Picking Bloomberg could be a way for Dems to out-outsource Republicans
Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg at a campaign stop Saturday at Hardywood Park Craft Brewery in Richmond, Va. Credit: AP / James H. Wallace
Outsourcing in business means obtaining goods or services from an outside or offshore supplier instead of using an internal source.
For political parties, outsourcing could have an alternate meaning: reaching past internal candidates for a nominee who is arguably from outside the party in order to gain a competitive market edge.
In 2016, Republicans embraced a relatively recent member of the opposing party who trashed fiscal conservatism, "free trade," many party figures and American exceptionalism. ("You think our country's so innocent?" Donald Trump has said as president.)
Now his party effectively marches in lockstep under the Trump brand and no longer deplores the ever-yawning federal deficit or rails so hard against "excessive entitlements."
In 2020, Democrats get to consider the nomination of a relatively recent member of the GOP. Michael Bloomberg was a Democrat, then a Republican, then an independent, and due to circumstance and tactics, he has bought in to be a Democrat again.
Both New Yorkers, famous for wealth, offer the chosen party clients the same thing — a competitive edge against the other. Trump's advantage this time is the platform of incumbency, along with a dissent-free party.
In a man-to-man matchup between big business names, Bloomberg stands figuratively taller than Trump.
He's genuinely self-funded and is actually self-made. He establishes real charities, displays emotional intelligence in public and has a proven ability to actively oversee government operations.
Left-wing populists who support self-declared socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) are far from prepared to rally around Bloomberg the way right-wingers, and even extremists, boosted Trump.
Sanders isn't registered with the Democrats. While running as an independent, however, he has long caucused with the Democrats, and never supported Republicans for president, as Bloomberg did with George W. Bush in 2004.
Back in the 2000s, when Trump would contribute to Sen. Hillary Clinton, Bloomberg as New York City mayor helped bankroll the powerful Republicans then in control of the New York State Senate.
In 2012, Bloomberg endorsed and helped fund Massachusetts' Sen. Scott Brown in his failed reelection bid against Elizabeth Warren, the Democrat. Brown had vowed to oppose a National Rifle Association-promoted measure allowing people to carry concealed guns anywhere in the U.S. if they resided in a state that allowed it.
Warren, a onetime Republican who now has an anti-corporate agenda, is a particularly harsh critic of Bloomberg on the campaign trail.
Party philosophy seems to have never mattered much to Bloomberg. But party affiliation has, for tactical reasons.
To run for mayor in 2001, he jumped to the GOP because the Democratic primary looked prohibitive, and the Republican line — once a plausible fit for liberals — was relatively easy for him to secure.
Once elected, Bloomberg ditched one policy after another inherited from predecessor Giuliani. He shunned Giuliani's divisive rhetoric. As a kind of outside supplier, Bloomberg kept a measure of Republican clout alive in the city.
Bloomberg in his first term tried and failed to sell a referendum that would create nonpartisan municipal elections, which in an overwhelmingly Democratic city would help wealthy self-funding candidates.
Under the nation's two-party system, many Democrats will be sold on Bloomberg as offering a good deal for ousting Trump in November — even if it takes a little outsourcing. Upcoming primaries will determine which voters, and how many, wish to buy in.
Dan Janison is a member of the Newsday editorial board.
