In his time, Whitney Tilson has cosplayed a professional poker player, Consumer Reports editor, Kenyan beach vacation travel agent, Wall Street beat cop (and vice unit member), ersatz MasterClass teacher and sleep deprivation researcher, Tesla troll and, arguably, hedge fund manager.
Now, he’s going to do some make-believe political candidacy.
“We need to shake up our city government and abandon a lot of terrible ideas, which can only be done by an outsider – a businessperson, not a career politician,” Tilson said in a letter announcing his candidacy [for New York City mayor] Tuesday. “We need a leader who can unify New Yorkers and bring fresh thinking….”
“I don’t think I’m likely to win, but I don’t think it’s impossible,” he said, even though he won’t seek the backing of the powerful teachers union and has no experience in politics or in overseeing a large organization. Kase Capital, which he ran for almost two decades, never managed much more than $200 million.
Tilson’s plans for not winning? Taking a page from his buddy Bill Ackman and running to the right of the corrupt, incompetent, increasingly right-leaning and doomed Eric Adams, who himself narrowly won by running to the right of everyone else.
“I believe a major reason [Vice President Kamala Harris] – and we – lost is that Americans looked at New York City (and San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Chicago, DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Newark, etc.) and the solid-blue states in which they’re located, where Democrats have one-party rule, and thought to themselves: ‘I don’t want any part of that. If that’s what the Democratic party is offering – high taxes, crime and cost of living, lousy schools, the woke mob running amok, etc. – I’d rather vote for Trump, in spite of my many misgivings.’ What a damning indictment!” Tilson wrote.
Ex-Hedge Fund Manager Whitney Tilson Will Run for NYC Mayor [Bloomberg via Yahoo!]
