I know you were all hoping for a two-billionaire Democratic debate, but money can’t buy everything.
Well, maybe Nevada. We’ll see.
Tom Steyer, who’s done pretty much everything short of purchasing Des Moines, did so poorly in Iowa and New Hampshire (Finished Behind Biden!) that he was banished from the debate stage on Wednesday.
Leaving us with Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg and Michael Bloomberg, the new kid on the block.
The new kid is 78. Let all the Democrats in America bow their heads and give thanks for Mayor Pete, who is single-handedly keeping the average age of the major presidential contenders under 70.
Bloomberg has been the target of ire for his spending on campaign ads. You can’t blame his opponents. It’s kind of like a class where everybody wants to be homecoming king or queen, only to discover the moody kid in the corner just bought the football team.
But at least he’s drawing the Democrats some attention. Very hard to focus on six relatively sane politicians when the president of the United States is pardoning some of the most unpardonable felons in the land.
Blago’s back! As the Democrats debate, Rod Blagojevich is setting up some new post-prison digs, all that silly business about having attempted to sell a Senate seat while he was governor completely forgotten.
You generally expect presidential pardons to go to people who’ve been making amends for their sins. Blagojevich said he regarded himself as a “freed political prisoner.” And President Trump — who doesn’t seem to regard tax evasion, political corruption or fraud as real crimes — hardly seemed concerned.
“He served eight years in jail. That’s a long time. And I watched his wife on television,” the president explained. Patti Blagojevich has been putting in some hard time on Fox News, pleading her man’s case. Perhaps she could inspire a remake of “Bonnie and Clyde” with a happy ending, in which Clyde is sprung from prison after Herbert Hoover hears Bonnie talking about him on the radio.
Also on Trump’s forgive-and-forget list: Michael Milken, the fabled junk bond king from the ’80s who had long since finished serving his sentence and gone back to enjoying his still-massive wealth.
Good news for the Democrats is that neither of their billionaires has a prison record. They’re just struggling to seem likable. Steyer has been campaigning like crazy in Nevada and South Carolina, telling the people his story in the most approachable way possible. “I started a business,” he says at the beginning of his speeches. It’s true, and definitely more populist than “I made a ton of money as a hedge fund trader.”
People, do you remember long ago, when everybody was impressed by millionaires? Back in the late ’50s there was a TV drama called “The Millionaire” in which a run-of-the-mill American was given a totally unexpected check for a million bucks, changing his or her life forever and usually discovering that money doesn’t buy happiness.
Just ancient history now. A million dollars is what you expect a 20-year-old yoga instructor to win for staying on the “Survivor” island longest. This season, in fact, the producers upped the ante to $2 million, clearly realizing the old prize was peanuts.
Pete Buttigieg frequently complains that he’s the only candidate onstage who isn’t worth a million dollars. This is true, although to be fair, Buttigieg is only 38. When Elizabeth Warren was his age, she was a college teacher. Amy Klobuchar had been elected attorney of Hennepin County, Minn. Bernie Sanders had a nonprofit business producing film strips on New England history and a record of losing races for senator and governor. Mayor Pete is going to have to come back and see us in 30 years if he wants to really get sympathy.
And what about Bloomberg? Given the fact that he was a partner at a major investment bank, it’s probably safe to say he was doing pretty darn well in his 30s. He did lose his job when he was about Buttigieg’s age, but guessing the $10 million severance helped stanch the pain.
Bloomberg’s top campaign strategist has been hinting, sort of broadly, that Biden, Buttigieg and Klobuchar ought to drop out of the race so Bloomberg can unite the non-left part of the party against Bernie Sanders. (“I don’t think many people understand the dire circumstances here.”)
You are probably not shocked that the Bloomberg forces failed to convince. Too bad the former mayor of New York isn’t married. Otherwise maybe his wife could go on TV and appeal for their support.
And now Nevada! Yes, on Saturday we have a hotly contested contest in — oh God — a caucus state. In pursuit of efficiency, Nevada bought the same kind of newfangled app that Iowa did. Now it’s tossed it out, but no one seems totally completely utterly sure how the backup plan is going to work out.
Why can’t the Democrats run their party like a, um, business? Let’s see if we can get Bloomberg to promise that if he doesn’t win the nomination, he’ll take over the D.N.C.
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