In a generally quiet holiday week on the presidential campaign trail, that rumbling you could hear in the distance was created by Michael Bloomberg.
The billionaire former mayor of New York formally entered the presidential race, proposing to start later and make up more ground to win the nomination than any candidate in recent history. He starts well back in the pack in national polls, and his opponents seemed split over whether to ignore him or label him an out-of-step opportunist.
The Bloomberg candidacy is built on the premise that the existing field is too weak to defeat President Trump and assumes he can upend conventional wisdom on how a nomination must be won. Specifically, his candidacy poses three broad questions, the answers to which will determine his prospects:
- Can you ignore the early formalities?
Various others candidates have wondered whether it is possible to skip the initial contests in Iowa and New Hampshire, and all the quirkiness those two states bring, and still prevail. Mr. Bloomberg is doing more than that: He is proposing to skip Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada and start a run to the nomination only when the race reaches the big batch of Super Tuesday primaries on March 3.
History hasn’t been kind to candidates who flatline in the early states. Mr. Bloomberg is betting that history won’t apply to him.
- How much does ideological purity matter?
Mr. Bloomberg is a former Republican running in a party where loyalty matters, and a moderate seeking the nomination in a year when there is high energy is on the party’s left.
Mr. Bloomberg’s run assumes that there is more energy in the party’s center than many suppose, that his progressive positions on gun control and climate change will go a long way to credential him, and that the ability to beat Mr. Trump is the credential that matters above all others this cycle.
- How much does money matter?
Mr. Bloomberg entered the race propelled by a national TV ad buy of more than $30 million, thereby surpassing in one stroke the combined ad buys so far of all other candidates, excluding fellow billionaire Tom Steyer.
That Bloomberg move represents not only a big investment, but a bet the nominating race can be turned into essentially a national primary. That bears some similarity to the approach taken by one previous candidate: Mr. Trump in 2016.
Write to Gerald F. Seib at jerry.seib@wsj.com
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November 30, 2019 at 12:01PM
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Bloomberg’s Entry Assumes He Can Upend Conventional Wisdom - The Wall Street Journal
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