Sunday, November 17, 2019

If Pete Buttiegieg Were To Win Iowa

That changes everything. He would become the immediate frontrunner and might as well clinch the nomination. The country would see the grandest cross-generational handover of leadership in its history. And this would, in symbolism, be bigger than a woman getting elected. Pete is a sexual minority.

He is smart. Like very smart. He is capable. He is promising. And the fact that I can't tell you any one policy position of his that stands out might actually be a plus point. That is how you build great coalitions. That is how you win.



He first won the media primary. Then he did really well in the money primary. And now he reportedly has the best ground game in Iowa. That counts for a lot. That shows you can organize.

Frankly, I have not paid much attention to him. (I have not paid much attention to anyone actually.) I did not think he was a contender. Until now. Now he is looking like the possible nominee.



We have seen time and again that most voters don't really pay attention until after the Iowa caucus results.

If Pete were the nominee, who might be the running mate? Kamala Harris? Andrew Yang? Tulsi Gabbard? In style Tulsi is most in sync. Both are veterans.



Pete Buttigieg: Who He Is and What He Stands For
The Next Phase of Pete Buttigieg's 2020 Campaign back in January, his campaign had to schedule his launch announcement at a hotel a few blocks from the White House to persuade enough reporters to cover it, and that now there’s such a demand for his all-access bus tour this weekend, they have to rotate reporters in between stops ........ he almost delayed his announcement because his father had moved into the ICU the weekend before, and that he made it home just in time before he died ...... in March 2018, he took iPhone photos of the god hates fags sign outside the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, and that he has since married another man and cites his own experience as a gay man on the campaign trail to connect with others who face discrimination. ...... a history and literature major at Harvard and former McKinsey consultant ........ “It’s tough to say what it’s like with any kind of meaningful critical distance, because you’re just in it.” ....... When I asked Buttigieg which is more ridiculous, the idea of a black freshman senator winning the presidency in 2008, or the idea of the 37-year-old mayor of South Bend, Indiana, getting elected now, he said, “I would like to argue that neither is ridiculous.” Buttigieg’s response carried a characteristic edge to it: “He had more national exposure sooner than I did. But then I have the benefit of executive experience. So I guess we’re just different.” ....... Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts is making some people nervous that she’ll be Hillary Clinton and George McGovern rolled into one, and that nominating her means throwing the election to Donald Trump. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont is recovering from a heart attack, and some observers believe that he has reached his ceiling of support. ......... He’s too young, too inexperienced, and unable to draw support from African American voters. They worry about the question that keeps coming up in focus groups and that reporters are beginning to ask: whether he’s struggling to win people over because he’s gay. ........

“Have you ever listened to him speak? He’s got brains, he’s got class, he’s got poise,” Chuck McKinney, a retired carpenter who’d driven in from Lake Lure, North Carolina, told me.

....... This is the point in the 2008 race when Barack Obama began an ascent that never stopped. He broke out at the Iowa Democratic Party dinner in November 2007. ....... the core brilliance of Buttigieg’s campaign is making the carefully planned seem nonchalant, like he’s ambling when in fact he’s in the middle of a plié. Every sentence is precisely arranged, the words weighted, playing off ideas like faith and security and freedom. Operatives on other campaigns grumble that he’s a construction, a “celebrity” who wows reporters looking for the hot new thing, but it’s working. .......... “When it comes to identity, I am very mindful of the privileges that go with being white and being male. I also have the experience of belonging to a category of people in America that would have been assumed to be effectively ineligible for the presidency.”....... “Look, they blew everything up, which means that there is a chance to build something new and better on the rubble,” Buttigieg said. “I mean, not to over-dramatize it, but I think about areas where buildings have been destroyed in the world, and then architecture of a new kind flourishes.” ........ When asked whether he’s scared of Trump’s attack tweets, he says he’s taken “worse incoming.” ..... “My vehicle, to my knowledge, was never targeted,” Buttigieg said, already preparing to turn it into the point he’s making. “So I don’t go around acting like I was out in the Korangal Valley. I’m somebody who did my part. But I think it’s an important contrast to draw with somebody who avoided doing his part when it was his turn.” .........

In September, he released his “Medicare for All Who Want It” plan, which has a policy paper behind it, but is basically appealing wordplay to get a message to people who will never read the whole thing, which is most people: “I’m not for eliminating private plans,” he said, “so I’m glad that we found a way in a headline to explain it.”

.......... She says she voted for Sanders in the 2016 primaries because of his focus on health care, but now she’s backing Buttigieg because she thinks he’s talking about practical solutions to health care........ Each of the four Democratic presidents since World War II (not counting the two who took over for dead men) were young and inexperienced: John F. Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Obama. ....... “He might make it about age and experience, but fundamentally, that’s an argument about judgment and wisdom,” Buttigieg said. “And I think in a judgment and wisdom contest, this president’s on pretty shaky ground.”



This surge might be an admission by Democrats that deep down they know Medicare For All will not fly in America. America has its own political peculiarities.

What I really like about Pete is I had never heard of him before this year.
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