Former staffers for failed presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg told The Nation that they actively tried to undermine the former New York City mayor’s campaign by actively supporting one of his rivals, Bernie Sanders.
At least one staffer created a “team” of volunteers in order to hit canvassing goals and defraud the campaign. The picture these staffers painted of the campaign was one of chaos and cynicism.
Several staffers said they actively tried to undermine Bloomberg’s campaign, even canvassed for Sanders.
“I would actively canvass for Bernie when I was supposed to be canvassing for Mike. I know of at least one team of ‘volunteers’ that was entirely fabricated by the organizers who had to hit their goals,” one staffer said, according to [Ken] Klippenstein’s report.
The person added: “It was easy enough to fudge the data to make it look like real people put in real volunteer work, when in reality Mike was getting nothing out of it.”
When you have so much money being spent in so little time, something like this was bound to happen. In just two and a half months, the Bloomberg campaign went from nothing to a nationwide organization of more than 1,000 staffers. Millions of dollars were floating around with very little campaign oversight.
The staffers couldn’t identify themselves because they signed non-disclosure agreements. They could not only get sued, they could go to jail. But the image of Sanders supporters actively working for Bloomberg brings irony to a whole new level.
Perhaps the staffers felt entitled to act this way, given the monumental ass the candidate proved to be.
Then Bloomberg just starts to talk. “I was up in Maine and Vermont recently — look at the foliage and that kind of thing,” he says. “They have a diner we go to. The food was really good. I said, ‘We should have those diners in New York.’ We’ve had a lot of diners close. It’s partially tastes have changed, but we’ve had four restaurants in my neighborhood close in the past six months. Each one was in a townhouse. They’re ripping them down and putting up these thin slivers of buildings. There’s one two doors away from me. I had the developer and his wife over for dinner. He said they’re getting $3,000 a square foot for 4,000 square feet — one floor, 12 million bucks! He took the top floor for himself, and he thinks he’s going to move in.”
“Nobody could pay that rent,” somebody pipes up.
“Uh,” says Bloomberg, pausing, only a little self-consciously. “Y’know …” Then he motors on. “And the Upper East Side has become less fashionable, supposedly.”
Whatever those staffers did to Bloomberg, he deserves it.
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