“You could take Bloomberg’s unusual combination of issue positions, put some into one box and others into another, and end up with something you’d call ‘moderate’ or ‘centrist.’ The other way to look at it, however, is that whoever you are, you’re going to find something about him to dislike. As David Dayen wrote in 2016 when Bloomberg was considering a run, ‘An anti-teachers’-union, anti-gun, pro-nanny state, pro-Wall Street, pro-stop-and-frisk, pro-inequality, pro-immigration, pro-surveillance, pro-Iraq War neoconservative is almost surgically designed to repel practically every American voter on some level’…

“If Bloomberg does decide to run, I’d predict that questions of ideology are going to bedevil him. He has indicated that he’s contemplating a bid because he doesn’t think the field is strong enough to beat Trump, but he’ll have to articulate a rationale for his candidacy that goes deeper than that.”
Paul Waldman, Washington Post

“What could be better for [Elizabeth Warren], who has built her candidacy on the claim that plutocrats control America’s government, than to run against a billionaire 51 times over who keeps slamming her proposed wealth tax, which more than 80 percent of Democrats support… If Bloomberg stops anyone, it will most likely be the [moderate] candidate who actually is rising: Buttigieg…

“Buttigieg is 37, which offers a useful contrast to the four septuagenarians (Warren, Sanders, Biden, Trump) he’s competing against. Bloomberg is 77. Buttigieg served in Afghanistan; Bloomberg didn’t serve in Vietnam. Buttigieg lives in the Midwest; Bloomberg lives on the Upper East Side of Manhattan (and, at least as of 2015, in Bermuda, London, Westchester, the Hamptons, Florida, and Vail, Colorado, as well). Buttigieg has never tried to ban Big Gulp sodas. And most important, a substantial number of Democrats are actually enthusiastic about Buttigieg’s candidacy.”
Peter Beinart, The Atlantic

“It’s clear from the donor class’s enthusiasm for Buttigieg, the endless parade of columns… urging voters to take a closer look at Amy Klobuchar or Steve Bullock, and now Bloomberg’s interest in joining the race that most people who look closely at the Biden campaign have serious doubts about it…

“But fundamentally he’s extremely well-known, the Obama administration remains very popular with rank-and-file Democrats, and his support from older working-class Democrats across racial lines is a plausible path to victory. Bloomberg stands no chance of poaching Biden’s black support, but with nearly infinite money to spend he certainly might peel off a fair amount of Biden’s support among white moderates. The question is what would this accomplish other than making a left-wing victory more likely?”
Matthew Yglesias, Vox

“Real-life, non-million-dollar-donor Democrats are happy with the candidates they already have. In July, Pew Research Center found that 65 percent of Democrats had a ‘good’ or ‘excellent’ impression of the candidates running for the Democratic nomination, 25 percent said their sense was that the field was fair, and only 5 percent had a ‘poor’ impression. By historical standards, those are excellent numbers…

“Wealthy Democrats who worry that Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders or Pete Buttigieg might lose aren’t crazy to look elsewhere… But Democrats already have better options than the former mayor: Cory Booker has the charisma. Amy Klobuchar has a proven record of winning in the Midwest. And Kamala D. Harris represents where the Democratic Party is heading. Bloomberg could do more for his party, and for his own legacy, by investing in one of them rather than treating himself to a vanity run for president.”
David Byler, Washington Post