democrat now. Stop and frisk alone should disqualify him from serious national candidacy, regardless of his (quite good) work on gun control.

If he's the nominee, he gets my vote, but it's a sad state of affairs when the Party somehow finds room for him on the debate stage, but not Harris, Castro et al.

Although Bloomberg is extremely wooden as a speaker, I am sure he is capable of pushing Trumps buttons. Bloomberg has blind spots but as a good manager, technocrat, he may be what you actually need to build/finance infrastructure and maybe reform education. I give him credit for trying to reform the NY school system even though he failed. I think he has learned some lessons there and would give a good second go on the national level.

Ultimately, I think BBerg will put in place an extremely competent profession White House and Cabinet. No drama

[monadnocky]

Thanks Jorn. That's some valuable insight.

Plus he's 78. These old guys worry me.

To be actuarial (and, frankly, unemotional) about this, he stands about a 23% chance of dying in the next four years, over 25% in five years. This is why his choice for running mate becomes really important.

[theflashunc]

Although Bloomberg is extremely wooden as a speaker, I am sure he is capable of pushing Trumps buttons. Bloomberg has blind spots but as a good manager, technocrat, he may be what you actually need to build/finance infrastructure and maybe reform education. I give him credit for trying to reform the NY school system even though he failed. I think he has learned some lessons there and would give a good second go on the national level.

Ultimately, I think BBerg will put in place an extremely competent profession White House and Cabinet. No drama

Sure, but I don't think he addresses the real structural problems we have in our democracy right now. If the Presidency is now just a revolving door of which millionaire/billionaire can buy the most air time, then we're not exactly a functioning republic. On that criteria alone I think Mike disqualifies himself from the running.

Who knows, everyone was worried about Steyer's deep pockets too, and that guy's best moment on the campaign trail is being the awkward third wheel during the Liz/Bernie post-debate exchange. We'll know more after Super Tuesday.

[j44ke]

Well I think Bloomberg’s current popularity points to a kind of desperation on the Democrat’s’ part. And underlines the irony of Democrats appearing willing as a party to run without African American support while Trump and the Republican Party appear willing to run with White Supremacist support.

It’s almost like the politics of The Reconstruction risen from the grave.

May you live in interesting times....

[theflashunc]

Well I think Bloomberg’s current popularity points to a kind of desperation on the Democrat’s’ part. And underlines the irony of Democrats appearing willing as a party to run without African American support while Trump and the Republican Party appear willing to run with White Supremacist support.

It’s almost like the politics of The Reconstruction risen from the grave.

May you live in interesting times....

It's a function of the Centrist wing of the party desperately looking around for anyone to glom on to now that Joe Biden's fallen flat on his face (again). If Bloomberg has a nightmare of a debate and you start seeing African American and Latino support really migrate towards Bernie or Liz, the Centrists may just lose out to the Progressive wing of the party.

[Cookietruck]

The plain truth is that a substantial number of Americans simply couldn't abide a black president. Another plain truth is that the white guy born inches from the home plate is mooching off the economy built on the back of a black man (not for the first time in America's history, I'll add).

and with that ^, i decided to revisit this a few years later. still makes sense.
Donald Trump Is the First White President - The Atlantic

[jclay]

Total BS---as fact, but if that's your belief.
To quote another Salon Contributor: You have the data to back that up?
Funny how a substantial number of Americans elected him twice, but couldn't abide by him...

I have no external data, but I can speak from direct experience: On three occasions I have had people tell me directly that they would "never vote for an XYZ person for President", where XYZ represents the most vile, racist term for an African American that I know. Twice that happened at my fave surfing spot (yeah, it surprised me too...so much for stereotypes) and once at a process facility where I was a consultant engineer. On two occasions I politely replied that I didn't appreciate the comment and walked away. On the other I just walked away without saying anything; and I regret it.

On several other occasions at the same plant I have overheard others making and agreeing to the same general sentiment, between themselves. It's disgusting, and it's not rare.

I've lived in the SE USA and have been swimming in it's racist culture all my life, and I'm here to tell you that the percentage of folks who would never support an African American as President is meaningful. I hope it's not 10% of the rural, white population but I'd be astonished if it weren't 5%.