
Bloomberg bankrolls a social-media army - Bostonian
https://www.wsj.com/articles/bloomberg-bankrolls-a-social-media-army-to-push-message-11582127768
======
jdkee
Why is it healthy for American democracy to have an oligarch purchase the U.S.
Presidency like a shiny, new yacht?

~~~
ordinaryperson
George Washington lost his first campaign to the Virginia House of Burgess in
1755, 271-40.

When he ran again 3 years later he gave away 28 gallons of rum, 50 gallons of
rum punch, 34 gallons of wine, 46 gallons of beer, and two gallons of cider
royal — "nearly enough for a half-gallon per voter." And guess what, he won.

Considering we wouldn't even declare independence until 18 years later, it's
safe to say that buying influence in an election has been American since the
beginning, and even before.

[1] [https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/12384/swilling-
planters-...](https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/12384/swilling-planters-
bumbo-how-george-washington-won-votes-campaign-ads)

~~~
baybal2
On the other hand, the Rockefeller family had a very long record of spending
enormous sums on elections, whether by running themselves, or through an own
candidate, and loosing every single time.

It will be a good read for everybody deifying "a realpolitik grandmaster"
Henry Kissinger how badly he failed in the role of Rockefeller's political
adviser. His ineptitude in politics was borderline tragicomedic. This the best
proof to me that a "professional politician" is really an oxymoron.

The rich are bad at politics more often than not, and their money can
compensate for that only partially.

Georgie Washington was however a spectacular politician on his own, without a
doubt.

~~~
RickJWagner
Sorry, there's been at least one successful Rockefeller.

Win Rockefeller was elected, and very popular.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winthrop_Rockefeller](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winthrop_Rockefeller)

~~~
JauntTrooper
Nelson Rockefeller was also Governor of New York from 1959-1973.

------
zelias
I'd respect the hell out of Bloomberg if he came out and said "damn right I'm
buying this election...because the rules are that messed up" followed by a
comprehensive plan to forever get money out of our elections.

~~~
ep103
There is a candidate saying the rules are messed up, but its not Bloomberg,
its Sanders.

Bloomberg is the guy the rules were written to benefit. He doesn't want them
changed.

That's why he chose to run against Sanders, when it appeared Sanders could
win.

~~~
remmargorp64
Exactly. Bernie is the only candidate I know of who is a fan of getting the
big money out of politics and has been fighting on that platform for years:

[https://berniesanders.com/issues/money-out-of-
politics/](https://berniesanders.com/issues/money-out-of-politics/)

------
ajoy
This is the game that is being played :
[https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/03/the-202...](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/03/the-2020-disinformation-
war/605530/) (The Billion-Dollar Disinformation Campaign to Reelect the
President). The article is a little biased, but shows the sophistication
required to play.

To bring a contrarian pt of view: If you are a billionaire and you ask for
donations, people might say, "Why are you asking us for money, why don't use
your own?"

------
grumple
So he's hiring a bunch of barely-over minimum wage workers to spread his
message... and? What do you think the other politicians are doing with the
millions they raise? This isn't a story.

~~~
eplanit
He'll be on the debate stage tonight as a legitimized candidate -- having not
participated in the competitive process at all, and without a single donor
(doesn't need 'em), and levering his billions to flood media.

It's a rather disgusting story, actually.

~~~
AndrewUnmuted
You know, I strongly disagree with Bloomberg, having lived through his reign
of terror in NYC personally. But I just don't see the point in focusing on
this kind of attack.

The Democratic party is really not required to have any sort of fair process
for deciding their candidate for president. It can be as transparently crooked
and disgusting as this and really that's just how he chose to operate within
the legal frameworks established by folks like him.

Sure, there's the huge personality flaws that Bloomberg displays by taking
this strategy, but those don't seem to be of major concern to most American
voters. Our current president is a daily salient reminder of this fact.

If we want to focus on Bloomberg's personality, why not start with all the
horrific policies he enacted as mayor? There are far more visible character
flaws in those decisions than this decision to buy his way towards the
Democratic party.

If you supported his policies, after all, you'd have no problem with this
strategy being undertaken - right?

~~~
CydeWeys
"The Democratic party is really not required to have any sort of fair process
for deciding their candidate for president. It can be as transparently crooked
and disgusting as this and really that's just how he chose to operate within
the legal frameworks established by folks like him."

So what though? What point is this rebutting? If a process is crooked and
disgusting then damn straight you're gonna have people complaining about it
and demanding they do better, as you see here.

~~~
AndrewUnmuted
My point is rebutting the point made by the poster before me, who said there
was a real story here.

I disagree. This is somewhat par for the course. For many people, this could
be the first time they experience the disappointment of how corrupt folks like
Bloomberg operate within the political sphere. However, these people would be
incorrect to chalk this up as historically or even politically noteworthy, for
many of us this is rather unsurprising and the story has already been told
many times. Why rehash these tired tropes when Bloomberg presents so many new,
unique, and significant issues that we now must address?

~~~
CydeWeys
That the process is crooked and disgusting is absolutely the realest story
that there is here. Again, I don't understand your point. You're just being
dismissive and accepting of a bad status quo for no reason other than that you
(but not others!) are resigned to it.

In other words, just because you don't care doesn't mean that others don't.
And the news isn't writing stories catering to solely your interests; there's
millions of other readers to consider.

------
12xo
I wonder if the entire race could be won by offering an incentive of sorts.
Say a $50 Amazon gift card for every (new) voter who sends a pic of their vote
receipt or something... Granted its a lot of money, but so is gifting billions
to the media conglomerates for more (useless) ads...

~~~
tomjakubowski
Secret ballots prevent that kind of attack. Everywhere I have voted in the US,
at least, doesn't include ballot selections on the receipt.

~~~
zelly
I saw someone recording a video of themselves selecting the choices on the
voting kiosk. No one is going to stop you from doing that, nor would it be
practical to try.

~~~
cmcd
Pretty sure that is illegal, wouldn't be a major complication to add a metal
detector outside voting booths.

~~~
zelly
That would be considered voter suppression by lots of people. Also very
expensive.

------
neonate
[https://archive.md/MCRbf](https://archive.md/MCRbf)

------
werber
Are they requiring them to #ad the posts?

~~~
drenvuk
This is a really good question and I'd like to see some fines dished out if
they're not.

~~~
gjs278
I wouldn’t. there’s no reason anyone should have to disclose if something is
an ad.

~~~
derivagral
FTC, for a start. Political ads have more scrutiny as well, though I don't
know the details.

[https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-
releases/2019/11/ftc-r...](https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-
releases/2019/11/ftc-releases-advertising-disclosures-guidance-online-
influencers)

~~~
werber
This is way more stringent than I realized (especially the buried in hashtags
part) although the example at the end of doing #BrandNamePartner seems like it
could be used disingenuously, like would #TeamMike satisfy the FTC
requirements?

------
anonAndOn
What a fascinating choice between two New York billionaires. A populist
carnival barker vs. a man who built his own personal tech/media empire.

I'd bet dollars to donuts Mike's got a tech team in place right now that is
running rings around the DNC's haphazard patronage party.

~~~
takeda
Also a supposed Democrat that run as a Republican and Republican that's
running as a Democrat.

~~~
nostromo
Bernie -- an Independent running as a Democrat.

Trump - a former Democrat, now the Republican president

Bloomberg - a former Republican, turned Independent, now running as a Democrat

Parties used to have the power, but now it seems like popular politicians are
picking the party they think provides them with the easiest path to power,
realigning their policy views accordingly.

~~~
huebomont
Bernie's "independent" label means very little. Look at how he votes. He's a
Democrat. It's a weird attempted knock against him considering how consistent
he's always been.

~~~
bubmiw
Bernie tried to primary Obama...he's independent

------
solinent
Paid shills tend to have a strange effect where they polarize people in the
other direction than intended since their arguments are not always well
founded and honest, and they will always suffer from some form of groupthink.
It's a slingshot effect--at first people fall for the farce, but soon they
realize they have been mislead. It could even spoil the election and get some
to vote in the opposite direction.

I think it's also pretty easy to spot these days and we're armed much better
to fight it at the platform-level.

I don't think this will end well for Bloomberg, he has a long way to climb,
and his name is literally associated with big money. He may have already
reached saturation, and this is a dying move.

~~~
harry8
There's a lot of engagement on some issue or other, such as this one of how
easy it is to spot paid shills and then while making a pretty reasonable point
about it stating something very contentious as fact. Just like we see from
Bernie and his total commitment to call communism by another name.

And that last bit is 1% of the interest and is tangentially related so it
doesn't totally jar. Look out for it. You get the same ones repeated again and
again like that. It may be totally organic too because Assange is a narcisist
rapist who is lying about being afraid of being extradited to the USA so lots
of people have said so. Keep repeating and it becomes fact undermines anyone
with a different point of view. Full disclosure I am not an Assange supporter
nor a Bloomberg or Bernie supporter.

Paid shills are actually really hard to spot. I strongly suspect most of what
jars as paid shills aren't paid.

~~~
solinent
Yeah I think you have to stem the tide to avoiding the "unpaid" shills. I've
even seen people who shill in one direction just to be accepted by a community
so they can troll them.

I hypothesize you could detect this type of stuff using semantic analysis of
text if you check word order and frequency (or go ML with fastText or w/e) you
could get maybe 90% accuracy at determining whether someone _isn 't_ a shill.
There needs to be an investigative process which humans undergo after this.
Then some form of identification would be required before any sort of ban
(ideally you tell them, this only stops the false positives from rejoining)
can be lifted, just incase any local laws are broken.

The shills all have some source material, so they should be closer to it
language-wise than those that they teach/brainwash.

But hey, I wish I was paid to shill against other shills and detect them, it
would be an interesting job.

------
sjg007
A populist President can be mitigated by Congress if they choose to act and
also take back some of the executive powers they gave the President.

~~~
jaywalk
Congress doesn't give the President anything except money. Executive powers
come from the Constitution, not Congress.

To put it simply: the President does not serve at the pleasure of Congress.

~~~
sjg007
Yes the executive powers in the Constitution are obviously not governed by
Congress but Congress has indeed delegated some their responsibilities to the
President. These, known as the emergency powers, are what I am referring to.

[https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/01/preside...](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/01/presidential-
emergency-powers/576418/)

~~~
jaywalk
That's all well and good, but those are powers that have never been used since
they've been granted, and that article is just a bunch of "Trump is so scary,
look at all this stuff he could do!" tripe.

------
tyfon
I don't even.. wow..

Talk about buying the election.

Are anyone going to be fooled by this?

Edit: does facebook and twitter require that you disclose any payments you get
for posting?

~~~
user00012-ab
Yes, 90% of the population is fooled by this.

~~~
oth001
Is this based on facts or just your opinion? I'm willing to bet 90% of the
population isn't fooled by it.

~~~
throwaway2048
Do you think advertising is ineffective?

------
A4ET8a8uTh0
It may be an unpopular opinion, but I am ok with Bloomberg spending some of
his money. Granted, 300MM to him like approximately $20 to me, but still..

Do not misunderstand me. His attempt to simply buy an election is.. annoying,
if not unseemly. That said, I am perfectly fine with him finally spending at
least some of his vast fortune instead of hoarding it like a dragon.

Hell, he wants to pay me $2500? I will pocket that and then vote for hopefully
less obnoxious candidate.

~~~
pb7
Surprised to see such naive takes on HN. Wealthy people don’t “hoard wealth
like a dragon”. It’s invested in companies that translate to products,
services, and jobs.

~~~
A4ET8a8uTh0
Companies are assets and as such they are still part of his wealth. It is not
like I said he sleeps on gold coins in a vault.

No need to get literal.

~~~
pb7
Money sitting in a vault and money invested in companies that employ people
and produce value for society could not be more different.

~~~
Loughla
Not to be too negative, but

>money invested in companies

does not equal

>produce value for society

Necessarily. Those two things CAN be the same, but aren't necessarily the
same.

~~~
pb7
Needlessly pedantic. If companies are profitable, they provide some sort of
value even if you don't think so. Much more than people sucking up welfare
benefits and not giving back, at least.

------
slumdev
I don't like this idea of buying elections. But at the very least, I'm happy
to see the Democratic machine upside-down, with all of the designated
incumbent royalty falling behind the outsiders.

~~~
jacob019
I appreciate the sentiment, but for those of us who have been negatively
impacted by the policies of the current administration, it is worrying that a
candidate with broad appeal has failed to materialize at this point.

~~~
davexunit
The candidate with broad appeal is Bernie Sanders.

~~~
whatshisface
Broad appeal _among democrats_ , but the candidate with the best chances in
the national election is not the center Democrat, it's the center American,
which if you imagine Democrats and Republicans being two ranges butted up
against the center, is the rightmost Democrat!

~~~
mrguyorama
I don't believe republicans or "independent" voters will ever actually cross
the aisle anymore. Trump still has massive MASSIVE support from registered
republicans.

~~~
jacob019
Less than a third of Americans identify as republican.

~~~
mrguyorama
And that third gives Trump something like a 90% approval rating. My base
assumption is that in order to win them over, you'd have to significantly
match up with their world view. A significant part of their world view seems
to be that "Democrat = bad" so that's kind of a non-starter, and I'm not sure
I'd want someone elected who has compromised their platform, morals,
principles, etc enough to be liked by people who still support Trump.

------
allovernow
Shilling on social media appeared overnight. Literally a switch was turned on
and suddenly hundreds of "totally organic" posts about Bloomberg are popping
up everywhere mimicking local forum/board subcultures. Many of the people seem
to be posting somewhat ironically, though it seems his campaign has attempted
to embrace the same style of "no press is bad press" attention that
undoubtedly contributed to Trump's election.

It's pretty gross to watch someone literally buy an election. I hope he fails.
But there's a good chance he'll get far, because though he is running as a
Democrat, many of his past statements regarding women, minorities, and stop
and frisk appeal to the non-PC Republican sentiment that worked in the last
election. And you can count on the fact that the average person won't
understand that none of this buzz is organic.

~~~
cabaalis
I see this also for Bernie, in odd locations. I've been playing Warcraft 3
reforged lately, and the general chat that shows up on the main menu in-game
has been all kinds of people extolling the values of Bernie Sanders.

Of course, it could be grassroots. I just doubt it.

~~~
nacho2sweet
I am paid to shill in warcraft 3 general chat. I can vouch for this.

------
m0zg
He's just protecting his fortune against Bernie. Spend a billion, keep the
remaining 39. Good deal. He will lose even if he does get nominated, and he's
OK with that. This is a page directly from Trump's playbook: Trump routinely
puts himself into situations where there are several ways for him to win and
no way to really lose.

------
dukoid
Why doesn't he just buy Fox News?

~~~
akhilcacharya
...it's not for sale? Never really understood this line of attack.

~~~
dukoid
It was a serious question where I don't know the answer... Shares are publicly
traded at NASDAQ. The Murdoch family seems to hold 39% (of the shares with
voting power?) according to Wikipedia... Not sure how feasible it would be to
buy enough of the rest if money wasn't an issue?

~~~
Thrymr
That would require a hostile takeover, which is no simple thing. News Corp has
a market cap of >$8.6 billion. It almost never happens that anyone can buy a
controlling interest (of a sizeable corporation) on the open market without an
explicit agreement from the board of directors.

------
newshorts
If Bloomberg get elected and successfully purchases the presidency, I’m moving
my family out of the US. I will no long contribute to our collective GDP or
pay taxes. I’ll vote with my feet if I can’t vote with my rights as an
American citizen.

~~~
i_am_nomad
Don’t forget to pay your exit tax.

~~~
MuffinFlavored
Is this real?

~~~
Mountain_Skies
Yes though the official name is Expatriation Tax.
[https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-
taxpayers/expa...](https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-
taxpayers/expatriation-tax)

------
Mountain_Skies
Jeb Bush spent $130 million to lose the Republican primary. Hillary Clinton
spent probably an order of magnitude more to lose the general election. Both
outspent Donald Trump just to lose to him in their respective races. Money
isn't everything and Bloomberg is risking alienating voters with his ham
fisted advertising. His ads on YouTube are non-skippable. He paid extra for
that yet it's more likely to anger viewers than to get their votes. If his
social media army is just as obnoxious in their campaigning for him, well, a
fool and their money are soon parted.

------
300bps
Archive of full story:

[http://archive.is/WuPf8](http://archive.is/WuPf8)

------
seemslegit
He would probably never do that, but I wouldn't begrudge Sanders if in case of
a contested convention and having amassed the most delegates he would go 'Your
call, but if you throw this to Bloomberg you should plan on a scenario of him
running against Trump _and_ myself as Independent' of course Bloomberg could
do that too and in fact might be counting on it. And then it will be a game of
chicken with a 2nd Trump presidency as the cliff, or maybe they'll just give
it to Klobuchar

------
rdtsc
Interesting. Now that the cat is out of the bag any mention about him from any
acquaintance is just going to make me think they got a check from Mike and
make me dislike him more each time.

Does buying support like this work? "Hey family, Mike Bloomberg is awesome, we
should all vote for him". That just feels so artificial and fake, but maybe if
the phrase gets repeated enough people start believing it...

> Outvote also allows users to look up whether their friends have voted in
> past elections by matching their contact lists against public data.

That's a good way to lose family and friends. "I see you haven't voted, if you
want to stay friends and be invited out, better vote or donate to Mike's
campaign".

> it is important to be transparent about paid commercial promotions, but he
> views the ethics of political activism as less clear. ... “it took decades
> for TV and radio to figure out what disclosure for ads should be.”

So promoters don't have to put disclaimers in their messages. Does that open
the door for his opponents to pretend to be Bloomberg's supporters but say
ridiculous stuff to make people dislike him.

~~~
hbosch
> Does buying support like this work?

Definitely. When a voter is in the booth, and has to make their decision for
once and for all, name recognition and the opinion of your community matters a
ton. Further, the _type_ of social media content that is being produced is
painting him as sort of a benevolent, rich, goofy guy. It's intentionally
anti-establishment, but not in the radical way or the thoughtful way... it's a
safe type of rebellion and that is endearing to a massive amount of people.

> Does that open the door for his opponents to pretend to be Bloomberg's
> supporters but say ridiculous stuff to make people dislike him.

This has happened for a while and will continue to happen, although this kind
of stuff is mainly isolated to niche Twitter... as we run up to election time,
I think you will see more of this Clickhole/Onion type posting of anti-
support-support.

------
pjlegato
Many here seem upset at the idea that Bloomberg is spending a lot of his own
money to run for president.

Running for president is very expensive. All other candidates are also
spending a lot of money -- but they're spending a lot of _other people's
money_, to whom they are now beholden. What do those other people expect to
get in return for their financial support? Surely they don't just give away
millions of hard earned dollars to install someone in the most powerful office
in the world out of faith in democracy. Donors and their groups -- especially
the large and important ones -- are almost always aligned with explicit policy
(and often persoanl) quid pro quo expectations, should the candidate win the
election.

Bloomberg, by contrast, is spending his own money. He's not beholden to
anyone's interests or greed or kickbacks or special interests. Whether you
like or dislike his policy proposals, surely this point, at least, is better
than a candidate with a wealthy donor network of obscure motives pulling the
strings behind the scenes.

~~~
vanusa
_Many here seem upset at the idea that Bloomberg is spending a lot of his own
money to run for president._

No - it's not that he's spending his own money. But rather, how he's spending
it.

And they're not "upset". They're calmly pointing out the obvious: that this
kind of attempted influence buying is profoundly dystopian and antidemocratic.

~~~
pjlegato
All of the other candidates are also doing that; there's nothing special about
how Bloomberg is spending his money. The others are doing the same, but with
other people's money -- people who will now expect to wield influence behind
the scenes. Is that not worse?

~~~
danenania
Perhaps stating the obvious here, but if the money comes in small increments
from millions of people who are broadly representative of the population
(ahem, Bernie Sanders, ahem), then the politician will be beholden to the
people they're actually _supposed_ to be beholden to: the voters.

If we allow the extremely wealthy to have an extreme advantage in campaigns,
we'll end up with a government that only serves their interests. Why would we
expect anything else?

The solution to this is public funding of elections that puts all candidates
on an equal playing field, or at least overturning Citizens United and _only_
allowing direct donations under the maximum _including_ from yourself.

------
Bostonian
Excerpt at
[http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3817721/posts](http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3817721/posts)
.

------
athrowaway3z
Yesterday it struck me that a quality i look for in a leader is integrity.
E.g. their unwillingness to be bribed by wealth and luxury.

I think some Americans might be misinterpreting Trump's and Bloomberg's
position. Their personal wealth made them jaded, not immune or uninterested in
the idea.

------
animalnewbie
Here is what will happen : Bloomberg will be anointed the nominee. Trump will
win again and the democratic party will blame russya to deflect blame.

------
Anon84
Bloomberg is showing everyone how to beat Trump at his own game. Let's hope
they learn in time.

------
claudeganon
If Bloomberg succeeds in buying the election, we will never have another
president who isn’t a billionaire again. This is a far greater, long term
threat to American democracy than anything posed by the Trump administration’s
lawlessness.

~~~
khc
Donald Trump spent less money on the election than Hillary Clinton maybe a
counter example that people don't like

~~~
eej71
I think that this is true, though I have no numbers to back it up.

He appeared to run a cost effective campaign. The endless free coverage
provided by pundits and commentators who continuously mocked was transformed
(by him) into a strength. He also made full use of social media to reach as
many people as he could. I'd be hard pressed to name another candidate who so
effectively used twitter.

The slogan and the hats too. Make fun of him all you want - but it was an
effective and cheap marketing campaign. More importantly - its a message that
resonated with a lot of people.

That's how you win elections.

~~~
octonion
Populists win elections by scapegoating groups like Jews, socialists,
intellectuals, Muslims, blacks or immigrants (depending on which year it is).

~~~
eej71
This is a popular narrative, but I suspect the reality is - many of these
named groups also voted for Trump. Consider this front line report in Ohio.

[https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/feb/21/outside-
coas...](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/feb/21/outside-coastal-
bubbles-to-say-america-is-already-great-rings-hollow)

"“OK. You want to talk about Trump? I voted for Trump!” I asked him if he was
pulling my leg. He laughed. “No way. I may be a Muslim, but I am a businessman
first and I am not stupid. Many Muslims here did. Under the table.” He added
with a big smile: “We are Americans. We have diverse views also.”"

~~~
jascii
Anecdotal evidence is no evidence. The vote-count statistics in high-minority
districts do not back up your suspicion.

~~~
refurb
Trump got 29% of Hispanic vote, 29% of Asian vote and 37% of the “other” vote.

Clearly there are a lot of minorities who voted for him.

~~~
eej71
Not sure why you are getting the down votes...

------
dannykwells
Clearly these tactics are despicable...and they work. Bloomberg is just
demonstrating that he's the only one who really learned from Trump how to win
in the modern era. Trump, of course, had Russian trolls posting rather than
these folks...but potato/potaato.

And he's right - he went from nothing to third place (in national polls)
solely through (mostly internet) ad spend.

What I don't understand is why _every_ candidate isn't taking a similar
approach. These guys are showing it's not about events, likeability, policies,
history, etc. It's just about mass manipulation enabled by the internet.

~~~
ericflo
They don't have the money to do that, in part because Bloomberg and Steyer are
buying up all the inventory and driving up prices in the marketplace.

------
Fjolsvith
If he was Russian, this would be so uncool.

~~~
nkrisc
If he was Russian, he wouldn't be running for president.

------
sigmaprimus
I'm looking forward to the debate tonite, hopefully Bloomberg will get to show
everyone what kind of candidate he really is.

I still think his entire campaign is just a twisted way to get around campaign
contribution limits and possibly a bulwark to keep the wacko socialist
candidates from winning the nomination.

Hopefully he proves me wrong and is a real candidate that will be able to
stand toe to toe with President Trump and we will see a good old fashioned
dust up between the two of them this summer!!

~~~
octonion
Improving society is "wacko"?

~~~
rudedogg
I don't think the OP meant it in the way you think. My guess is they're
speaking of the riskiness of Bernie winning the nomination, where as someone
more centrist seems like a safer bet.

But who knows, the experts said Hillary would win too.

Edit: Nevermind, the OP meant what you thought :D

------
SubiculumCode
All I have to say to Bloomberg is:

Okay Bloomer.

