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Bloomberg bankrolls a social-media army

wsj.com

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Re: Bloomberg bankrolls a social-media army

#171

Post by standardUser »

pmoriarty wrote: post #98
A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #57

It may be an unpopular opinion, but I am ok with Bloomberg spending some of his money. Granted, 300MM to him like approximately $20 to me, but still.. Do not misunderstand me. His attempt to simply buy an election is.. annoying, if not unseemly. That said, I am perfectly fine with him finally spending at least some of his vast fortune instead of hoarding it like a dragon. Hell, he wants to pay me $2500? I will pocket…

"His attempt to simply buy an election is.. annoying, if not unseemly." How about subvertive of the democratic process?

It's actually perfectly in line with our democratic process. It's not subverting it, it's working exactly as designed. Spending a personal fortune is well within the rules. We should be criticizing the design, not the people taking advantage of the design.

In other words, hate the game not the player.

Re: Bloomberg bankrolls a social-media army

#172

Post by _jal »

dang wrote: post #156
grumple wrote: post #75

So he's hiring a bunch of barely-over minimum wage workers to spread his message... and? What do you think the other politicians are doing with the millions they raise? This isn't a story.

The story is that the method is unorthodox. At least the article uses that word.

This is the US, pols have been hiring fake enthusiasm forever. What is new is that they don't appear to care about getting caught anymore.

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/07/crowd-h...

Re: Bloomberg bankrolls a social-media army

#173

Post by Stranger43 »

morelisp wrote: post #88
grumple wrote: post #75

So he's hiring a bunch of barely-over minimum wage workers to spread his message... and? What do you think the other politicians are doing with the millions they raise? This isn't a story.

Mostly other politicians are running ads and campaign offices as politicians have done for decades - maybe with a social media manager or two per major office. Bloomberg is doing that, also at a level of intensity not really seen before, but then also managing a uniquely expensive social media campaign. Clinton's total campaign was something like $600e6. Bloomberg has already spent half of that, within the span of th…

Bloomberg 2020 campaign is really weird, not only is he not pretending to have an grassroots campaign so far he haven't even been on the ballot at a primary.

Re: Bloomberg bankrolls a social-media army

#174

Post by duxup »

eplanit wrote: post #161
grumple wrote: post #75

So he's hiring a bunch of barely-over minimum wage workers to spread his message... and? What do you think the other politicians are doing with the millions they raise? This isn't a story.

He'll be on the debate stage tonight as a legitimized candidate -- having not participated in the competitive process at all, and without a single donor (doesn't need 'em), and levering his billions to flood media. It's a rather disgusting story, actually.

Is there a right process to go through to run?

I'm not convinced the typical process as far as there being two viable parties and running through the wringer of their processes, is something that is particularly great at producing good candidates, or that someone bypassing that legally is a bad thing.

Re: Bloomberg bankrolls a social-media army

#175

Post by farisjarrah »

brighton36 wrote: post #163
eplanit wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He'll be on the debate stage tonight as a legitimized candidate -- having not participated in the competitive process at all, and without a single donor (doesn't need 'em), and levering his billions to flood media. It's a rather disgusting story, actually.

Might makes right.

The last time I saw that statement was in T.H. White's Once and Future King, talking about Medieval battles and governance....

Re: Bloomberg bankrolls a social-media army

#176

Post by slumdev »

jacob019 wrote: post #84
slumdev wrote: post #68

I don't like this idea of buying elections. But at the very least, I'm happy to see the Democratic machine upside-down, with all of the designated incumbent royalty falling behind the outsiders.

I appreciate the sentiment, but for those of us who have been negatively impacted by the policies of the current administration, it is worrying that a candidate with broad appeal has failed to materialize at this point.

You've got one, but the machine keeps sabotaging him.

I don't think there are ten Democrats who oppose what Bernie Sanders stands for.

But there are millions of Democrats who oppose what they think he stands for.

Re: Bloomberg bankrolls a social-media army

#177

Post by jr46tjdr »

eplanit wrote: post #161
grumple wrote: post #75

So he's hiring a bunch of barely-over minimum wage workers to spread his message... and? What do you think the other politicians are doing with the millions they raise? This isn't a story.

He'll be on the debate stage tonight as a legitimized candidate -- having not participated in the competitive process at all, and without a single donor (doesn't need 'em), and levering his billions to flood media. It's a rather disgusting story, actually.

It's fairly par for the course though, The Democrats are a party with a strong population of millionaires and billionaires just like their opponents.

Re: Bloomberg bankrolls a social-media army

#178

Post by AndrewUnmuted »

eplanit wrote: post #161
grumple wrote: post #75

So he's hiring a bunch of barely-over minimum wage workers to spread his message... and? What do you think the other politicians are doing with the millions they raise? This isn't a story.

He'll be on the debate stage tonight as a legitimized candidate -- having not participated in the competitive process at all, and without a single donor (doesn't need 'em), and levering his billions to flood media. It's a rather disgusting story, actually.

You know, I strongly disagree with Bloomberg, having lived through his reign of terror in NYC personally. But I just don't see the point in focusing on this kind of attack.

The Democratic party is really not required to have any sort of fair process for deciding their candidate for president. It can be as transparently crooked and disgusting as this and really that's just how he chose to operate within the legal frameworks established by folks like him.

Sure, there's the huge personality flaws that Bloomberg displays by taking this strategy, but those don't seem to be of major concern to most American voters. Our current president is a daily salient reminder of this fact.

If we want to focus on Bloomberg's personality, why not start with all the horrific policies he enacted as mayor? There are far more visible character flaws in those decisions than this decision to buy his way towards the Democratic party.

If you supported his policies, after all, you'd have no problem with this strategy being undertaken - right?

Re: Bloomberg bankrolls a social-media army

#179

Post by remarkEon »

monadic2 wrote: post #38
ulfw wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People got fooled by Trump. Anything can happen.

I don’t think trump voters were “fooled”, they did in fact own the libs and will likely continue to try and own the libs. For many in america this culture war shit is the only substantive choice at the polls.

It’s true, the libs were owned. And owned hard. It’s all that matters to a lot of them. I wouldn’t be surprised if some are cheering on this Bloomberg phenomenon because of the potential damage it could do to the credibility of the Democratic Party, setting up the libs to get owned yet again in November.

Re: Bloomberg bankrolls a social-media army

#180

Post by jariel »

grumple wrote: post #75

So he's hiring a bunch of barely-over minimum wage workers to spread his message... and? What do you think the other politicians are doing with the millions they raise? This isn't a story.

True, but the 'story' is that he didn't 'raise' this money, it's his own. Meaning it has pretty big implications for campaign finance.

The precedent for having consecutive 'billionaires' as president is a little troubling. Not that there's necessarily anything wrong with billionaires, but it sets the bar oddly high for a democratic republic.

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