Bribery as a Political Strategy

I am referring, of course, to Mike Bloomberg, who has used significant payments and grants to secure endorsements for his Presidential campaign:\

Michael R. Bloomberg and Mayor Michael Tubbs of Stockton seemed like an improbable political duo on Wednesday as they heaped praise on each other. Mr. Tubbs, a 29-year-old liberal who is Stockton’s first black mayor, hailed Mr. Bloomberg as a leader “with the resources, with the record and with the relationships” to defeat President Trump in 2020. Mr. Bloomberg, a 77-year-old centrist billionaire, called the younger man “my kind of mayor.”

Mr. Tubbs had reason to feel kinship with Mr. Bloomberg. Last year, he graduated from a mayoral training program that Mr. Bloomberg sponsors at Harvard University. Mr. Tubbs had attended a conference co-sponsored by Mr. Bloomberg’s philanthropic foundation in Paris in 2017, and was featured in its 2018 annual report. And this past June, Mr. Bloomberg’s foundation donated $500,000 to an education reform group based in Stockton, a struggling inland city in Northern California.

As Mr. Bloomberg traverses the country as a presidential candidate, he is drawing on a vast network of city leaders whom he has funded as a philanthropist or advised as an elder statesman of municipal politics. Bloomberg Philanthropies, which has assets totaling $9 billion, has supported 196 different cities with grants, technical assistance and education programs worth a combined $350 million. Now, leaders in some of those cities are forming the spine of Mr. Bloomberg’s campaign: He has been endorsed so far by eight mayors — from larger cities like San Jose, Calif., and Louisville, Ky., and smaller ones like Gary, Ind., representing a total of more than 2.6 million Americans.

For all of those endorsers, Mr. Bloomberg has been an important benefactor. All have attended his prestigious boot camp at Harvard that gives the mayors access to ongoing strategic advice from Bloomberg-funded experts. More than half have received funding in the form of grants and other support packages from Mr. Bloomberg worth a total of nearly $10 million, according to a review of tax documents and interviews with all eight mayors.

The money he has given to cities underscores the extraordinary nature of Mr. Bloomberg’s candidacy. More than any presidential candidate in recent history, Mr. Bloomberg has established himself — through philanthropic giving, political endorsements and campaign spending — as a singular ally for a large cross-section of American politicians, many of whom feel a deep sense of loyalty in return. And there is no group to whom he is more tightly bonded with than his fellow mayors.

………

“Lots of people have money,” Mr. Tubbs said. “But the way he uses his money speaks to how he’s someone who has a vision for this party.”

Mr. Tubbs and other mayors say they are endorsing Mr. Bloomberg because of his platform and ideas, not because of any pressure, but some acknowledged that his wealth and philanthropy were an unavoidable factor.

"An unavoidable factor," huh?

That's an awfully genteel way to say, "Thank you for the bribe."

Take away Mike Bloomberg's money, and all you have as a candidate is a short racist, his recent apology for stop and frisk notwithstanding.