Anti-gun Mayor Bloomberg's billions: Can't buy him love?

November 4, 3:31 PMSt. Louis Gun Rights ExaminerKurt Hofmann

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         Bloomberg leaves voting booth (AP photo/Richard Drew)

As is not terribly surprising, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg was re-elected in Tuesday's voting.  What is somewhat surprising is the narrow margin of victory.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who won re-election in an unexpectedly close race, spent a record amount of his own personal dollars -- a whopping $100 million -- to defeat Democratic challenger Bill Thompson. Bloomberg, an independent who ran on the Republican ballot, spent close to a million dollars in the final weeks of the campaign, outspending Thompson 15 to 1 in the most expensive self-financed campaign in U.S. history.

Political observers predicted the media tycoon to win by double digits, but instead he declared a 5-point victory over his opponent -- securing 51 percent of the vote compared to Thompson's 46 percent.

Bloomberg's $100 million spending spree--that's $35 thousand per hour--sets a record for political campaign expenditures paid out of the candidate's pocket.  This came only after Bloomberg used his wealth and power to have the law changed to allow him to run for a third term in the first place--and also after Bloomberg's henchmen warned the Obama administration to stay out of the race--to which Obama obediently agreed.

Bloomberg's main claim to "fame" on the national level is his seething hatred of privately owned firearms.  So obsessed is he with imposing every gun restriction he can think of, that he successfully pushed a law banning gun paint, and tried to prosecute a man for owning an "unregistered" flintlock--despite there being (perhaps surprisingly, in NYC) no law requiring registration of flintlocks.  His latest foray has been his highly publicized (and possibly illegal?) effort to close the mythical "gun show loophole."

Bloomberg also formed the anti-gun group Mayors Against Illegal Guns (or, as I like to call them, Illegal Mayors Against Guns, although some have not--yet--come under criminal investigation).  That group cost Bloomberg almost $3 million (small change for him, I suppose), and also got $350,000 from the anti-gun Joyce Foundation.

And even with all that money, Bloomberg's group of mayors seems to have trouble holding onto members.

ARUN VENUGOPAL: Pennsylvania has about 100 members in Mayors Against Illegal Guns, by far the most of any state. But in the last few weeks, nearly a dozen of Pennsylvania's mayors have quit the coalition. One of them is Walter Niedermeyer, mayor of the town of Slatington. Niedermeyer left the group after the NRA sent flyers to his constituents.

Mayor WALTER NIEDERMEYER (Slatington, Pennsylvania): They sent me these letters. They called me up, asked me, please get off it. So I figure these are the people that vote. These are the people I work with. These are the people I support, too, so I'll do what they want me to do.

Disarming the American people will take much more than money.  It will take blood--a great deal of it--and I don't think you have enough, Mayor.