Bloomberg

Did Bloomberg train TenHaken to be one of his campaign soldiers?

As I predicted a month ago, the National media is finally realizing the connection between Bloomberg’s presidential run and his city initiative that our city participated in;

Michael Bloomberg is relying on powerful city leaders as allies in his presidential campaign. Several have received grants, training and support packages totaling millions from his foundation.

Fortunately, Sioux Falls is NOT mentioned in the article. But don’t hold your breath.

As Mr. Bloomberg traverses the country as a presidential candidate, he is drawing on a vast network of city leaders whom he has funded as a philanthropist or advised as an elder statesman of municipal politics. Bloomberg Philanthropies, which has assets totaling $9 billion, has supported 196 different cities with grants, technical assistance and education programs worth a combined $350 million. Now, leaders in some of those cities are forming the spine of Mr. Bloomberg’s campaign: He has been endorsed so far by eight mayors — from larger cities like San Jose, Calif., and Louisville, Ky., and smaller ones like Gary, Ind., representing a total of more than 2.6 million Americans.

For all of those endorsers, Mr. Bloomberg has been an important benefactor. All have attended his prestigious boot camp at Harvard that gives the mayors access to ongoing strategic advice from Bloomberg-funded experts.

Now, some of the same people who aided these mayors from Mr. Bloomberg’s foundation are the ones asking for their political support. Mr. Anderson, who several mayors described as the most vital point of contact at Bloomberg Philanthropies, is now directing the campaign’s “Mayors for Mike” coalition.

And then there is this distinct thing going on, that I also warned about, using the same people who built the foundation to work on the campaign;

But Mr. Reich, the Stanford expert, was skeptical about the effect of logistical steps like separating email addresses. “It’s a detail that seems to miss the point of the exercise, which is to erect a wall between the activities of a philanthropist and the political interests of the donor,” he said.

So far, only a few of the mayors linked to Mr. Bloomberg’s foundation have actually endorsed his campaign. 

I knew it would only be a matter of time before the ‘network’ that was formed through the foundation would be used in his campaign. How long before TenHaken becomes a ‘Mayor for Mike’? No worries, he will probably vote for Trump anyway.

How will Bloomberg use Data in his run for president?

I guess Bloomberg plans for a formal announcement on Tuesday that he is running for president on the Democratic ticket. I would not recommend voting for him – but that is a whole other discussion.

Either way, there has been a ton of discussion about how he will use his money to win the primary. While I understand the nervousness of the other candidates about that, my bigger fear is how he will use the data he has been collecting on cities.

As you know, Bloomberg launched the American Cities Initiative, and mayor TenHaken and others in his administration have been working closely with the Bloomberg organization as well as many other cities across the country. Bloomberg has been building a network of ‘Data’ that would be invaluable in running for president.

Is it legal to use this data? I’m not sure, and I don’t even know where I would look up something like that, but some things are clear. This is ‘commercial’ data that anyone can use, so that may be the legal ‘loophole’ here.

Bloomberg has been financing this initiative and our city leaders and other city leaders across the nation have justified that it is okay to collect this data on us because Bloomberg is paying for it and it isn’t costing the taxpayers a dime.

Don’t be fooled by this Trojan Horse. Bloomberg and his organization isn’t built of dummies. Having valuable information about our city (that is in a very red state) like transportation, codes, voter addresses, housing, employment, taxation, politics, etc. is invaluable to Bloomberg.

I never assumed that Bloomberg was doing this out of the ‘goodness of his heart’. It is clear to me now that is a bigger part of his run for the presidency.

If he announces on Tuesday, if I were the mayor of Sioux Falls, I would immediately cut ties with the organization and request that any data collected on us be turned over (even if they probably have it backed up somewhere).

It is one thing to learn how to innovate in our city – it’s entirely different thing to help someone run for president. I always knew our association with this organization smelled very fishy, and now I know why.