By Michael Piwowarski
SAGINAW – It looks like Mike won’t get it done after all.
The Democratic presidential campaign of former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg opened 10 offices in the state of Michigan, in an effort to gain more traction in a hotly contested primary.
The Bloomberg campaign office in downtown Saginaw, located at 104 E. Genessee Avenue inside the Bancroft building, held an open house Saturday, Feb. 29, in the hopes that Bloomberg would win the Great Lakes State and come out from behind.
The sign of the space’s former tenant – The Gallery, Art for Saginaw – was still present, covered up by one of many Bloomberg 2020 campaign signs that lined the windows and the interior walls.
However, just four days after the office opened, Bloomberg suspended his campaign. With the Michigan primary yet to take place, the closed art gallery sat vacant once again, with all the campaign signs taken down.
As of Friday, March 6, the door is locked, less than a week after it was opened to Bloomberg supporters in the Saginaw area.
Maurice Patterson, regional organizing director of the Bloomberg campaign for Michigan, told the Collegiate that he believed Bloomberg was the best candidate to take on incumbent Donald Trump.
“We have a president in office now that has pretty much tipped the whole Washington D.C. establishment upside down,” said Patterson. “[…] He’s been impeached and it’s time to get somebody else in there; someone like Mike Bloomberg.”
Patterson supported Bloomberg over the other Democratic candidates, because of Bloomberg’s moderate stance compared to the likes of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. He particularly supported Bloomberg’s record on education.
“My oldest daughter is a school teacher,” said Patterson. “In New York City, [Bloomberg] gave teachers a 43% raise over 12 years when he was mayor of New York.”
Bloomberg went over his educational record as mayor while speaking to the civil rights organization National Action Network, saying that his increase of the teachers’ pay and the education budget resulted in a 42% increase in graduation. PolitiFact.com rates this statement “mostly true.”
Patterson was also supportive of Bloomberg’s gun control plan, which calls for “a more effective background check system” and banning assault weapons, while still protecting Second Amendment rights, according to his campaign website.
Bloomberg is a strong advocate for gun control, being a founder and co-chair of the group Mayors Against Illegal Guns Coalition.
During his campaign, the candidate came under fire for a crime fighting policy in New York City known as stop-and-frisk, which was in effect when he was mayor. Stop-and-frisk is where police stop pedestrians for questioning and searching if they are suspects of committing a crime.
This policy was highly criticized by the black population of the city, who claimed that the policy is racist because a majority of those being stopped were African American or Latino.
“It was a policy that was put in place before [Bloomberg] came in office,” said Patterson. “He had it under his leadership for 12 years. He apologized for it eventually. My belief is it was a policy that was a good policy, but the execution was bad.”
Although stop-and-frisk was already active in New York City before he took office, Bloomberg was a staunch supporter of the policy as mayor and worked to expand it.
He even kept the policy going up to his final days in office and vetoed reform measures passed by the city council. He eventually apologized for supporting stop-and-frisk in November 2019, shortly before announcing his run for president.
That was one of many scars on Bloomberg’s record that may have likely contributed to his less than stellar performance in the Democratic primaries.
With his campaign at an end after a less-than-stellar performance on Super Tuesday, Bloomberg has backed Joe Biden.