Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Bloomberg looks ahead to Florida
With the contest for the Democratic presidential nomination looking more and more like a contest between Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden, Mike Bloomberg campaigned in Florida as Super Tuesday voters went to the polls.
Bloomberg said he has “no intention” of dropping out.
“Winning in November starts with Florida,” Bloomberg said Tuesday evening in West Palm Beach. “If I’m the nominee, let me make you this promise: We will beat Donald Trump here in Florida and in swing states throughout the country.”
Bloomberg spoke as results were coming in from 14 states and one U.S. territory with primaries on
Tuesday. The crowd of several hundred, fueled by Bloomberg-bought hors d’oeuvres and wine, burst into applause about 7:45 p.m. when MSNBC and CNN declared him the winner of American Samoa, which awards six delegates. It takes 1,991 to win the Democratic nomination.
After news channels said Biden and Sanders had won a few of states, Bloomberg took to the stage and asserted a victory of sorts: “As the results come in, here’s what is clear: No matter how many delegates we win tonight, we have done something no one else thought was possible. In just three months we have gone from 1% in the polls to a contender for the Democratic nomination.”
Earlier Tuesday, Bloomberg acknowledged at a campaign stop in Miami’s Little Havana that the only way he can win the Democratic nomination is at a contested convention, which would happen if no candidate wins a majority of the party’s delegates.
Bloomberg was testy with reporters who asked if he’s considered joining other moderate candidates in dropping out to build support for Biden. “Joe’s taking votes away from me. … Have you asked Joe when he’s going to drop out? When you ask him that, then you can call me.”
Later Bloomberg visited Orlando, where he was endorsed by Mayor Buddy Dyer. His campaign has said he’ll be back in the state on Friday and Saturday but hasn’t announced a schedule. Early voting for the primary on March 17 begins in Broward and Palm Beach counties on Saturday; it began Monday in Miami-Dade County.
Bloomberg has spent $500 million of his $60 billion fortune on the campaign so far. He skipped the four early states in the presidential nominating process, and Tuesday was the first time the former New York mayor was on any ballots as a presidential candidate.
In Florida, he has 14 field offices and the campaign says it has more than 150 staffers in the state. He has several South Florida endorsements, including U.S Rep. Ted Deutch, who represents Broward and Palm Beach counties, Mayors Scott Brook of Coral Springs and Keith James of West Palm Beach, and County Tax Collector Anne Gannon and Commissioner Melissa McKinlay of Palm Beach County.
Biden has amassed many supporters in Florida, and the prospect of Sanders as the party’s nominee has many Democrats uneasy about the general election. Florida awards 29 of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency.
Bloomberg said in Miami he could win Florida by attracting independents and moderate Republicans. Sanders can’t win the Sunshine State, he said. “We will not win Florida with a candidate who sings the praises of Fidel Castro and downplays the atrocities committed in Cuba,” he said. “The senator’s comments [about Castro’s Cuba] would be toxic for Democrats up and down the ballot in November.”
Bloomberg’s message is simple, he told the crowd in West Palm Beach.
“I am running to beat Donald Trump and to start rebuilding our country and to start getting things done. And I mean big, important things like stopping gun violence and fighting climate change and finally achieving affordable health coverage for all Americans,” he said.
Shelly Pilchik, a Boca Raton retiree, said she hopes people will see that “Bloomberg is a great candidate.”
Heidi Shore, a massage therapist from Boynton Beach, said she was a little disappointed in Bloomberg’s nine-minute speech. “I didn’t get enough out of him,” she said. “I thought I’d hear more.”
Bloomberg was introduced by a prominent New Yorker, TV’s “Judge Judy” Sheindlin, who described him as “a manager, a leader, someone who has governed with grace” who is “a genius.”
The crowd cheered Bloomberg’s mocking of Trump’s Twitter obsession. “I believe we need less talk, less partisanship, less division, less tweeting. In fact, how about no tweeting from the Oval Office ever again.”
Bloomberg said he wasn’t like the other prominent New Yorker — Trump — who visits South Florida in the winter. Unlike Trump, Bloomberg said, he wasn’t in the area to play golf “or to reveal classified information to Mar-a-Lago members.”
Other one-liners: “Donald Trump, the other day he called me short. I said ‘Donald, where I come from, we measure people from the neck up.’” And alluding to his own disastrous debut on the presidential debate stage, Bloomberg suggested it wasn’t so important. “We need a leader who is ready to be commander in chief, not college debater in chief.”
Outside, about 100 supporters of President Trump lined up on Okeechobee Boulevard, outside the Palm Beach County Convention Center, waving flags and cheering for afternoon rushhour traffic.
Mike Barnett, chairman of the Palm Beach County Republican Party, said he was there “primarily to show support for the president,” and secondarily to assert Bloomberg isn’t suitable for the presidency.
Still, Barnett said, Bloomberg isn’t the worst possible Democrat in his view. “There could be a worse Democrat. Bernie Sanders could possibly be the worst of the bunch. But Bloomberg isn’t much better.”
“Mike Bloomberg has got a lot of explaining to do. He can’t hide behind his advertisements,” Barnett said, singling him out for “the disgusting, racist things that he’s said. The way he’s treated women.” He cited the former New York mayor’s past support for the stop-and-frisk policy that disproportionally affected black and Hispanic New Yorkers and offensive comments he’s made about women.
Trump himself has supported stop-and-frisk and has a record of comments, including the infamous Access Hollywood tape in which he boasted about being able to grab women, that are offensive.
Ultimately, Barnett said, Trump would win Florida regardless of who the Democrats nominate. “We believe in Florida, he’s going to achieve a victory that’s going to be a hard-fought victory, but a victory.”