There’s a very scary reality that someone with as much money as Bloomberg can put more than $150,000 into a county sheriff’s election and not bat an eye. Money can make things very, very tough to fight when someone saturates the airwaves with a common message during election season.
However, there’s a silver lining in that, ultimately, money doesn’t vote. People vote. That reminder was sent to Mike Bloomberg again last night when the county race he invested so heavily in managed to stay in the hands of a sheriff who believes in the right to defend yourself and your family.
David Clarke retains his office as Milwaukee County Sheriff this morning, even though the Bloomberg-backed challenger is refusing to concede today. Boy, he sure knows how to pick the classy candidates.
Classy candidates don’t prostitute themselves.
Just as when Meg Whitman tried to outspend Jerry Brown for California Governor ($100M!), I suspect a lot of voters were more disgusted by the blatant spending and voted against Bloomberg’s candidate for that reasona lone. It probably didn’t help that he was an outsider. I wouldn’t be surprised if Bloomberg actually was a net negative on vote counts, but there’s no way to tell.
This was a primary, not the actual election. But since he is a D, not an R, well…
Noted elsewhere, he asked Rs to vote in the primary. And some almost certainly did: votes cast for that position were about 100,000 more than any other position. Not conclusive of crossover, but that is the way I would bet.