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Putting Russian Collusion and the Horror of Money in Politics in Context
This morning, Sean Davis of The Federalist provided the best take I’ve seen on Michael Bloomberg’s failed presidential run.
If only Bloomberg had hired Russians to buy $100,000 in barely literate Facebook ads, instead of spending $700 MILLION, he’d be president now. That’s what the media have told us for 3+ years.
— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) March 4, 2020
Ricochet’s own Mollie Hemingway made the same point this afternoon on Fox News’ “Special Report With Bret Baier.”
.@MZHemingway: "I think it is interesting that Bloomberg is out. We had years where people were saying a couple hundred thousand dollars and barely literate Facebook ads from Russians caused Donald Trump to win. Here you had a guy spend nearly $1 billion and he went nowhere." pic.twitter.com/jW6Q8Bo5Wp
— The Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) March 4, 2020
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Published in General
They were all hoping nobody noticed that. It’s so funny to me that the Inner Circle were probably behind Bloomberg’s entering the race, and now the amount of money he spent will only throw cold water on their next impeachment plan of Russian interference.
The majority of the $100,000 was spent *after* the election. That it was a Russian state operation is still a ridiculous Hillary fever dream.
I saw that same analogy in a bunch of places this morning. Democrats will simply tell you that their hardcore primary voters are super-duper smart, and weren’t swayed/fooled by Bloomberg’s ad campaign, while general election Republican and swing voters are low-information morons who can be distracted by $5 in Russian bot advertising, or any other bright, shiny object.
OK, Tigerlily, you won tonight’s stone cold logic award.
I wonder what their excuse will be come November?
Well I just hope they’ll be in need of excuses come November.
This argument is just ridiculous.
First of all, we need a fact check. The NY Post reports that Bloomberg spent just $550 million (here), and Fox says about $500 million (here). How does this all of a sudden expand to “$700 MILLION” and “nearly $1 billion.” What reprehensible exaggeration.
Bloomberg ending up spending just $324 per vote, per the NY Post. I think that Steyer spent about $400 per vote in SC. So Bloomberg’s spending was obviously effective. His only mistake was to fail to spend more. If he’d spent $1.5 billion, he probably would have won. What a cheapskate.
Second, the comparison to the Russian interference in the 2016 election is hogwash. Apples and oranges. The Russians were trying to influence Trump voters, and everyone knows that those folks are credulous rubes. They can be manipulated as easily as you can trick a puppy into a box with a piece of hot dog. (Oh, they’re inbred, too, and racist, and have big gaps in their teeth like a hockey player, except they’re too fat and pathetic to have ever played hockey, not that there’s anything good or manly about hockey, it’s a white trash sport, except when played by women, which is totally empowering to watch.)
Bloomberg was trying to influence young, educated, forward-thinking Progressives. It is very difficult to influence these people, because they are soooo smart, and have thought everything through flawlessly, and are moral paragons who could not possibly be misled. Oh, and they’re really diverse, too, so their votes can’t be bought like those white Republican sell-outs.
[Sarcasm off — just in case you didn’t pick up on it, which seems quite unlikely.]
Good post, actually (though I think that they were exaggerating Bloomberg’s spending a bit).
Guys like Bloomberg do not spend their own money much. They tend to play with others. It would be interesting to see who pushed that much money at Bloomberg. Decisions that bad usually require the government.
Yes. It took me a few seconds, but I did eventually catch on.