The Emperor Had No Answers

The post-mortems on Michael Bloomberg's epically awful debate performance naturally turned to his preparation. Did he rehearse enough? Was his advice good enough? Was he not be given better answers for the pointed questions that were sure to come his way? Did he not know that Elizabeth Warren and the rest would be charging at him hard? Was he rusty? In the absence of any insider knowledge, I'd say the likely answer to all of the above was yes. As the New York Times and countless others reported, it was a clinic in ineptitude. I don't know who did his debate preparation, but I do know he has the money to buy the best and I suspect he did. The problem is that even the most brilliant trainer needs a trainee who will listen. A self-made billionaire who bought his way into relevance in the unsettled Democratic race, Bloomberg is more comfortable giving orders than obeying them. His consultants surely warned him that he would have a target on his forehead, that his opponents, all hardened by earlier debates, would use the platform to hammer him in an attempt to counteract his advertising onslaught. His trainers may well have advised him to show some contrition for his support for discredited the stop and frisk policing policy which targeted young black men during his time as mayor of New York--and to practise his lines so he could deliver them smoothly while his opponents are barking at him. Nope. The response was opaque, incomprehensible and fumbling. I can visualise the trainer predicting: "you're going to hammered on the NDAs that you negotiated with women alleging harassing behaviour. Your derisive comments about women will be thrown in your face. It will be rough. Your best choice is to admit you made mistakes, say you're sorry and that you've learned your lesson." Nope. Paraphrasing a CNN commentator: Titanic Bloomberg, meet iceberg Warren.

She came armed with a devastating opening:

“So I’d like to talk about who we’re running against: a billionaire who calls women ‘fat broads’ and ‘horse-faced lesbians.’ And no, I’m not talking about Donald Trump. I’m talking about Mayor Bloomberg.”

It was going to be a long night for him.

The senator, a brilliant lawyer, has a record of expertly eviscerating rich guys in senate hearings. She mercilessly pounded on Bloomberg, demanding he release the women from the NDAs, or at minimum tell the nation how many NDAs he'd signed. The former mayor flaccidly sputtered that he hired lots of women in his empire and paid them well. As for the ones who complained and got settlements and silence orders, it seemed like he'd slept through the #MeToo movement when he blurted:  “maybe they didn’t like a joke I told.”  Yikes.

One of the world's richest men is accustomed to success but not so accustomed to being told that on a presidential debate stage he needed to show some humility, to be ready with carefully honed responses for an onslaught that was utterly predictable. The Bloomberg campaign has been a well-paid bonanza for plenty of top flight political and communications consultants. Armed with an ocean of money, their execution was flawless when they could control the message in paid media. It ran aground in the uncontrollable crucible of a debate stage. I suspect his trainers will not be highlighting this particular gig in their marketing materials, even if the blame for the disaster likely rests almost completely with the boss.


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