Why Michael Bloomberg decided not to run for president

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Monday that he will not run for president, citing concerns that a third-party campaign would lead to Donald Trump or Ted Cruz becoming president.

|
Thibault Camus/AP/File
In this Dec. 3, 2015, file photo, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg speaks during the C40 cities awards ceremony, in Paris. Bloomberg, the billionaire former three-term mayor of New York City, has decided against mounting a third-party White House bid in 2016.

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Monday that he will not run for president, citing a concern that his independent bid would hand the White House to Donald Trump or Ted Cruz.

The billionaire, who has spent months mulling a third-party run that would have roiled this year's already extraordinarily unpredictable presidential campaign, made his decision official through an editorial posted on the Bloomberg View website.

Bloomberg wrote that a three-way race could lead to no one winning a majority of electoral votes, which would send the race to the Republican-controlled House of Representatives — and, therefore, to one of the GOP front-runners.

"That is not a risk I can take in good conscience," Bloomberg wrote.

Bloomberg was blistering in his critique of Trump, currently the GOP front-runner, saying the real estate mogul has run "the most divisive and demagogic presidential campaign I can remember, preying on people's prejudices and fears."

He was similarly critical of Cruz, saying the Texas senator's "pandering on immigration may lack Trump's rhetorical excess, but it is no less extreme."

Bloomberg acknowledged that he and Trump had been on "friendly terms" and that he had twice agreed to be on Trump's reality TV show "The Apprentice." But the former mayor said Trump's campaign "appeals to our worst impulses."

"We cannot 'make America great again' by turning our backs on the values that made us the world's greatest nation in the first place," Bloomberg wrote. "I love our country too much to play a role in electing a candidate who would weaken our unity and darken our future — and so I will not enter the race for president of the United States."

Bloomberg made only an oblique reference to Democrats Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders and did not endorse a candidate.

The former three-term mayor — who had indicated he would spend $1 billion of his own money on the campaign — had set a mid-March deadline for his team of advisers to assess the feasibility of mounting a run, believing that waiting longer would imperil his ability to complete the petition process needed to get on the ballots in all 50 states.

He had taken some initial steps, cutting a mock TV ad, preparing to open campaign offices in Texas and North Carolina — states with early ballot access deadlines — and having aides begin to vet possible vice presidential candidates, including Michael Mullen, the retired admiral and former head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Those close to the process said Bloomberg had believed the dominance of Trump among Republicans and the rise of Sanders amid Democrats had opened a centrist lane for a non-ideological, pragmatic campaign. But Clinton's string of recent victories has given her a firm grip on the lead for the Democratic nomination and is blocking Bloomberg's possible path, aides to the mayor said.

The decision concludes Bloomberg's third and likely final flirtation with a White House run, a possibility that had grown popular among New York's business class and, the mayor's aides had believed, could have resonated with moderates and independents across the nation.

Aides to Bloomberg, the 74-year-old Democrat-turned-Republican-turned-Democrat-turned-independent, have said their own polling suggested that Bloomberg had a viable path to the needed 270 electoral votes if Trump and Sanders were the nominees.

But as Clinton surged, Bloomberg — known largely outside New York for his crusades against guns and Big Soda, positions likely unpopular with Republicans nationwide — grew worried that he would siphon more support from her than Trump, ensuring that part of the mayor's carefully managed legacy would be that he helped give Trump the White House.

If Clinton won the Democratic nomination, Bloomberg's aides believed he had enough support to send the race to the House — but not to win there.

One of the richest people in the United States, estimated to be worth $38 billion, Bloomberg has previously toyed with presidential runs, but concluded ahead of the 2008 and 2012 campaigns he could not win.

The founder of the financial news and information provider Bloomberg LP, he was a political novice when he launched an unlikely bid for mayor in 2001.

He is largely a social liberal — he fought for same-sex marriage in New York and is pro-abortion rights — and implemented a number of health reforms in New York City, banning smoking in public places and instituting calorie counts on menus.

He has also become one of the nation's most vocal proponents of gun control, using his fortune to bankroll candidates across the country who clash with the National Rifle Association. But liberals have found fault with his cozy ties to Wall Street and his unquestioned support for the New York Police Department, which drove down crime during his tenure but engaged in tactics that a federal judge later ruled discriminated against minorities.

After leaving office, he returned to running his company, which posted $9 billion in revenue last year, and continues to run his foundation. He gave away more than $500 million in 2015.

___

Associated Press writer Julie Pace in Washington contributed to this report.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Why Michael Bloomberg decided not to run for president
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2016/0307/Why-Michael-Bloomberg-decided-not-to-run-for-president
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe