If Michael Bloomberg is serious about running for president in 2020, he’s going to have to find a better way of answering questions about his support for “stop-and-frisk” policing.
Bloomberg’s increasingly serious flirtation with the Democratic presidential race took a new step on Monday with the publication of an op-ed in the Des Moines Register about climate change titled, “Why I’m coming to Iowa.”
If the headline weren’t a clear enough signal, his piece concludes with, “A recent op-ed in the Des Moines Register called for aspiring presidential candidates to present a bold vision for taking on climate change. I couldn’t agree more: We need stronger leadership in Washington on this issue.”
Bloomberg’s position on issues such as climate change and gun control put him in the mainstream of opinion within the Democratic Party, but it’s hard to see how his record as New York mayor won’t put him at odds with a primary electorate that’s increasingly concerned with the topic of racial bias in policing.
A lifelong Democrat, Bloomberg ran as mayor as a Republican in 2001 because there was a clearer path to the nomination for a self-funded candidate. Though he broke with Republicans on a number of issues, one area where he did not was when it came to law and order issues, on which he tried to assure the electorate that he would continue many of the anti-crime policies put in place by predecessor Rudy Giuliani.
During his time in office, the stop-and-frisk practice under which police would pat down, question, or briefly detain individuals whom they found suspicious rose dramatically, and it came to be widely controversial because it disproportionately targeted young blacks and Hispanic men.
In a poll taken shortly before he left office, just 28 percent of black New Yorkers supported the practice, and Bloomberg’s overall approval rating among the group was just 38 percent.
Bloomberg, for his part, was and remains a passionate defender of the practice.
In 2013, he wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post titled, “‘Stop and frisk’ keeps New York safe.” It contains lines that one would expect to hear more at a Trump rally than in a Democratic primary speech.
“Ninety percent of all people killed in our city — and 90 percent of all those who commit the murders and other violent crimes — are black and Hispanic,” he wrote. “It is shameful that so many elected officials and editorial writers have been largely silent on these facts.”
It also included the line, “When it comes to policing, political correctness is deadly.”
Should Bloomberg gain any traction in a Democratic primary, his rivals will most assuredly trot out quotes such as this, as well as many similar statements in interviews and press conference over the years.
But as he contemplates his candidacy, he seems to not recognize what an obstacle this will prove for him.
In a September New York Times interview, Bloomberg was dismissive of civil rights criticisms of the stop-and-frisk policy. “I think people, the voters, want low crime,” he said. “They don’t want kids to kill each other.”
This is likely to be viewed as a straw man among Democrats, particularly since the phasing out of stop-and-frisk under his successor, Mayor Bill DeBlasio, has not been accompanied by a surge in crime.
Given how significant a part of the Democratic primary electorate is made up of black voters and those who sympathize with their concerns, such obtuseness could derail his candidacy. This is especially true given that Democratic voters will not be scrambling for choices of candidates who share Bloomberg’s passion on issues such as gun control and climate change — but who don’t share his opinion on law and order issues.
