What looks like populist fervor, can also be mental exhaustion. The voters who lived through 9/11 and the 2008 economic crisis are tired of would-be presidents who represent more of the same — incompetent leadership, and subservience to special interests.
“Bloomberg may or may not be a long shot. But his running would be good for the country. Maybe people aren’t tired of politicians, just bad ones.”
Bloomberg is a rich man. But he was also a competent, pragmatic mayor, and one who never pandered to the public. His money would help him get this message of competence out, but the message itself may be more important.
People are tired of toxic money. Bernie Sanders’s cracks against Hillary Clinton work because no onereally believes that Goldman Sachs thought Clinton’s speech-making prowess was worth $675,000.
In last week’s debate, Trump made a subtle point that voters can grasp: “I have the largest bank in the world as a tenant of mine,” he said. Just like Trump, Bloomberg has obvious ties to Wall Street, but not as Wall Street’s political servant. Rather, both men have been the banks’ equal – a big difference.
But people are tired of something else, too: incompetence. When it turns out that Clinton did the nation’s sensitive business from a server in her house, it doesn’t look only arrogant. It looks incompetent.
And Chris Christie might be doing much better if he could run as the governor hecould have been: The guy who made important infrastructure investments in his state, and did it well, rather than the governor who is sadly best known now for a corruption scandal that hurt critical infrastructure rather than helped it.
Here is Bloomberg’s real strength: He ran a complex, diverse city for 12 years, and he did it, for the most part, well. He diagnosed what New York needed – better infrastructure, more housing and more jobs – and he tried to get it for us, while keeping the city safe from gun-toting robbers and terrorists.
No, Bloomberg wasn’t a perfect mayor, and he wasn’t perfectly competent; as someone who covered him for 12 years, I know where he failed. But he did his best to diagnose and solve real problems without letting ideology or demagoguery govern instead.
Bloomberg’s competence was related to his financial resources. Mayor Bill de Blasio isn’t the most competent manager to begin with. But the fact that he’s a slave to his donors makes it harder for him to govern where it’s needed. His idea to reduce the number of horse carriages, for example, would eliminate hundreds of jobs and waste tens of millions in taxpayer money, for absolutely no reason – but it is a pet cause of his top patrons.
“Bloomberg wasn’t a perfect mayor... But he did his best to diagnose and solve real problems without letting ideology or demagoguery govern instead.”
Bloomberg may – or may not – be a long shot. But his running would be good for the country.
He has something that neither Sanders nor Trump has — 12 years having done the second-hardest government job in the nation. That makes him, by this point, a seasoned politician. But maybe people aren’t tired of politicians, but of badpoliticians.
This piece originally appeared in New York Times Room for Debate
This piece originally appeared in New York Times Room for Debate