Mike Bloomberg: "We cannot have a society where you go out on the street and you get blown away. We just have to say enough is enough."

Washington Post

Bloomberg’s Super Bowl ad focuses on the ‘national crisis’ of gun violence, not Trump

By Katie Zezima

January 30, 2020

Democratic presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg, who has flooded the airways with ads attacking President Trump, is trying a different approach with a spot during the Super Bowl: His newest ad will focus on a mother whose son was shot and killed.

Bloomberg, who founded the gun control group Everytown for Gun Safety, is predominantly relying on ads to propel his presidential candidacy. On Sunday — a day before the Iowa caucuses, where Bloomberg is not on the ballot — he will reach his biggest audience yet. More than 100 million people watched last year’s Super Bowl, according to Nielsen ratings.

Long the domain of high-priced and highly produced commercials hyping cars and beer, this year’s game in Miami will have a dose of politics, with spots from Bloomberg and President Trump’s reelection campaign. Fox Sports executives have said the network is selling 30-second ads during the contest between the San Francisco 49ers and Kansas City Chiefs for more than $5 million each.

Bloomberg’s new ad does not mention the president. It features a Texas woman, Calandrian Simpson Kemp, talking about how her son, George H. Kemp Jr., started playing football at age 4, with photos of him holding football gear as a baby and child.

On a Friday morning in September 2013, she learned that her son had been shot overnight.

Her son, a 20-year-old football player who had finished his freshman year at Navarro College, was killed during an altercation in Richmond, Tex.

Kemp calls gun violence a “national crisis.” She starts talking about Bloomberg halfway through the ad, which says that the candidate “started a national gun safety movement.” Kemp does not specifically mention the National Rifle Association, which has long spent money on anti-Bloomberg ads, but she says that the gun lobby is afraid of Bloomberg.

Kemp said she believes the gun control movement has found its candidate in Bloomberg, who, she said, “heard mothers crying. So he started fighting.”

Howard Wolfson, a senior Bloomberg aide, said trying to combat gun violence is a major reason the former New York mayor decided to run for president.

“This is a subject that has animated him,” Wolfson said. “And he did help build this movement of activists all around the country that he stands in solidarity with.”

The advertisement is a significant departure from the spots Bloomberg has run since announcing his candidacy on Nov. 24. Most have focused on slamming Trump on issues including impeachment and health care. Trump has responded to some of them, calling the ads “lies” that are unfair to his White House record.

Bloomberg gets under Trump’s skin as he ramps up spending on 2020 ads

Wolfson said the campaign took a different approach this time, both to highlight Bloomberg’s record on gun control and because Super Bowl ads typically don’t focus on politics.

“My view is that people watching the Super Bowl aren’t interested in attack ads,” he said.

Bloomberg’s campaign filmed videos with people from 12 states whose loved ones were killed in gun violence. They will be posted on the candidate’s website Friday.

In an interview Wednesday, Kemp said she joined Moms Demand Action, which is part of Everytown, in 2014. She met Bloomberg through the group, showing him George’s photo and speaking with him about her son.

Initially a supporter of former congressman Beto O’Rourke (D-Tex.) in the presidential race because of his gun control plans, Kemp threw her support behind Bloomberg after O’Rourke dropped out of the race.

Kemp said she nearly fell out of bed when Bloomberg’s presidential campaign asked her to appear in a video that would become a Super Bowl ad. Her son always wanted to play in the Super Bowl, and now she hopes others see their loved ones in him.

“So many boys will say . . . that was my brother, too, that happened to my uncle, too,” she said. “They feel like they can identify themselves and feel like they are part of something in this country and not just a negative statistic.”

She talks to her son often, and she has something to say to him on Super Bowl Sunday.

“I’m going to tell George that he made it,” she said. “To know that this was his passion since age four, and to now be able to have the world see my son, to see George Kemp Jr., in the Super Bowl. He made it in a different way and his mama sure is proud of him.”

Michelle Ye Hee Lee contributed to this report.