Bloomberg for President trial balloons continue surfacing. His calls for "leadership" seem to be a combination of self-promotion and yet another, softer racist attack on Obama.
Bloomberg's gave a speech Wednesday about the economy. His suggestions were either things Obama is already doing or just banal mush.
Bloomberg's real message is just a bad argument, essentially Vaporware: 'I am a Billionaire so I must be a Leader and Barrack Obama isn't."
The coded subtext seems to be - 'by the way, if you hate him because he's African-American, don't say that - just say "he isn't a leader" and avoid mentioning any facts.' Wink, wink.
- Maybe I'm going too far, but Bloomberg's criticism of Obama as lacking "leadership" seems precisely calibrated to remind us of things like Al Campanis' remark that African-Americans "may not have some of the necessities" need to be a general manager of a baseball team. 'Nightline' excerpt from 1987. And the all-too frequent little editorials in the MSM and glib comments on Morning Joe just add to this rhetorical wave.
- Bloomberg is certainly not above using Lee Atwater-like racist attacks to win elections, provided they come from his surrogates and not himself. Last fall former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani claimed that electing Bloomberg's opponent (Bill Thompson - an African-American) risked returning NYC to the 'dark old days' of David Dinkins. NY Daily News Story Dinkins was NYC's first African American Mayor.
Not only was Giuliani's attack a barely veiled racist attack, it was also wrong in its assessment of Dinkins. Dinkins actually reduced crime, unlike his predecessors as Mayor (Koch, Beame, Lindsay, Wagner). Dinkins started the pilot programs that led to "community policing". "Commnuity policing" is often credited with the dramatic decline in crime in NYC and other cities.
- And last fall Bloomberg funded a Republican consultant with a record as a vote suppressor. The Nation's blog story on John Hagerty
The rest of Bloomberg's speech was nothing new: 1) Instill confidence, 2) promote trade, 3) reform regulations, 4) cut business taxes, 5) invest in job training and 6) fix immigration. Huffinton Post report on Bloomberg's speech
- Obama has already put forward proposals for most of the above. Bloomberg's complaints about corporate taxes (now just 5% of corporate profits) and government regulation are just knee-jerk anti-big government appeals with no substance.
- And what does Bloomberg leave out? Bloomberg leaves out any call for real Financial Reform. As noted in the New Yorker last month, Banking now accounts for 37% of US Coporate Profits (up from 10% twenty years ago). Bloomberg's business is estimated to earn $2 Billion a year from Wall Street. Bloomberg is a Wall Street Republican.
- So Bloomberg's image as an "Independent" is just marketing. He claims not to be a politician, yet he bought a $100 million political campaign.
- Finally while Bloomberg claims to be a moderate, his criticisms of Obama as not being a "leader" seem designed to be a gentler, country club version of the right wing hate speech denouncing Obama as a "socialist" and "anti-business" and, again, without any asserting any facts.
Bloomberg's message seems calculated to provide one more racist code word for people to lean on when voting in 2012. His record of letting surrogates use racist tactics does nothing to dispel this impression.
- Obama is a leader. This week, he angered me. His stimulus, despite being knee-capped by Mitch McConell kept the economy from disappearing (though I think Bush and Obama gave the banks too much for free); he saved the jobs at the big auto companies, he fired an insubordinate, arrogant, stupid general in the middle of a lousy war he didn't start, he got 50 million people health care. Obama is a leader.
Bloomberg says he's not running, but watch out America, Bloomberg says all sorts of things and then reverses course when expedient.