A Student’s Opinion on Bloomberg’s Campaign Ethics
By Nicholas Papini | Assistant Editor
The newly instated democratic presidential debate format instituted by the Democratic National Convention (DNC) is highly flawed and blatantly favors wealthier candidates.
The DNC relaxed its previously stringent participation requirements for former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg. Bloomberg, due to funding the entirety of his campaign with his rather exorbitant wealth, would not meet the requirement of a minimum amount of grassroots donations from a certain number of districts. It is my belief that the DNC very specifically withheld that requirement so that Bloomberg could qualify for these debates.
It is my belief that Michael Bloomberg, with the help of the DNC, is attempting to buy his way into becoming the victor of the 2020 Democratic primaries. The DNC has bent the rules in a rather telling manner to allow Bloomberg to appear as legitimate a candidate as possible, and that is all the more concerning when taken into account with all the less wealthy candidates that they had trampled on along the way.
Bloomberg has, according to a February 21 NPR article, spent over $452 million in advertising. Compared to former president Barack Obama, who spent $383 million in advertisements throughout the entirety of his 2020 campaign, those numbers become increasingly concerning.
Bloomberg has spent an exorbitant amount of what is strictly his own wealth to get his name out to as many citizens as possible and, through the use of that wealth he managed to meet the polling requirements for the Feb 19 debate.
A February 19 article by Business Insider, using statistics collected from Forbes, estimated the overall net worth of the current presidential candidates. The only still-prominent candidate with a moderate estimated net worth is former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, at a mere $100,000. This demonstrates the versatility of his support and the ability of his grassroots campaigning.
According to a December 14, 2019 article by Buzzfeed, New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, the now-withdrawn 2020 presidential candidate, agreed that he believed that the debates deliberately allowed billionaires like business mogul Tom Steyer and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to remain in the running.
Booker also called out the current structure as something which would have likely harmed the campaigns of former presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter.
Booker said, “and to have some artificial rules that would’ve cut out Jimmy Carter, that would’ve cut out Bill Clinton likely, that even Obama, who was 20 points behind Hillary Clinton at this point, in terms of what the polls say is viability, the polling has never predicted who would go on and win from our party.”
Booker also stated that the current structure employed by the DNC would cut out candidates from nationalities which aren’t Caucasian. The fact that the final remaining candidates are entirely Caucasian with entrepreneur Andrew Yang now dropped out of the running as of Feb 11 is shocking. However, it is more likely that the debate structure and the DNC merely targeted those with less wealth.
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