Bloomberg Calls De Blasio Campaign "Racist"

No, seriously - in an interview with NY Magazine:

Then there’s Bill de Blasio, who’s become the Democratic front-runner. He has in some ways been running a class-warfare campaign—

Class-warfare and racist.
 
Racist?

I mean he’s making an appeal using his family to gain support. I think it’s pretty obvious to anyone watching what he’s been doing. I do not think he himself is racist. It’s comparable to me pointing out I’m Jewish in attracting the Jewish vote. You tailor messages to your audiences and address issues you think your audience cares about.

But his whole campaign is that there are two different cities here. And I’ve never liked that kind of division. The way to help those who are less fortunate is, number one, to attract more very fortunate people. They are the ones that pay the bills. The people that would get very badly hurt here if you drive out the very wealthy are the people he professes to try to help. Tearing people apart with this “two cities” thing doesn’t make any sense to me. It’s a destructive strategy for those you want to help the most. He’s a very populist, very left-wing guy, but this city is not two groups, and if to some extent it is, it’s one group paying for services for the other.

Hey, Bloomberg has a couple of Latino pool boys and some colored help to clean up around the mansions, but you didn't see Mikey's campaign use them in his ads, did you?

How outrageous for this greedy, power hungry billionaire to call the de Blasio campaign "racist" for using the de Blasio family in the campaign ads and classist for pointing out that people outside of the 1% in this city are struggling even as the wealthy people yuck it up over champagne and caviar in their gleaming glass towers built in areas of the city Bloomberg rezoned specifically for them.

How dare he?

Can you imagine that Bloomberg has decreed de Blasio shouldn't use his family in his ads because, you know, his wife is black and his kids are biracial, and that might be seen as looking to reach black voters?

Ethnic politics has been alive and well in this city since the Brits knocked off the Dutch.

Bloomberg's campaign looked to solidify support with the Jewish community when he ran for mayor.

Just another example of what's good for Mikey isn't good for anybody else.

There's also a fundamental flaw in Bloomberg's argument that if you drive the "fortunate people" out of the city you hurt the "less fortunate."

The reason why real estate is so expensive, why apartments are so expensive, why food is so expensive, why other expenses are so high in this city, is because the market is skewered by all the "fortunate people" living here driving up the prices by their willingness to pay, say, $5000 a month for a freaking studio apartment.

I find Michael Bloomberg to be so much more vile and disgusting than Giuliani, and yet somehow he is leaving office without the widespread disdain people had for Giuliani (at least before 9/11.)

These comments he made in New York Magazine show the classist and racist myopia Bloomberg is infected with.