Candidates react with studied calm to Bloomberg prospect
Sen. Marco Rubio dismissed Michael Bloomberg as “just a private citizen who owns a big company.”
The Republican and Democratic presidential fields Sunday reacted with deliberate nonchalance, ideological objections and grudging admiration to the specter of Bloomberg entering the 2016 campaign for the White House.
After learning that Bloomberg had ordered his advisers to draw up a possible plan to seek the presidency, the candidates uniformly sought to project a lack of anxiety, despite the former mayor’s immense wealth and willingness to spend $1 billion on a third-party candidacy that would bypass their party’s primaries.
“My reaction is, if Donald Trump wins and Mr. Bloomberg gets in, you’re going to have two multibillionaires running for president of the United States against me,” Sanders said on Meet the Press.