Michael Bloomberg Ends Presidential Run, Endorses Joe Biden
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) - Presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg has dropped out of the 2020 Democratic primary race, seeing the handwriting on the wall in his disastrous Super Tuesday performance.
He's throwing his money, his might and his campaign organization behind fellow Democratic hopeful Joe Biden.
He did the math, data driven technocrat that he is, and realized he had no shot at getting the nomination, reported CBS2's Marcia Kramer.
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Instead, Mike Bloomberg signed on to the "stop Bernie" wing of the Democratic party and endorsed moderate Joe Biden. His decision to quit was uncharacteristically emotional.
The former mayor of New York City took defeat like a man, renting out a hotel ballroom to explain why Mike decided to take a hike. It was an emotional moment for the normally reserved New Englander, the poignancy exemplified by the public kiss he gave girlfriend Diana Taylor when it was over.
"Today, I am clear eyed about our overriding objective, and that is victory in November," Bloomberg said.
The billionaire made clear he's still in the hunt for Donald Trump's scalp, is committed to using his staff and organization to help the man he endorsed - Joe Biden - prevail, adding his firepower to other moderate democrats apparently alarmed at the prospect of Bernie Sanders, a self-proclaimed socialist, at the top of the ticket.
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For Bloomberg, it was all about Trump, and preserving the values of Lady Liberty's torch.
"No wall can block out that light. No lie can deny that light, and we will not allow any president to dim that light," Bloomberg said.
From the start, Bloomberg relied on an unusual and untested strategy: Skip the early primaries and dump a whole lot of dough - more than half a billion simoleons - on Super Tuesday. It was a bad bet, Kramer reported. He failed to take any of the 14 Super Tuesday states up for grabs, won American Samoa, and at last count squeezed out just 31 delegates.
It didn't help that he was on the defensive about his controversial stop and frisk policies, on the defensive about charges his company was a hostile workplace for women.
"I'd like to talk about who we're running against. A billionaire who calls women 'fat broads' and 'horse-faced lesbians' and no, I'm not talking about Donald Trump, I'm talking about Mayor Bloomberg," Elizabeth Warren said during Bloomberg's first debate appearance.
President Donald Trump tried to rub salt in the wound, tweeting of the man he called "Mini Mike."
"I could have told him long ago that he didn't have what it takes, and he would have saved himself a billion dollars, the real cost," Trump wrote.
Political expert John Zogby said the campaign was doomed from the start.
"Bloomberg really didn't have any other option but to drop out of the race at this point. He did a public service. I guess you can say that the legacy of this campaign is that he got Joe Biden to step up to the plate," Zogby said.
Bloomberg once said there were only three jobs in politics that interested him: Mayor of New York City, president of the United States and president of the World Bank.
Who knows? If Joe Biden beats Trump, Bloomberg may get a consolation prize.