By James Laverty
While the political spotlight is shining on Iowa, the Mike Bloomberg presidential campaign is trying a different strategy, as evidenced by the visit to Lexington of Bloomberg’s partner, Dianne Taylor, last Thursday.
She told a crowd of about fifty people that the reason Bloomberg got in the race is because he felt there were no candidates in the field with the ability to defeat President Donald Trump in 2020.
“He thought about it really hard over a year ago, but he looked at the field and said, somebody in this field is going to be able to defeat Donald Trump, and as time went on that person did not emerge,” she said.
In 2016, Trump became one of the first candidates in a long time to visit the western part of Virginia. That attention to rural voters propelled him to his upset victory over Hillary Clinton. Taylor acknowledged Democrats need to win these voters back to retake the White House in 2020.
“Every American counts, not just those voting in the first four states” said Bloomberg national spokesperson Erin McPike.
Bloomberg is focusing on Super Tuesday while ignoring the first four voting states, a strategy never seen before. McPike said “we think there is going to be a muddled result after the first four states.” Taylor told those in attendance that only three percent of delegates are selected in the first four voting states.
While Bloomberg is focusing on Super Tuesday states, he is also leaving in place an apparatus for the general election in all the major swing states. Taylor told the crowd that regardless of who the nominee is, Bloomberg will leave that in place for the general election. Bloomberg has also pledged $1 billion of his personal fortune to defeating Trump in 2020.
“The one thing we need to do as Democrats is defeat Donald Trump this fall”
Taylor felt that Democrats are spending far too much time in Iowa.
“The Democratic candidate could be God; Donald Trump would still win Iowa.”
Taylor spoke on the topics of education, healthcare, and criticized the president’s foreign policy for alienating the U.S. from our allies.
She was challenged on education for Bloomberg’s support of charter schools during his time as New York City mayor, but noted that the schools in New York City were more successful than the original public schools and that education is a state and local issue that is handled differently depending on the local circumstances.
“I want Mike to do for our country what he did for New York.”
The Bloomberg campaign asked Mayor Friedman to endorse him, but Friedman has yet to make an endorsement for the 2020 cycle.