The Democratic candidates for the presidency of the United States saw Michael Bloomberg come three months ago and this Wednesday they finally had him in front to debate face to face with him in front of millions of spectators. It was hard. The New York tycoon has gone from not being in the race to appear third in the polls and threaten the distribution of delegates who will elect the nominee in July. This Wednesday, in Las Vegas, Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and former Vice President Joe Biden lashed out at Bloomberg, a 78-year-old man as famous as controversial to Democrats.
The billionaire ex-mayor of New York has spent more than 300 million dollars to buy advertising spaces throughout the country and despite entering the last race, he has managed to enter enough polls to take the stage of the ninth Democratic debate. Senator Amy Klobuchar said: "It's good that Bloomberg is on this stage because here you can't hide behind television commercials." One of those announcements was issued minutes before the debate on NBC. The first quarter of an hour was surely the debate with more energy and personal confrontations of all those held so far.
The other five candidates made it very clear to the tycoon that he is not welcome in this race. In the minute one asked Bernie Sanders what he thought of Bloomberg's candidacy. "To win Donald Trump we need the greatest participation in history," said the senator, currently leading the way in all polls. This mobilization is not achieved, he said, with someone who, as mayor of New York, attacked minorities such as blacks and Latinos with special harshness, which he held responsible for the city's crime figures. A minute of debate had passed and the magnate's controversial resume was already on the table.
The former mayor defended himself by apologizing for the effects of those policies (basically, he sent police to minority neighborhoods with permission to 'stop and frisk' anyone in the street). They did not accept it. It's about the intention, not if it went right or wrong, Warren criticized him. The candidates stayed one step away from pronouncing the word racism.
Senator Elizabeth Warren, after disappointing results in Iowa and New Hampshire where she was supposed to have her natural audience, had her best debate so far. “I want to say who we stand against. A millionaire who calls old fat and lesbian women with a horse face, and I'm not talking about Donald Trump, I'm talking about Mayor Bloomberg. ” It was his first intervention. "We are not going to replace one millionaire with another."
Later, Warren directly asked the tycoon for cases of harassment and abuse of which he has been accused as an entrepreneur and that were resolved with confidentiality agreements. Warren asked him how many they were and if he planned to release women from those agreements so they could tell their version. These cases are limited to “women who did not like a joke,” said Bloomberg, reinforcing the image that Warren wanted to give him. The moderators allowed Warren to insist as a television prosecutor. It was the 46th minute of the debate. Bloomberg refused to release women from those confidentiality agreements and said it would be unfair to the parties that signed them. Boos among the public were heard for the first and only time.
The debate there were blocks dedicated to climate change and, again, an ignited exchange on the different plans to expand public health to all Americans. But the importance of the debate had become clear. As mayor, Bloomberg instituted discriminatory policies against minorities. As an entrepreneur, he covered accusations of abuse at work. As a candidate, he does not believe in progressive policies and also does not plan to teach his taxes. The goal seemed to be to stop Bloomberg right there in that scenario. Tonight. Once and for all.
Analysts with experience in New York politics have been warning for weeks that Bloomberg is not a man to debate. It transmits arrogance and loses temper with ease. This Wednesday were traces of that personality. At one point he called Sanders "communist." When they put him in the face of not showing his tax return he said it was a "ridiculous" debate.
The debate was held in Las Vegas, four days from Nevada's primary on Saturday. Bloomberg doesn't even appear on the ballots in Nevada. His campaign has skipped the four states where campaigns are traditionally tested, Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina, to focus on the large states where most delegates are distributed, such as California, Texas, New York, Florida , Pennsylvania and Illinois. California and Texas vote next March 3 in the so-called super Tuesday . That will be the first real measure of Bloomberg's possibilities. The rest of the candidates made sure in Las Vegas that I came to that test stripped of any progressive credential.
