Some people are angry because Michael Bloomberg bought his new job as Mayor of New York City. He spent a reported $69 million on the campaign, a sum that worked out to more than $96 for each of the 744,757 votes he received.
I’m not angry. In fact, I see his victory as a major advance in the evolution of American politics, a great innovation in political nomenclature, and a shining example for others to follow—even people who haven’t achieved Mr. Bloomberg’s stratospheric level of personal wealth.
For too long major contributors to all sorts of political campaigns have been buying influence indirectly. You give large chunks of money to a candidate. After the election you get in touch with one of this official’s operatives. A hint is dropped about your wants or needs. The hint is favorably received. A little while later these wants or needs find concrete expression in new legislation.
This isn’t the way the most successful companies operate in today’s fast-paced, highly competitive markets. It’s too time-consuming. It’s inefficient. It’s got an unnecessary middleman between request and fulfillment of request.
What Michael Bloomberg and the other super-rich folks who now favor us with their candidacies for public office have done is rationalize the political system the same way they’ve rationalized their own businesses. They’ve done away with the middleman. They no longer buy influence. They buy an office outright. No one who believes in the free enterprise system would dare to suggest that this isn’t a much needed and long overdue political reform.
Then there’s the related matter of nomenclature. More specifically, the dramatically changed meaning of the term "public service" that Mr. Bloomberg’s elevation brings into such a sharp new focus. Once upon a time the very rich capped successful careers in commerce by contributing large sums to build or maintain important public institutions such as schools, museums or libraries. That was their public service. Instead of building a new hospital for $69 million, Michael Bloomberg opted to give that sum to New York area TV stations to win an election. Instead of purchasing some new brick and mortar for his fellow New Yorkers, in other words, he purchased something he deemed far more precious—four years of himself. What a guy.
Finally, there’s the extraordinary example he’s set by buying The Apple’s top job. Yes, other members of America’s richest-boy club have sought elective office and occasionally set a tone. In a presidential field of should-have-been-nobodies, a self-financed nobody like Ross Perot was able to make quite a splash. While that ultimate political nobody, Jon Corzine, demonstrated that by copiously gifting local county organizations and showing up on the tube more often than Seinfeld reruns, you could even buy a Senate seat. It remained for Michael Bloomberg, however, to apply these same lessons to a municipal office.
And what a field of dreams this opens for people like myself! I’m certainly not ultra rich. But I do have a respectable 401(k), and assets derived from a lifetime of modestly intelligent investing. Why shouldn’t I descend on a small city that’s always voted heavily Democratic, and with a few well placed handouts to the local Republican establishment become its mayoral candidate? Local media buys in such places are dirt cheap compared to the New York media. Throw in a deteriorating economy (a given in these recessionary times) and a scandal or two within the sitting Democratic administration (also a given) and my election is a shoe-in.
Of course, aspiring to such victories can cause some confusion. When I told a friend that it would only cost about $150,000 to become mayor of Camden, New Jersey, he looked astounded. "Is that all they’re gonna pay you to take the job? I wouldn’t do it for less than half-a-mill."
It’s not always easy to explain The New Public Service to people too old fashion to see its intrinsic merits.
