OPINION: Michael Bloomberg was the biggest loser of the Las Vegas debate

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Listen to New Yorkers, especially Black New Yorkers. 

While so-called polls claimed former New York City Mayor Michael Rubens Bloomberg was surging in the Democratic race for president, Black and LatinX New Yorkers from social media to talk radio to cable news have begged voters to not fall for his elite shenanigans. The 78-year-old Republican-turned-Democrat-turned-Independent is a hack with money to burn. 

After last night’s Democratic debate, let’s hope his presidential run has now been derailed– his electability stopped and frisked. 

The showdown in Las Vegas, Nevada was a billionaire bloodbath and Sen. Elizabeth Warren lead the way. A few of her greatest blows against Bloomberg included, “We are not going to beat Donald Trump with a man who has who-knows-how-many nondisclosure agreements and the drip-drip-drip of stories of women saying they have been harassed and discriminated against. That’s not what we do as Democrats.” 

There was also this gem: “Democrats are not going to win if we have a nominee who has a history of hiding his tax returns, of harassing women, and of supporting racist policies like redlining and stop and frisk.”

And then there’s my personal favorite: “I’d like to talk about who we’re running against — a billionaire who calls women fat broads and horse-faced lesbians,” Warren said. “And no, I’m not talking about Donald Trump. I’m talking about Michael Bloomberg.

READ MORE: Lawsuit alleges Michael Bloomberg told female employee to hire ‘some Black’ to be nanny

Yes, there were mini-battles between Mayor Pete Buttigieg vs. Sen. Klobuchar, and Sen. Bernie Sanders vs. Vice President Joe Biden,  but make no mistake — the night was clearly about exiling Michael Bloomberg back to his penthouse in New York City. It was as if they all huddled together in a wine cellar for hours and plotted on how to eviscerate him.

For the first time, we saw the united front of these candidates and they all had moments of looking presidential. And the supporter of war criminal George W. Bush looked like the person we always knew in New York City — a charlatan who was in Democrat drag. 

I have been in New York City since 1998. I have been stopped by the police. I have friends who have been stopped and arrested. I have transgender friends who were stopped and arrested because they had a condom in their pocket. I have seen how Bloomberg, and Trump worshiper Rudy Guiliani, “cleaned up” New York City at the expense of poor people.

All of the candidates have flaws but Bloomberg’s record is the most egregious, from his vile treatment of teachers’ unions to defending stop-and-frisk even after a federal judge deemed the policy unconstitutional to bizarrely landing a third term.

Do not say we are “cannibalizing our own,” simply because he is being held accountable. Again, listen to New Yorkers and don’t listen to the man who can’t release his tax returns because he can’t use Turbo Tax like us common folk.

READ MORE: OPINION: Mike Bloomberg, can keep his apology. Black people don’t need it.

Yes, Billionaire Bloomberg has a right to run for president, but he should not be able to buy the nomination process. He should’ve entered the race at the same time as everyone else. If Bloomberg would have begun campaigning a year ago and endured laborious debates since the spring, he would have floundered just like the current New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio.

Just like a rich person, Bloomberg decided to bet it all against the house and now he lost big in Vegas. Fortunately, what happened on that debate stage will not stay in Vegas. Michael Bloomberg lost and everyone else won.

As for the polls showing Bloomberg making inroads with Black voters, it will take more than million-dollar campaign ads of him shaking hands with President Barack Obama in 2016 airing during a Shonda Rhimes television show to resonate with Black voters. Bloomberg hasn’t sat with one single Black media outlet or Black journalist (I know for a fact requests have been put in). Bloomberg believes the Black vote is for sale. Bloomberg will not buy us. Bloomberg must earn us and he doesn’t have the capacity to do so. 

Will Michael Bloomberg come to a Black barbershop? Will he give a speech in the heart of North Philadelphia? Will he visit a church in Detroit? The answer to that is no.

Yes, folks believe Bloomberg is Trump-ish so they think he would win — but there is a key difference. Trump wouldn’t have won as a Democrat because Black folks wouldn’t have allowed it. Trump’s base might be fooled by a billionaire with a history of racism and misogyny, but not us. 

On Tuesday, I appeared on “CNN Tonight” with Don Lemon and predicted the debate would show exactly who he is: smug, unrelatable, untitled, unprepared. So in the name of Kalief Browder, in the name of Sean Bell and so many Black lives who were destroyed on Billionaire Bloomberg’s watch, I hope this is the beginning of the end. The chicanery of the rich trying to steal another election must end now.

It would behoove Bloomberg to make a swift exit and return to his life as a private citizen. He should continue to help the Democratic party by “giving away,” as he said (how very Miss Millie from “The Color Purple” of him), his billions of dollars.

Oh, and one more thing, Stacey Abrams for Vice President.

Clay Cane is a political commentator and the host of “The Clay Cane Show” on SiriusXM. You can follow him on Twitter here.