The New York Times reports that billionaire and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg plans to file as a candidate in the Democratic presidential primary race.
In Alabama.
Bloomberg’s plan is to skip the first four contests in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada in order to compete in Alabama during Super Tuesday on March 3, 2020.
One can assume if this report is accurate he will file in additional states as well.
I honestly don’t know what he thinks his path to victory is missing the first four contests and likely all of the debates. One advantage Bloomberg has compared to all of the candidates minus Tom Steyer is that he can self-fund his campaign.
Bloomberg’s addition to the race won’t help bring the field closer to the center, in fact, of all of the candidates he would be the candidate with the worst record of statism.
A national ban on Big Gulps anyone? He is absolutely dismal on gun rights.
Worse yet, he’ll join the race with a record that is more abysmal than Beto O’Rourke’s rhetoric threatening to infringe on religious liberty.
As mayor in 2012, Bloomberg closed down worship services that met in New York’s public schools impacting at least 57 different congregations.
A Journey Through New York City Religions reported:
“Separation of church and state is one of the basics of our country…The more religious you are, I think the more you should want to keep the separation because someday the religion that the state picks as the ‘state religion’ might not be yours. The way to solve that is to not have a state religion,” said the mayor.
Bloomberg also said he dismissed religious freedom concerns by legislators in Albany. “I don’t know what’s going to happen in Albany. I can just tell you what’s happening here. This is the last Sunday that these religious organizations will be able to have worship services in the schools. We’re not trying to take away their ability to use public property for other kinds of activities. But where they have services, and a cynic would say, ‘How would you define what a service is,’ but that not withstanding, the courts have ruled…that there are real constitutional concerns here. I have real concerns,” he said.
This move was reversed by current New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio.
Bloomberg’s addition to the Democratic presidential field will throw gas on their collective dumpster fire of positions concerning religious liberty.