Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg should listen more and talk less.
The 2020 Democratic primary candidate tried this week to convince an audience that he has what it takes to win over his competitors’ supporters. But in arguing for his candidacy, Bloomberg came across as even more aloof and elite than usual, which does not bode well for his chances of winning over, say, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’s blue-collar supporters.
At a town hall event hosted by CNN, a member of the audience asked Bloomberg specifically, “How do you plan to bridge the gap within the party and earn the votes of the most fervent supporters of some of your Democratic competitors?”
“Look at what we did in New York City,” the former mayor responded. “I got elected three times in New York City in an overwhelmingly Democratic-populace city, the biggest city in the country.”
He added, “And I can tell you what we did in terms of pulling people together. … And you do it by reaching out and I’ve always done that. My company’s 20,000 people, and we deal all over the world.”
This is the part where Bloomberg’s otherwise decent response falls apart.
“And [when] I walk down the street, everybody says, ‘Hello,’” he said. “I’m very popular in New York.”
“And I always walk,” he added. “If I walk into a building and there’s a doorman, I shake the doorman’s hand first. Why? Because that doorman cares that Mike Bloomberg said ‘hello’ to him … and that they go home and they say, ‘Yes, I’m personal friends with Mike. My friend Mike.’ And it’s just a way of giving people recognition and respect. And in the end, rich or poor, no matter your ethnicity, orientation, gender, whatever; we all want to have recognition and respect, and that’s exactly what I know how to do.”
Oh, boy, that’s condescending.
Look, I understand what Bloomberg is going for here, but he is wrong if he thinks it is the actor and not the act itself that people care about. People care that they are shown respect and recognition, not that it came from a relatively famous person. Take it from this 11-year veteran of the food service industry. If Bloomberg is kind to the staff because he believes his fame will brighten their day and not because he believes that is how people ought to be treated all the time, that is patronizing and maybe even a little offensive.
The former mayor’s remarks this week are almost as off-putting and out-of-touch as when his campaign ran billboards in Nevada and Arizona last week applauding the billionaire candidate for having better taste in steak and a better golf game than President Trump. I just hate it when members of the country club fight, don’t you?
Sanders is leading the 2020 Democratic primary for precisely the same reason that Trump did in the 2016 GOP primary: not just because he talks about protecting U.S. jobs and U.S. workers, but because he connects on a very basic level with the people whose jobs he promises to protect.
If the goal of Bloomberg’s pricey candidacy is to block the Democratic Party from nominating Sanders, it may be useful for the former mayor to study what it is, exactly, about the Vermont senator’s message and presentation that people like. The kind of person who finds Sanders’s message attractive is not likely to be swayed by a multibillionaire who claims his acknowledgment alone gives joy to the working stiffs. Bloomberg is going to have to listen a little harder if he wants to accomplish something in this election cycle beyond just burning through his own personal wealth.
