UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Cities and Climate Change Michael R. Bloomberg delivers remarks with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry at the “Our Cities, Our Climate: A Bloomberg Philanthropies – U.S. Department of State Partnership” working luncheon, at the U.S. Department of State. [State Department Photo/Public Domain]
The best aspect of Michael Bloomberg’s potential presidential run is that if he were elected, we may be reasonably confident that he would be a competent president, which should be an immense relief to anyone who takes seriously the possibility that any of the four remaining Democratic candidates with appreciable support—Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg—could be elected.
Joe Biden: Obama’s VP is allegedly (and quite plausibly) a likeable man who has no aptitude to lead the country. Almost all politicians are at least superficially likeable or they are in the wrong business. But his stumbles are legion, his beliefs are elusive. Robert Gates, a bipartisan intelligence director, and defense secretary appears to be correct that Biden was mistaken on every strategic position he has taken.
On a previous presidential campaign, Biden cribbed a silly assertion by Neil Kinnock, the leader of the British opposition at the time, and he joined enthusiastically in Teddy Kennedy’s crucifixion of President Reagan’s outstanding Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork. He has much to answer for in Ukraine, and is a seriously unimpressive candidate. It gets worse from there.
Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.): Senator Warren is everyone’s nightmare of a nasty kindergarten teacher, terrorizing the class with a wooden spoon. She is a quasi-Marxist who lied about her ethnicity to advance her career, lied about being fired for pregnancy, and she advocates impossible policies—especially in health care—that would not work and could not be financed. She can’t tell the truth, in words or numbers, and the United States is not a Marxist country.
Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.—until he switches back to independent): The cranky old Communist believes in free elections; he endlessly proclaims fatuous revolutions in a manner as irritating in content as it is acoustically.
Pete Buttigieg: As the indifferent mayor of an under-achieving town, PB is advancing the gay cause but is the personification of glibness. But he would be a completely infeasible president.
Michael Bloomberg: Among Trump’s current possible opponents, in policy terms, Bloomberg alone would be sensible, and possibly imaginative, apart from having gone cock-a-hoop for the green nonsense. He would not embarrass the country, and his ability and qualities would be deployed to the benefit of the country.
(Bloomberg) is no more reliable a Democrat than Trump was a Republican (seven changes of party in 13 years). It won’t be like falling off a log getting the nomination, and Bloomberg will have to do a lot more than hurl epithets (an activity at which Trump is superior in any case) to knock off the president—especially after this impeachment idiocy fizzles and the former administration is riddled with Russian collusion indictments.
President Donald Trump: Trump’s greatest achievement is that he has reduced poverty more than any president since FDR, continues Mr. Black. Remember, FDR came to office when the financial system had collapsed. Not only was unemployment at about 30%, but there also was no federal relief.
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