A Democrat Once Again
As mayor, constituents described him as cold and business-like, but effective. When he left office in 2013, his 12 years at city hall were seen as a success by New Yorkers, and his subsequent philanthropic activities including his biggest project, backing gun control legislation across the US put him solidly in the Democratic camp once again.
In 2018, he spent $41m backing Democratic candidates running for the US House of Representatives. Twenty-one out of the 24 he supported won, 15 of whom were women. In 2019, he donated $3.9 billion to charities supporting top issues on the left, from green energy to abortion access.
But Mr Bloombergs bid to become the man to take on Mr Trump in 2020 struck a discordant tone with a party that made demands for race, gender and income equality a large part of its diagnosis for Americas ills.
Democratic rivals attack Bloomberg in TV debate
His record, particularly on race, faced fierce scrutiny. A hard-line policing tactic, stop and frisk, that was expanded by Mr Bloomberg over the course of his mayoral terms was criticised as racist and ineffective.
Throughout his campaign, Mr Bloomberg faced accusations that he was seeking to buy the White House. As he dropped out in March, he vowed to spend millions more of his own cash to defeat Mr Trump and give any and all financial support to the eventual Democratic nominee.
Michael Bloomberg: Everything You Need To Know About The 2020 Presidential Candidate
The former New York City mayor has entered the race of president.
Former New York City Mayor and founder of Bloomberg LP Michael Bloomberg formally entered the 2020 presidential race in November 2019. He is the second billionaire Democrat to seek the presidency during this election cycle.
Out of the running: By Super Tuesday, it was clear that Bloombergs efforts to target the 15 contests in play in lieu of traditional campaigning methods of hitting the early voting states did not pay off in terms of netting the bulk of pledged delegates or the popular vote. He announced the next day that he entered the race three months earlier to defeat President Donald Trump and that he was leaving the race for the same reason because it is clear to me that staying in would make achieving that goal more difficult, he wrote in a letter to supporters adding, Ive always believed that defeating Donald Trump starts with uniting behind the candidate with the best shot to do it. After yesterdays vote, it is clear that candidate is my friend and a great American, Joe Biden.
Name: Michael Rubens Bloomberg
Date of Birth: Feb. 14, 1942
Hometown: Medford, Massachusetts
Family: Bloomberg has been in a longtime domestic relationship with Diana Taylor. He is also the father to two daughters, Emma and Georgina.
Education: He earned a masters in business administration from Harvard Business School in 1966 and a bachelor of arts degree from John Hopkins University in 1964.
Michael Bloomberg: Republican Democrat Or Plutocrat
Screenwriter, Playwright, Lyricist, author of musicals Rothschild & Sons and Josephine Tonight. Writer of forthcoming memoir of a New York boyhood, “Spotless.”
Last October, Michael Bloomberg, New York City’s Mayor, announced that he would seek to extend the city’s term limits law and run for a third term in 2009, since he needed more than that silly old law limiting the Mayor to two terms, especially during the Wall Street financial crises. “Handling this financial crisis while strengthening essential services…is a challenge I want to take on.” Although Bloomberg rejected former Mayor Giuliani’s grab for a third term after 9/11, saying that no one is indispensible, he suddenly discovered that someone is — himself. The public did not unanimously rejoice in his announcement, but according to Wikipedia, “many elite New Yorkers such as David Rockefeller, Henry Kissinger, and prominent businessmen including Jamie Dimon and press mogul Mortimer Zuckerman voiced support for such a proposal and published an open letter urging the City Council to extend the term limits.” It is a safe bet that anything Henry Kissinger supports warrants very close inspection by a forensic team wearing latex gloves.
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Political Contributions To Super Pacs And Congressional Republicans
Many sources have commented on Bloomberg’s past funding of Republican congressional campaigns. The former mayor has donated personally to campaigns and also contributed to bipartisan Super PACs who supported candidates of Democrats and Republicans. The watchdog group Center for Media and Democracy released an article highlighting Bloomberg’s spending history, reporting “He may no longer be the Republican mayor who endorsed George W. Bush and hosted the Republican National Convention in 2004, but his financial support for the GOP continued through 2018.”
The CMD’s article laid out Bloomberg’s various political financing ventures, including a 2018 fundraiser for New York Republican Rep. Peter King and contributions to many Super PACs, such as Independence USA, Americans for Responsible Solutions, West Main Street Values, Mississippi Conservatives, and the With Honor Fund.
Between 2012-2016, the Independence USA Super PAC, funded entirely by Bloomberg, spent over $10 million on congressional campaigns. $5.9 million went to Pennsylvania Republican Senator Pat Toomey, who “had led an effort, albeit unsuccessful, to expand background checks for gun purchasers, a top priority of Mr. Bloombergs.” As described by The New York Times, Toomey’s “race in Pennsylvania is the one that left the most bitter taste for many Democrats because they saw no path to retaking the Senate without winning that seat.”
Harassment Allegations And Lawsuits
Bloomberg has long been the subject of allegations of sexual harassment, with four women filing sexual-harassment or discrimination suits against his company with Bloomberg himself as the primary target.
Sekiko Sakai Garrison, a former Bloomberg sales representative, alleged a history of sexual harassment by Bloomberg in her lawsuit against the company. Garrison alleged that when she came into work wearing an engagement ring, Bloomberg ridiculed her appearance, allegedly asking Garrison: What, is the guy dumb and blind? What the hell is he marrying you for? When Garrison later became pregnant, she alleged that Bloomberg told her to Kill it! before muttering Great, No. 16 in reference to the sixteen women at the company who were then pregnant.
Bloomberg denied all allegations, going so far as to claim he passed a lie detector test but refusing to release the results. Despite denying making the comments, Bloomberg reportedly called Garrison, claiming that he didnt say the statements on her pregnancy, but if I said it, I didnt mean it. Despite denying the claims regarding Garrisons pregnancy, Bloomberg conceded that he had said of Garrison and other female employees Id do her, while insisting that doing someone meant to have a personal relationship. Garrison settled the lawsuit with undisclosed terms in 2000.
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Has Michael Bloomberg Always Been A Democrat
No. But he was a Democrat before he was a Republican, which was before he was an independent and way before his recent re-embrace of the party. Despite his socially liberal views, Mr. Bloomberg changed parties to run in the Republican mayoral primary in 2001. He registered as an independent midway through his time at City Hall. In 2016, he spoke in support of Hillary Clinton at the Democratic National Convention. In 2018, he officially returned to the party.
Other Educational And Research Philanthropy
Through Bloomberg Philanthropies, Bloomberg established the American Talent Initiative in 2016 which is committed to increasing the number of lower-income high-achieving students attending elite colleges. Bloomberg Philanthropies also supports CollegePoint which has provided advising to lower- and moderate-income high school students since 2014.
In 2016, the Museum of Science, Boston announced a $50 million gift from Bloomberg. Bloomberg credited the museum with sparking his intellectual curiosity as a patron and student during his youth in Medford, Massachusetts. It is the largest donation in the museum’s 186-year history.
In 2015, Bloomberg donated $100 million to Cornell Tech, the applied sciences graduate school of Cornell University on the school’s Roosevelt Island campus.
In 1996, Bloomberg endowed the William Henry Bloomberg Professorship at Harvard University with a $3 million gift in honor of his father, who died in 1963, saying, “throughout his life, he recognized the importance of reaching out to the nonprofit sector to help better the welfare of the entire community.”
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Michael Bloomberg Briefly Explained
Bloomberg was born in Boston and grew up in the surrounding area before attending college at Johns Hopkins University and, later, Harvard Business School. He subsequently joined Wall Street brokerage Salomon Brothers but after more than a decade at the firm was laid off after it was acquired with a $10 million severance. In 1981, he used that money to launch what would eventually become Bloomberg LP. The company initially sold computer terminals with financial information to Wall Street and has now expanded to become a media and technology giant with some 19,000 employees.
He was a Democrat before his 2001 mayoral run in New York City, but switched to the Republican Party for his bid and subsequently won. He became an independent in 2007 and served three terms as mayor.
Since leaving city hall, Bloomberg, who is worth an estimated $52 billion, has dedicated his time to Bloomberg Philanthropies, an organization that encompasses all of Bloombergs charitable giving and focuses on five main arenas: public health, the environment, education, government innovation, and arts and culture. The Chronicle of Philanthropy listed Bloomberg as the second-most generous philanthropist of 2018, behind Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos. He gave $1.8 billion to his alma mater Johns Hopkins in 2018, which as Voxs Dylan Matthews explained, while nice, was a sort of wasted opportunity with that money, he could have done other things to boost college affordability.
Influence In Business Journalism
Bloomberg News was known for having an intense, editor-driven culture, and employees who left the news service for other media organizations typically were not hired back. Business journalists who joined Bloomberg were trained to write stories in a specific manner based on the internal stylebook, The Bloomberg Way: A Guide for Reporters and Editors . The book, which has been updated multiple times, explained to reporters how to cover specific stories, such as company earnings and the daily stock market performance. Basic Bloomberg News stories were known for their four-paragraph lead structure, which included the nut paragraph and a quote, often in the fourth paragraph.
The Bloomberg terminal was a useful reporting tool for many business journalists. The terminal provided access to information about millions of company executives, Wall Street analysts and investors, and industry consultants, including phone numbers and e-mail addresses. It also provided Securities and Exchange Commission documents for all public companies and information on lawsuits and legal rulings.
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Early Life And Bloomberg Lp
Bloombergs father, a Polish immigrant, was a bookkeeper and his mother a secretary. After studying engineering at Johns Hopkins University , he attended Harvard University and took an entry-level position with Salomon Brothers investment bank. Within 15 years he had achieved the level of partner and was leading the firms block trading operations. When Salomons acquisition by another firm in 1981 left him without a job, Bloombergs $10 million partnership buyout provided the funding he needed to create Innovative Market Systems, a financial data-services firm, in 1982. Twenty years later the renamed Bloomberg LP had become a global leader in financial data services. Central to the companys success was the Bloomberg computer terminal, a comprehensive financial news and information source. The companys other holdings included the Bloomberg Business News wire service, news radio station WBBR in New York City, and Bloomberg Television.
Later Activities And Presidential Run
After leaving office, Bloomberg returned to managing his namesake financial data and media company, Bloomberg LP. He continued to be involved in environmental causes, and in 2017 he published Climate of Hope: How Cities, Businesses, and Citizens Can Save the Planet . In 2018 Bloomberg launched the American Cities Climate Challenge, a $70 million program to help 20 cities fight climate change. The initiative came a year after Republican Pres. Donald Trump announced that he was withdrawing the United States from the Paris Agreement on climate change. A vocal opponent of Trump, Bloomberg pledged to spend at least $80 million to defeat Republicans in the 2018 midterm elections. That year he reregistered as a Democrat, raising speculation that he would run for president in 2020. Although Bloomberg announced in March 2019 that he would not seek the presidency, in November he officially entered the race. Despite spending more than $500 million, he struggled to gain support, especially after poor performances in two debates. In March 2020 he ended his campaign and announced his support for Joe Biden.
Bloomberg was the recipient of numerous honours, including the 2009 Mary Woodard Lasker Award for Public Service. In 2014 he was made an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire .
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How Much Is Bloomberg Spending
Mr Bloombergs ad spending has so far out-paced Mr Trumps, according to advertising data.
In the past two weeks alone, Mr Bloomberg has splurged more than $1m per day on Facebook ads, mostly targeting Super Tuesday states that will vote on 3 March.
Thats more than five times what Mr Trump has spent over the same period, according to NBC News.
According to Forbes, the co-founder of financial media company Bloomberg LP is worth $62bn. Mr Trumps own fortune is estimated at $3.1bn.
Mr Trump disparaged his fellow New York billionaire on Thursday, tweeting: Mini Mike Bloomberg is a LOSER who has money but cant debate and has zero presence, you will see.
In response, Mr Bloomberg said the people of New York City laugh at you & call you a carnival barking clown.
Earlier in the week, Mr Trump called Mr Bloomberg a total racist after an audio tape emerged of the former mayor making incendiary comments while defending the controversial stop and frisk policing policy.
. we know many of the same people in NY. Behind your back they laugh at you & call you a carnival barking clown. They know you inherited a fortune & squandered it with stupid deals and incompetence. I have the record & the resources to defeat you. And I will.
Mike Bloomberg
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Does He Have A Chance
Mr. Bloombergs path is unconventional in the extreme: skipping the early-voting states and debates to focus on delegate-rich contests in March and beyond. He has the resources to pull it off millions upon millions of dollars of his own money to flood the airwaves with his ads. But if another candidate claims momentum in February, Mr. Bloomberg could have a difficult time breaking through.
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Oregon Democrat Kotek Wins Tough Three
Democrat Tina Kotek won a tough three-way race to become the next governor of Oregon, the Associated Press projected on Thursday, enabling Democrats to extend nearly four decades of control over the Oregon governorship.
With 91% of the expected vote counted, Edison Research had yet to call the race. Official returns from Tuesdays election showed Kotek winning 47.1% of the vote to 43.5% for Republican Christine Drazan.
Betsy Johnson, a strong independent candidate and former Democrat, polled at 8.6%.
The last time a Republican was elected governor was in 1982, and Kotek was always favored to succeed Democratic governor Kate Brown, who could not run again due to term limits. With the polls tightening late in the race, President Joe Biden visited Oregon in mid-October to campaign with Kotek, a former state legislator.
The result would give Democrats a 17-16 edge in the 36 governor races from Tuesdays U.S. midterm elections, with Alaska, Arizona and Nevada yet to be determined.
Democrats have flipped two Republican governorships to their column, in Maryland and Massachusetts, with a chance to take Arizona away from the Republicans as well. Nevada, however, could slip from Democratic to Republican control.
Election officials in Maricopa County, Arizonas most populous county, said it could take until at least Friday to tally all votes from Tuesdays midterm elections.
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Ties To Pete Peterson’s Fix The Debt
The Campaign to Fix the Debt is the latest incarnation of a decades-long effort by former Nixon man turned Wall Street billionaire Pete Peterson to slash earned benefit programs such as Social Security and Medicare under the guise of fixing the nation’s “debt problem.”
Bloomberg is listed as a chairman of the campaign to Fix the Debt, along with former New Hampshire Senator Judd Gregg and former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell.
Bloomberg pushed the “No Budget, No Pay” bill stunt backed by Fix the Debt partner organization Comeback America Initiative, which passed the U.S. House in January 2013, but was promptly denounced as unconstitutional.
Bloomberg has long been sympathetic to the deficit reduction crowd. In a March 2012 op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg complained about the President asking millionaires and billionaires to do more to fix the debt calling it “class warfare,” and backed the $4 trillion Simpson-Bowles deficit reduction plan. He also expressed support for the expiration of Bush tax cuts for all income levels, which would have been a large hike on the poor and middle class.
In 2011, Bloomberg proposed his own $8 trillion deficit reduction plan that would entail steep cuts to Social Security and Medicare and proposed to raise the retirement age.
This article is part of the Center for Media and Democracy’s investigation of Pete Peterson’s Campaign to “Fix the Debt.” Please visit our main SourceWatch page on Fix the Debt.
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