Michael Barbaro of the NYT’s Political Caucus blog brings the news that GOP presumptive presidential nominee Mitt Romney had a meeting recently with everyone’s favorite little know-it-all, Michael Bloomberg. “The pursuit of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s presidential endorsement is headed into overdrive.” Really? Is the Romney camp’s calculation of his chances against the President in a place where an endorsement from one of the great petty political tyrants of our time a balance-tipper? If so, you may want to hold onto that campaign contribution check . . .

Both parties appear to covet Hizzoner’s blessing…for some reason.

The (Romney) meeting came just a few days after Mr. Bloomberg met with two members of the Obama administration — Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, according to people close to the mayor.

Mr. Bloomberg played golf with the vice president on Friday in the Washington, D.C. area, and then played again with Mr. Panetta on on Saturday.

It’s hard to believe endorsements – whether they come from dead tree editorial pages, union bosses or machine politicians – really sway anyone’s vote any more. Electoral politics would seem to have moved beyond that, but that’s why they pay ridiculous amounts to pollsters and consultants.

You have to wonder, though, if Romney or his advisers have considered how cozying up to the Mad Maven of MAIG will be seen by the already less-than-comfortable core constituency to the candidate’s right? Sure, the guy has billions, but gun owners were just starting to get themselves comfortable with the idea that they really do need to hold their noses and pull the ‘R’ lever no matter what the Mittster signed into law when he was running the Bay State. News that he’s playing a spirited game of footsie with someone like Bloomy could keep an awful lot of them at the range rather than in polling places in November.

And then there’s this shudder-inducing thought: What if the overture by Romney’s not a plea on bended knee for Mike’s endorsement (not to mention a hefty campaign contribution), but a preliminary step in the VP vetting process? Maybe it’s not too late to get into Ruger shares after all.     [h/t instapundit.com]

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

48 COMMENTS

  1. Oh great defenders of Romney’s actions during his governorship, I call upon you to explain this asshattery.

    • Not usually a Mitt defender, but how about this: He’s talking Bloomy out of making some sort of third party run (or supporting one), and thereby pulling a Perot on Romney?

      • I am quite certain a third-party run by the Bloomer will hurt Obama more than Romney*, and watching an egomaniac waste his money is cheap entertainment.

        *NY’s electoral votes will go to Obama. So will MA and probably NJ. These happen to be the states where Bloomberg’s positions would be considered most appealing. If Bloomberg moves any of them out of the D column, or even splits the D vote significantly, it’s a plus for Romney.

  2. OMG, I think I threw up a in my mouth a little with that ugly twist at the end about the VP vetting process! I understand the whole “A vote for anyone else is a vote for BO” thing, but I’m so tired of voting for the lesser evil.

  3. Money talks, and BS walks.

    Bloomberg has the $$$ and support of the leftist blocs Obama and Romney both need to win the 2012 election. The dynamic is simple:the money and votes are most concentrated in liberal zones like New York City, and the rest of the socialist paradises like Baltimore and Chicago more or less follow New York’s lead on policy. Gun owners in rural America can’t compete vote wise against a united mass of statist morons, and the politicians know it. They go where the $$ and the votes are, and those resources aren’t in favor of the gun owning American .

    Buy your AR15s and pistol mags now people. I see storm clouds on the horizon.

    • Sadly true. Only a really united block of Mid-West and Dixie States can stand up to the Left Coasts, even then, it gets iffy.

  4. Let the Etch-A-Sketch shaking begin. First he swerved toward the extreme right for the primary, and now he’s swerving toward the extreme left (of gun control issues) for the general election.

    Is there anything this guy won’t do, any flannel-mouthed piety he won’t mouth, or any idol he won’t worship in pursuit of the presidency?

    If he wants to give disaffected voters a viable alternative to Obama, why is he still acting just like him?

  5. Politicians go where the money & votes are. Its a sad fact of American politics, but Bloomberg controls $$ and votes of the largest city in the nation. Where Bloomberg goes so will follow the polices and votes of other socialist paradises like Baltimore, Chicago,and urban California among other places.

    Compared to that kind of cash and vote access Red State America doesn’t stand a chance. Romney knows without the liberals’ backing he’s dead meat in November, and Obama knows he’ll be a one term president if he can’t keep an iron grasp on the progressive lobby. Either way, Bloomberg is in a position to directly decide who gets to be President for the next four years. Our votes are an entertaining postscript to a letter already drafted and signed .

    Buy your magazines and AR15s now folks. The fasten seat belt sign is on, and any minute now the bumpy part of the flights gonna begin.

  6. After reading this, I don’t think that thingy on my shoulder stock will ever go up again…….

  7. I’m willing to give the guy the benefit of the doubt on this one. Won’t be sending in any campaign contribution checks any time soon but I wasn’t gonna do that anyway.

    Much as I hate to say it, having Bloomberg as VP might not be so bad. Chances of him succeeding Romney are pretty darn slim and it’d get him out of the current position of power he’s got, at least.

    • I am pretty sure that Bloomy is termed out and cannot run again–so a VP nod would keep him in the political arena. BAAAD juju.

      • Blamebag is term limited. He was term limited before the last election, but he changed the law so he could run again. I think he’d prefer a hereditary monarchy, but automatic reelection worked for Sadam Hussein, so it would work for the Gasbag, too.

    • Bloomberg may help Romney win New York, which might make the difference between winning and losing the election. That said, the thought of Bloomberg stepping in as President of the United States if Romney is incapacitated nauseates me. Although, I feel the same way about Biden as Obama’s running mate. (As bad as many feel Obama is for liberty, he’s nothing compared to Biden or Bloomberg.) And I still don’t trust Romney. Romney seems to show a lack of constitutional loyalty or foundational morals; he will change his mind whenever it is politically advantageous to do so. Let’s see:

      Obama/Biden
      Romney/Bloomberg

      You want Communists or Nazis? Jeez … I’m sorry, but I swear I’d just write in “Ron Paul.” (Of course, in Illinois, it really won’t make a bit of difference.)

    • Whoops! Y’all are right; I didn’t even consider him being term-limited.

      That said, I can’t imagine NY going for a Republican.

      Doesn’t matter all that much to me anyway; I’ll be voting a straight R ticket for the first time in my (short) voting career this year and I’m looking forward to it. =)

  8. first of all romney doesn’t need your check, his lint and pocket change is more than you make in a year. and second he knows there is absolutely nothing he can do to make you not vote against obama.

  9. I don’t see a Romney-Blamebag ticket happening. Romney needs some geographic balance on his ticket. The smart move would be a Southerner as his running mate.

    Marco Rubio would be a risky pick with a huge payoff if Rubio can outdebate Obama’s court jester and head clown, Joe Biden. A Hispanic, Tea Party Southern conservative? Wow.

  10. Romney needs electoral college votes. Those votes are tied up in the swing states and New York and California are almost automatic Democrat votes. Romney needs to spread out the competition and if he has a chance of opening up what is usually a Democrat-gimme state, then he needs to try it and diffuse the battle from centrist states like Florida and Virginia.

    Meeting up in NY and at the very least acting like he can put NY in play certainly has to make Obama’s camp wonder if not expend effort on its “home front”. If Romney can distract Obama’s campaign effort and money from other states, then that works well for Romney.

    Also, you have to look at the vast majority of NY state is pretty conservative, but NY city swings the entire state Democrat. He’s won over most of the state, he just needs to win over part of the city.

    • New York hasn’t voted for a Republican since Reagan. Romney is no Reagan. He hasn’t a chance in hell in swinging New York. He does have a chance of alienating his base. This courtship of Bloomberg looks like all risk and no reward.

        • True, but unlike Reagan, Mittens has all the charisma of a stomach flu. He won’t get the pass the “Great Communicator” did.

  11. I normally try to give the guy the benefit of the doubt, but jeebus cripes Mitt, WTF?

  12. This is what the fake conservatives get when they push Mitt Romney over Ron Paul. I hope Romney does have Bloomberg as VP so there’s a better chance all the fake conservatives will finally see what they’ve done. …not that Romney can beat Obama anyway. Only Ron Paul can beat Obama.

    Whether it’s Obama, or whether it’s Romney… TARP, Patriot Act, NDAA indefinite detention, mandated health care, Goldman Sachs, gun grabbing… Good job, big-government fake conservatives!

    Btw, all you fakes don’t forget to keep supporting other fake conservatives like Paul Ryan. Another TARP, Patriot Act, NDAA guy. He and his “fiscally conservative” budget plan that adds trillions to the debt and wouldn’t balance the budget for 30 years. That’s right, no balanced budget until the year 2040. Good job!

  13. Why anyone gives a flying fvck what Romney does just baffles me. Robama is no different than Obamney. At this point, Republicans and Democrats are just two wings of the same predatory bird, as Butler Shaffer so eloquently puts it.

  14. ” . . . he knows there is absolutely nothing he can do to make you not vote against obama.”

    I’m continually amazed that, in spite of Obama’s apparent zeal for trashing this country’s economy and its power (and his success so far in accomplishing both), there are enough people supporting him to make this election tough to call.

    It won’t take many people sitting at home or playing at the range instead of voting to give us four more years of BO. We can’t take four more years of him and remain anything close to what we were three years ago. Without having to worry about re-election, he’ll simply start enacting whatever he wants to do through Executive Orders, with Holder backing him up on the legal end. Heller left a lot of wiggle room for “reasonable regulations”, and I bet BO’s idea of “reasonable” is different from gun owners’ ideas.

    He’s about to buy off all of the voters under 25 by spending my money to pick up student loan debt. He’ll have our southern border open soon for walk-ins for a month or so – long enough to add millions to the Dem voting rolls. He’s gonna scare the oldsters again with the “they’re gonna wipe out Medicaid!” line. Wall Street is going to bury his campaign in donations because he keeps hinting to them that they’re buying his love that way, but he’s actually going to be giving them a different kind of screwing after he wins.

    In other words, if you have to hold your nose and carry a barf bag with you to vote for Romney, do it. The primary’s basically over, and lots of us didn’t get our first or second choices, but if enough of us get sullen and don’t vote, we may as well take our money outside and roast marshmallows over it.

    No, wait. The EPA (which also just needs the president’s support, not Congress’) says no fires. Or marshmallows. Or being outside.

    • There are millions of Black people who think voting for Obama is their civic duty, economic and Constitutional Policy be da**ned.

      Add in the feminists who believe Obama’s their man in terms of greater reproductive rights-among other issues-and Romney is already seriously behind the curve.Between minorities and Women voters in America, we of the Red States are outnumbered at the jump.

      If, however, Romney can shapeshift into something the Liberals find attractive maybe Zero’s lock on his demographic can be broken enough for Romney to have a chance. An endorsement by Bloomberg will go a long way to getting the critical leftists to consider changing teams. For the sake of our economy and the integrity of our government, Zero cannot be re-elected. When I go to the polls this November ill be remembering Agent Brian Terry’s sacrifice.

  15. It is possible, isn’t it, that Romney wants to know where Bloomberg stands on the issue of US debt and how to manage it or reduce it? If he wanted former Republican Bloomberg for something, it would seem more likely to be as Treasury Secretary, for his connections and his understanding of markets and trading. No? Can’t build a ticket that would instantly be labelled “Rich and Richer.” As for the comments above about buying your defenses now, that’s a bit like saying “work hard, invest wisely, and live a clean life!” Always good advice, it seems to me. We know CA Dem. Senator Feinstein, for all her anti-gun guff, picked up a revolver when her nerves were frayed, so here’s a question: Is Bloomberg a closet 1911, Glock, Sig, or Revolver guy? You just know he’s got one of those. Which one?

    • If Romney wanted to know where Bloomberg stands on U.S. debt, all he’d have to do is look at Bloomberg’s comments from the other week when he said all the other candidates’ budget plans are laughable at best and that Ron Paul is the only one with a real plan that can fix the country’s budget.

  16. Any true, genuine American presidential candidate would make an election promise that Bloomberg will be investigated for numerous breaches of Constitutional law as soon as possible.

  17. We’ll get the same laws with either jackass in office. The only difference being that we MIGHT get slightly better SCOTUS appointments out of Shitt Romney.

  18. Keeping the House Republican and getting the maajority in the Senate is more important than who is President.A Republican Senate can block any Obama commie appointments and any gun legislation-keeping the House is needed to keep that scummy bitch Pelosi from being speaker again.The Supreme Court may two or three openings in the next Presidency-the Senate can stop another Kagan.
    Ginsberg,that demented little orc,can’t last much longer and Breyer is getting tired,but Thomas has indicated he is also ready to go(too bad-he makes some REAL good votes) so Obama with a Democrat Senate containing human feces like Whitehouse and Franken would be a disaster.

  19. Empty suit A doesntd want you to have guns. Empty suit B just feels less strongly about it than A. Damn I’m feeling patriotic today.

    • B doesn’t really care one way or the other, his focus is on the economy and debt. And as for Joe on congress, yes taking both houses is very important. But itd be better to just not nominate another Kagan than to have to block her and as for passing laws, overriding a veto is a bitch to accomplish that almost never gets done.

  20. I have a sad sinking feeling that no mater who we elect, the government at all levels is so big and powerful It has a life of its own and cannot be constrained .
    my only hope is that we can delay a little of the regulatory war on the 2nd amendment if we can get O out.

  21. Can’t we just nuke the whole bloody lot of them from orbit and start over? Sort of like a continental, multi-megaton Etch-A-Sketch. Never mind, I forgot that they’re cockroaches; they’ll survive and all we’ll get is rubble and radiation poisoning.

  22. A vote for Romney is a vote for Obama. They do not differ from each other on any major issue.

    If you’re a single issue 2A voter, Ron Paul is your only chance.

Comments are closed.