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Bernie Sanders & Mike Bloomberg

On Sunday, Vermont Independent Senator and major Israel-hater Bernie Sanders tweeted: “The simple truth is that Mayor Bloomberg, with all his money, will not create the kind of excitement and energy we need to defeat Donald Trump.”

It’s not so clear what kind of energy Bernie was talking about, especially in light of a recent Gallup poll that showed Americans would rather vote for a grave robber for president than a socialist (Gallup: Americans Would Vote for Jewish, Black, Catholic, Hispanic Candidates – But Not a Socialist). But one thing was clear as day: Bernie Sanders, much like President Donald Trump, recognizes that the only Democrat who could walk away with the prize is the Democrat whose moneybags are so heavy, he could buy the White House—literally, and have enough left for the Hill.

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Bloomberg’s campaign manager, Kevin Sheekey, told the NY Times on Monday that “it’s a shameful turn of events to see Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump deploy the very same attacks and tactics against Mike, but the reason is clear. At this point, the primary is Bernie’s to lose, and ours to win. Bernie knows this. Trump knows this. That’s why they are united in the campaign against Mike.”

The Bloomberg campaign took Bernie to task with its own attack tweet that declared: “We need to unite to defeat Trump in November. This type of ‘energy’ is not going to get us there.” The tweet came with a well edited video, suggesting that team Bloomberg had been waiting for the right moment to go after Bernie.

At a rally in Nevada, Sanders told his audience: “Well, you buy the presidency — at least he’s going to try to buy the presidency — by spending hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars on TV ads.” And he was right on the money: according to CNN, the Bloomberg campaign has already spent $418 million on ads, compared to Bernie’s $42 million.

Now, it’s true that Donald trump showed the world in 2016 that you can beat a much richer opponent: Trump reportedly spent $66 million of his own money, and received about $200 million in donations. Hillary Clinton raised an estimated $1.2 billion. Trump outmaneuvered Clinton with a stupendous guerilla operation, led by several inspired men and women, most notably Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway. But should he face Mike Bloomberg after the Democrats have come to their senses and asked socialist grandpa to sit this one out, it won’t be $1.2 billion: Bloomberg is expected to spend as much as $3 billion, and quantity eventually defeats quality every time. Remember, the president is yet to hit 50% approval since the day he took office.

The fact that Bernie Sanders has won in Iowa and New Hampshire shows that White Democrats in very cold states are ready to embrace him, and that they view Trump as the enemy. But even in his backyard, Bernie did not cross 30%. The fact is we have no idea how the remaining 70% who scattered their votes among the also-ran Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Warren and Biden, would relate to Bloomberg. At least some of them must be excited by the possibility of running a candidate who can outspend his Republican opponent  all the way to the poorhouse.

But the Sanders campaign’s line of attack is banking on creating a similarity in the mind of the voter between Trump and Bloomberg. In the end, it’s just two white billionaires vying for your vote.

“It is not only a rigged economy, it is a corrupt political system,” Sanders told his supporters. “It is a system that allows billionaires like Trump to get massive amounts of campaign contributions from his millionaire friends. Mr. Bloomberg, like anybody else, has a right to run for president. He does not have a right to buy the presidency. Especially after being mayor of New York and having a racist stop-and-frisk policy, especially after opposing a raise in the minimum wage.”

And the Sanders campaign tweeted a complimentary picture of Bloomberg and Trump playing golf together in 2007.

Of course, the Sanders premise is wrong: in America you can definitely buy the presidency, and Democrats have in recent campaigns raised and shelled out double the amounts spent by Republicans.

As to Bloomberg’s unfortunate candid moments as mayor of the city that never sleeps because it’s worried about being robbed by a guy who should have been frisked by the cops — these comments could only endear Mike Bloomberg to voters in the grittier states, where Hillary didn’t set foot. He’s apologized for those remarks, of course, because the Democrats’ loyal base is too PC for its own good these days, but he shouldn’t do much more than that. His arguments against minimum wage are cogent, and the story about him telling a pregnant employee to “kill it” has been circulated before and didn’t slow him down. Remember, the man talked the NY city council into letting him run for a third-time in a two-term only town. Democrats will adore him. He may be only five-foot four, but he’s more man than the Dems have fielded since Harry S. Truman (five-foot nine).

The major media outlets have not been saying much about the fact that both Democratic candidates are Jewish. I, for one, recall what a major simcha it was, back in 2000, when Democrat Al Gore picked Senator Joe Lieberman, a Jew from Connecticut, as his running mate. Some in the Jewish media were talking about messianic times. Of course, Lieberman was an Orthodox Jew, while neither Bloomberg nor Sanders separate meat and dairy (although Bloomberg spokesperson, Stu Loeser, is an Orthodox Jew).

Naturally, this Zionist news website would much rather see the Jewish billionaire win rather than the Jewish socialist. In fact, we don’t want the latter to win at all, with his pro-Palestinian record. Also, in all the brouhaha about two Jewish Democrats, we forgot that the Republican candidate is the proud grandfather of a couple of Jewish kids, kein ayin hara.

Stay tuned.

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David writes news at JewishPress.com.