How will the Bloomberg strategy play in Texas?

BLOGGER’S NOTE: This essay was first published on KETR-FM radio’s website, ketr.org.

The Super Tuesday Democratic Party primary presidential race is just a shade less than a month away.

On March 3, Texans will get to vote for who should be the next Democratic nominee for the presidency. The Texas ballot is going to include a name thatā€™s been missing from ballots that will precede this huge political event.

Michael Bloomberg is the man of the hour. Or at least he wants to be the man of the hour ā€“ or the man of the primary ā€“ at the end of that quite important election.

I am trying to assess whether Bloombergā€™s strategy of staying out of the early primary states while concentrating initially on the Super Tuesday.

Democrats are going to select a significant majority of their convention delegates that day. Bloomberg wants to gather up most of them. Will his Super Tuesday strategy pay off?

My wife and I watch a good bit of TV during the day in our Princeton home and we see and hear millions of dollarsā€™ worth of ads touting the candidacy of Bloomberg, the former three-term New York City mayor. The latest round of ads includes a spot that features former President Barack Obama saying nice things about the leadership qualities that Bloomberg has exhibited while running the nationā€™s largest city.

Oh, wait! Joe Biden, the former presidentā€™s ā€œbrother from another mother,ā€ also is running for the presidency this year. Obama hasnā€™t endorsed Bloomberg. He also hasnā€™t endorsed his good friend and former political partner (Biden served as vice president for eight years during the Obama administration). The former president is staying out of the nomination fight. Heā€™ll likely endorse whomever his party nominates this summer.

Bloomberg is opening 11 more campaign offices in Texas. He is hiring hundreds of political workers. He is setting up what they call a ā€œground gameā€ here. What Iā€™m trying to grasp as Bloombergā€™s date with Super Tuesday draws closer is how his platform will play here.

He talks about gun control. He speaks in support of a womanā€™s ā€œright to chooseā€ whether to remain pregnant. Bloomberg wants to amend the Affordable Care Act, not toss it aside. From what Iā€™ve witnessed in Texas is that (a) Texans donā€™t want to mess with the Second Amendment, (b) Texans are mostly ā€œpro-lifeā€ on the issue of abortion and (c) Texans donā€™t think much of the ACA.

Michael Bloomberg, though, needs to demonstrate that heā€™s a real Democrat, as opposed to some sort of faux Democrat who changes his party affiliation to suit the political mood of the moment. I mean, he once was a Republican; then he became an independent; now heā€™s a Democrat.

Whatā€™s more, Hizzoner also once declared his intention to stay out of the 2020 presidential campaign. Now heā€™s all in.

But ā€¦ is he? All in?