Politico: Bloomberg already brokering the second-ballot convention vote to oust Bernie
Ed Morrissey Posted at 12:01 pm on February 21, 2020
“There’s a whole operation going on,†one strategist tells Politico’s David Siders, but that might be a function of cash over common sense. A day after his embarrassing performance on the Nevada debate stage, Michael Bloomberg is still building an operation to take the nomination away from Bernie Sanders. Rather than beat him in the primaries, though, Bloomberg’s aiming at the second ballot at the convention — and trying to convince everyone else to play along:
Mike Bloomberg is privately lobbying Democratic Party officials and donors allied with his moderate opponents to flip their allegiance to him — and block Bernie Sanders — in the event of a brokered national convention.
The effort, largely executed by Bloomberg’s senior state-level advisers in recent weeks, attempts to prime Bloomberg for a second-ballot contest at the Democratic National Convention in July by poaching supporters of Joe Biden and other moderate Democrats, according to two Democratic strategists familiar with the talks and unaffiliated with Bloomberg.
The outreach has involved meetings and telephone calls with supporters of Biden and Pete Buttigieg — as well as uncommitted DNC members — in Virginia, Texas, Florida, Oklahoma and North Carolina, according to one of the strategists who participated in meetings and calls.
With Sanders’ emergence as the frontrunner in the presidential primary, Democrats in those states have recently raised the prospect that the democratic socialist could be a top-of-the-ticket liability.
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https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2020/02/21/politico-bloomberg-already-brokering-second-ballot-convention-vote-oust-bernie/
