Presidential Hopeful Bloomberg Viewed By Many As Simply 'Mikey Of Medford' In His Home State Of Massachusetts
MEDFORD, Mass. (CBSNewYork) -- On Super Tuesday, Mike Bloomberg will be on the ballot for the very first time. Voters in 14 states go to the polls, including in Massachusetts, where the former mayor of New York City was born and raised.
In the Big Apple and around the country, Bloomberg is known as the rich guy, the billionaire techie. It turns out he comes from very humble beginnings. The one similarity between then and now? Mikey of Medford was a member of the high school Slide Rule Club, CBS2's Marcia Kramer reported Monday.
Downtown Medford, with is railroad tracks, church steeples, and working class aura is a world away from the bright lights of New York City. But it is the clay that formed Bloomberg, a working class town where most of the kids in Bloomberg's class of 1960 focused on vocational training, not college.
"I just wish people would stop with the billionaire thing because that's not where he's from. He's from a blue collar community and he made it himself," said Bill Honeycutt, owner of John Brewer's Tavern.
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The tavern is a favorite of Bloomberg's late mother, Charlotte, who came once a week to lunch on chicken pot pie at her favorite table by the window. Honeycutt knows Bloomberg and wants him to be president because he likes his management style, sitting in a bullpen with his staff.
"I think he's a good manager. I mean, if he's in the middle, that's my style. I'm in the middle of it, working with people, not sitting in a corner office somewhere being an elitist. He's not an elitist," Honeycutt said.
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Bloomberg was raised in a modest one-family home with a one-car garage. The family still owns it, and he still pays for the phone line so he can call it and hear his mother's voice on the answering machine.
And with his name on the Super Tuesday ballot, he's hoping against hope that Massachusetts voters will see him as a kind of favorite son. He's got a big campaign operation here, and in typical Bloombergian style it's data driven -- campaign workers doing door knocks, going to homes of voters they already know that think positive thoughts about their candidate.
"Mike is a person who can help us with the climate change crisis. He understands science," campaign worker Jeffrey Wildstein said.
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Out-of-work union construction worker Michael Agati was thrilled by the visit. It seems he had been hankering for Bloomberg 2020 lawn sign. Team Bloomberg was only too happy to oblige.
"Mike can get it done. He's the only one that's talking sensible up here. Nobody else is talking any sense," Agati said.
Not all Medfordites agree.
"I'm planning on voting for Elizabeth Warren," one resident said, adding when asked about Bloomberg, "I'm not interested in Bloomberg at all. I don't think we need another billionaire in the race."
Bloomberg was endorsed by three local newspapers on Monday, but he sill has to duke it out with Massachusetts Sen. Warren and Sen. Bernie Sanders from nearby Vermont for home court advantage and a shot at the state's 91 delegates.
