Bloomberg Crashes the Party
Does He Deserve an Invite?
By Scott Adams
Michael Bloomberg’s $34 million ad purchase and presidential campaign announcement received the treatment expected of someone who crashes a party late in the night. His entry united moderate and progressive candidates who have been toiling away for months on the campaign trail. They uniformly dismissed his attempt to come in at the last minute and use his massive wealth to buy the election.
Bloomberg’s initial strategy makes sense. Ignore the early states where ground operations are critical and avoid those states’ already saturated media markets. His first ad focuses on his mayoral record, gun control and climate activism and business leadership, hits President Trump hard and offers a positive vision — https://host2.advertisinganalyticsllc.com/admo/#/view/1700871. It may be too much of the kitchen sink, but it sets him up for an outsider, media heavy campaign.
His problem is a very skeptical Democratic Primary and Caucus electorate. He kicked off his campaign by travelling to Brooklyn and apologizing for his racial profiling Stop and Frisk policy as New York City Mayor.
Bloomberg, citing Senator Pat Toomey’s leadership on background checks, gave $11.7 million in 2016 to help re-elect the Republican Senator over Katie McGinty his Democratic challenger and a well credentialed environmental expert. For the record, when I was a staffer for Senator Paul Wellstone, I once worked with Katie on the filibuster to stop the 1991 Energy Bill. McGinty would lose by less than 2 points, giving Mitch McConnell a critical hold in retaining the Senate.
It’s easy for Bloomberg to find media consultants, who would say no to a contract including hundreds of millions in media buys? But it’s much harder to build a field campaign, especially when you are competing against staffed up and seasoned operations. Money cannot buy an overnight field operation.
What can Bloomberg do to quickly restore trust with Democrats and gain support? Bloomberg needs to establish himself as the most electable Democrat who can beat Trump. He would be well served to invest heavily in media and digital ads in battleground states: Arizona, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina, Florida and heck, he’s got the cash, even Texas.
If a heavy investment in these states, where other candidates are smartly holding their powder, shows Bloomberg climbing, and beating his Democratic opponents in the all important, Electoral College swing state, head to head match up against Trump, he may have a shot at gaining trust…and support.
There is no downside if Bloomberg were to go with a large media buy in swing states. He could relentlessly challenge the President and drive a wedge into Trump’s support. Trump is already going big with digital media buys in these states. Every Democrat should welcome Bloomberg’s ability to drown out Trump before the Democratic nomination is decided. He might not win the nomination, but he gets to pound the President with heavy media artillery, something that the media obsessed President would notice.
Bloomberg’s entry deserves an invite to the Party. It’s a win-win for Democrats.
Scott Adams is Executive Creative Director of Pollie Award Winning Green Alley Strategies www.greenalleystrategies.com.
