Unliked Man Who Would Have Lost Nobly Declines to Run For President
With a heavy heart, local technocrat Michael Bloomberg has “announced” that he will not seek the presidency—because he can’t risk what his independent campaign might end up doing to the country (and also because he would not win).
In a gravitas-oozing post on the website of the media apparatus he named after himself, Bloomberg takes one for the team: He cannot (WILL NOT) risk cannibalizing potential Democratic votes that would not have actually gone toward him, if it would mean putting Donald Trump or Ted Cruz into the White House:
As the race stands now, with Republicans in charge of both Houses, there is a good chance that my candidacy could lead to the election of Donald Trump or Senator Ted Cruz. That is not a risk I can take in good conscience.
Wow. Picture the old bones of George Washington: Are they not weeping at this sacrifice?
Of course, in saying his campaign might “lead to the election” of other candidates, Bloomberg is basically conceding that he would not get enough votes to win a presidential election. Still, Mike is a man of faith: “I believe I could win a number of diverse states — but not enough to win the 270 Electoral College votes necessary to win the presidency.” Which states are these? We will not ever know.
The announcement entertains a second far-fetched hypothetical:
The fact is, even if I were to receive the most popular votes and the most electoral votes, victory would be highly unlikely, because most members of Congress would vote for their party’s nominee.
The odds that this would have happened: Zero, less than zero, not in a million years. The kind of man it takes to admit it in a dissembling, self-important blog that shines the hopelessness of reality through a prism of money and self-grandeur: Big.
Contact the author at biddle@gawker.com.
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