Bloomberg’s bid for the White House
Michael Bloomberg has the cash and the clout to challenge Donald Trump for president – but his manners leave much to be desired
HE’S a brash, bombastic billionaire who doesn’t hold back from letting everyone know exactly what’s on his mind. And it doesn’t seem to bug Michael Bloomberg one bit that his politically incorrect utterances often have people baying for his blood.
In other presidential races this approach might have proved career suicide – but it could be just the ticket should he go up against President Donald Trump in the upcoming US election.
Some commentators say right now Bloomberg (78), a media mogul and former mayor of New York, is probably the only candidate who can give Trump (73) a run for his money.
And that’s largely because, like the outspoken president, he doesn’t sugarcoat things. In fact, some of the comments he’s made over the years – such as referring to a member of the British royal family as “a horsey-faced lesbian”, describing women as “fat broads” and
“pieces of meat” and talking about transgender people as “he, she or it” – are outrageous enough to make even Trump blush.
It also doesn’t hurt that, like Trump, he’s stinking rich. With an estimated fortune of $53 billion (R795bn), Bloomberg is the 12th richest man in the world, so instead of relying on donations from sponsors, he’s able to finance his own presidential bid.
Ten weeks into his campaign he’d already splurged a record $464 million (R6,9bn) – most of which has been spent on advertising.
These days it’s impossible for Americans to turn on their TVs and not see him. But this had led to many critics questioning whether he’s actually running the race – or just going all out to buy it.
FOR Bloomberg it’s just about doing whatever it takes to get ahead. It was this attitude that allowed him to go from humble beginnings growing up in a middle-class Jewish family in Medford, a suburban town near Boston, to become the head of one of the world’s biggest media companies.
After graduating from Harvard in 1966 with a business degree, he worked his way up the ladder at Wall Street investment bank Salomon Brothers, eventually becoming a partner.
When the firm was bought out, he scored a multimillion dollar payday. Spotting a gap in the sector he launched a company that aimed to provide real-time market data and analysis to Wall Street traders.
Today with more than 20 000 employees, Bloomberg LP is a giant in the field.
But over the years the company has come in for plenty of criticism, with some claiming that Bloomberg ran it like a fraternity and subjected female staff to constant abuse.
In 1988 Sekiko Sakai Garrison sued him for discrimination, claiming that after she told him she was pregnant, he responded by saying, “Kill it!” She also accused him of repeatedly making disparaging comments about her sexual desirability.
She eventually reached a confidential
settlement with Bloomberg, but since then others have spoken out.
In 1990 as he celebrated his 48th birthday his employees marked the occasion by giving him a 32-page booklet containing his most colourful remarks, including one about the royal family.
“What a bunch of misfits – a gay, an architect, that horsey-faced lesbian, and a kid who gave up [actress] Koo Stark for some fat broad,” he’s alleged to have said, apparently in reference to Prince Edward, Prince Charles, Princess Anne and Prince Andrew.
Another flippant quote revealed his belief that women enjoy being sexually harassed. But to many employees it was no laughing matter. In 1996 Mary Ann Olszewski sued the company for failing to take steps “to prevent or curtail the ongoing sexual harassment of female employees by Michael Bloomberg”.
She revealed that her boss often referred to women as “pieces of meat” and claimed it was this culture that resulted in her being raped by a supervisor.
All of this was rehashed when Bloomberg ran for mayor of New York in 2001, but it didn’t stop him winning.
Neither did the fact that for his entire life he’d been a committed Democrat, but before the mayoral race he abruptly morphed into a Republican because it gave him a better chance of winning.
After he won he got stuck in, helping to rebuild the city after the 911 attacks – and he did such a good job he succeeded in securing another two terms.
He came in for some criticism for his vocal support of the police department’s “stop-and-frisk” policy that disproportionately targeted black and Latino men. And yet he remained unapologetic.
“The way you get the guns out of the kids’ hands is to throw them up against the wall and frisk them,” he insisted.
AFTER serving out the rest of his mayoral stint as an independent candidate, in 2018 Bloombe rg flick-flacked back to the Democrats as he prepared to launch his presidential bid.
Despite his return to the fold, his approach to the race has been anything but conventional. After waiting until November to declare his candidacy he’s chosen to sit on the sidelines, skipping the first eight presidential debates, which saw rival Democrats Bernie Sanders (the current favourite), former vice-president Joe Biden and senator Elizabeth Warren thrashing out the big issues.
Instead Bloomberg has preferred to let his money do the talking with an expensive ad campaign that presents him as a take-charge, no-nonsense statesman.
He’s vowed to introduce more stringent firearm laws and address climate issues by rejoining the international climate agreement that Trump plans to exit. And it seems to have been working for him – a national poll recently put him in second place in the race behind Sanders.
However, when he recently took part in the ninth debate in Nevada he appeared hopelessly out of his depth. Just seconds into the debate Warren launched a blistering attack.
“I’d like to talk about who we’re running against,” the senator said. “A billionaire who calls women fat broads and horsefaced lesbians, and no, I’m not talking about Donald Trump, I’m talking about Mayor Bloomberg.”
The bi l lionaire seemed flummoxed as she began interrogating him about the claims of sexual harassment that have been brought against him by former employees. “None of them accuse me of doing anything other than, maybe, they didn’t like a joke I told,” he said, to audible groans from the audience.
Trump didn’t waste any time gloating about Bloomberg’s performance. The pair used to be friends but since Trump became president the friendship has cooled – and Bloomberg’s campaign, which has seen him mocking Trump by claiming he cheats at golf and eats burnt steak, hasn’t helped matters.
After the Nevada debate the president had a field day, belittling Bloomberg by referring to him as “Mini Mike” because at 1,73m he’s shorter than the other candidates.
“Mini Mike Bloomberg’s debate performance tonight was perhaps the worst in the history of debates, and there have been some really bad ones,” he tweeted.
But Trump seems to have conveniently forgotten how his own performance in debates was panned in the 2016 race – and look where he is now.