The Bloomberg Obsession
by David Atkins
As grateful as I am for Mayor Bloomberg’s positive activism on climate change and his endorsement of the President, the media’s reaction to it has been nothing short of comical. The right-wing is predictably incensed about it. Chris Matthews seems to believe it matters a great deal, with the nodding approval of his guests.
So much so that when asked whether the Bloomberg endorsement would matter less or more than the Des Moines Register’s endorsement of Mitt Romney, they all resoundingly agreed that Bloomberg’s endorsement would matter more. And they stated as evidence that Bloomberg has started up PACs for centrist organizations, and is thus seen as a trustworthy voice.
Now, I’m the first one to state that newspaper endorsements don’t matter much. But to suggest that a persuadable voter in suburban Iowa cares more about Michael Bloomberg’s endorsement than the local paper’s is solipsistic navel-gazing of the worst kind. Or that voters know or care about Bloomberg’s self-serving neoliberal PACs is a joke.
The biggest joke is that people who believe these things serve as the supposed voices of the left on cable news. Being a reality-based progressive doesn’t have to mean being a barn-burning anger machine. But it should mean that the political importance and value of people like Bloomberg should be relegated to the asterisks they are.
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