Bloomberg has turn in crosshairs
Fellow Democrats slam his race record, funding
WASHINGTON — Democratic presidential candidates hoping to revive their flagging campaigns increasingly took aim at Mike Bloomberg on Thursday, blasting their billionaire rival for trying to buy his way into the White House and raising questions about his commitment to racial equality.
Struggling to recover from poor showings in the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary, Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden took the lead in attacking Bloomberg. Biden, the former vice president, said on ABC’S “The View” that “I don’t think you can buy an election,” while Warren took Bloomberg to task for his 2008 comments that ending redlining, a discriminatory housing practice, helped trigger the economic meltdown.
Biden and billionaire Tom Steyer also joined forces in slamming Bernie Sanders after the Vermont senator and self-described democratic socialist won New Hampshire and essentially tied for the lead in Iowa with Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana. Biden said Sanders hadn’t done enough to explain how he’d pay for his “Medicare for All” proposal to replace private insurance with a government-run program. Steyer said that “refusal to tell us how he will pay for his plan adds unnecessary financial risk to achieving health care as a right for every person.”
Voters, Steyer said, “should have all the facts.”
The sniping reflects the remarkably fluid state of the Democratic race even after two states that typically winnow presidential fields have already voted. The White
House hopefuls are trying to blunt Bloomberg, who gained attention by flooding the national airwaves with hundreds of millions of dollars in advertisements and is on the verge of being admitted into next week’s presidential debate. And the lagging candidates are trying to prove that they still have the mettle to stay in the race, even if their path is becoming increasingly difficult.
Biden said Bloomberg will have to defend his record on the debate stage, and he said he doubted there would be a contested convention.
“The advantage I have is I’ve been vetted and vetted and vetted and vetted again,” he said at a New York fundraiser on Thursday. “They’re just starting on Mike.”
As the candidates fight, Bloomberg has tried to appear above the fray, mostly maintaining his focus on the delegate-rich swath of states that vote on March 3. He spent part of Thursday campaigning in North Carolina, where he didn’t respond to any of his Democratic rivals’ attacks.
Elsewhere on the 2020 campaign trail:
Warren said she has raised about $6 million from online donors since last week’s first-in-thenation caucuses, fueled by people who want to see her stay in the
2020 race despite underwhelming performances in Iowa and New Hampshire.
The Massachusetts senator said Thursday that she had spoken to Senate colleagues about the primary and that “right now, it’s wide open.”
“There’s a lot of froth. It’s going to be a long process,” Warren said during an interview in the hallways of the Senate.
Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh drew bipartisan criticism Thursday for saying the U.S. will not elect Buttigieg president because he has been “kissing his husband” on stage following debates.
Limbaugh’s comments came eight days after President Donald Trump awarded him the nation’s top civilian honor during the State of the Union address.
Limbaugh, who recently announced he has advanced lung cancer, made the remarks on his nationally syndicated radio show.
Pro-trump groups raised more than $60 million in January and have more than $200 million on hand for this year’s general election, shattering fundraising records on the path toward a goal of raising $1 billion this cycle.
The Republican National Committee and the president’s campaign have raised more than $525 million since the start of 2019 together with two joint-fundraising committees. The RNC and the Trump campaign provided the figures.