Pete Buttigieg 2020 campaign megathread

[libertpaulian]

If one party is going to play the "I'm a Christian so vote for me, and also we need these laws because Christianity" game, then their lack of actual Christian behavior is fair game.

[libertpaulian]

Buttigieg's rhetoric is fresh and authentic. He's perfectly in line with his party, and yet he does not sound like another Democrat. I think that explains much of his appeal.

...especially because it contrasts with the rest of the field. That's not to say that the other candidates don't have distinct voices, but ultimately they sound like echoes of Obama and Clinton, with just a pinch of Sanders thrown in for zest.

Even Beto, one of the most colorful speakers, usually comes across as someone doing an outlandishly verbose stream-of-consciousness Obama impersonation. Obama through a funhouse mirror, maybe, but still Obama. If Buttigieg breaks through, he would be defining a new lexicon for the party - and that's sorely needed when you consider how different our politics are compared to twelve years ago.

I remember reading some comment essentially comparing Beto O'Rourke to Rubio, and I think it was pretty spot on.

In contrast, while I am best described as a "centrist libertarian" (who also used to identify as a moderate republican) I think Buttigieg is more authentic and provides an optimistic vision for America in his speeches and interviews. The democrats are certainly not doomed at all if he doesn't win the primaries, but I think Buttigieg would be a very good nominee. At least FAAAAR better than O'Rourke.

EDIT: At the very least, he should definitely be the Vice Presidential nominee.

If it weren't for the fact that the identity politics wing of the base would be bitter and salty over it, I think O'Rourke/Buttigieg or Buttigieg/O'Rourke would make a superb ticket.

[libertpaulian]

If it weren't for the fact that the identity politics wing of the base would be bitter and salty over it, I think O'Rourke/Buttigieg or Buttigieg/O'Rourke would make a superb ticket.

Please stop perpetuating this awful term created to silence the opinions of historically marginalized groups. All politics revolve around identity.

You know damned well what I'm referring to.

"Mayor Pete and Beto can't be on the ticket!  ThEy'Re bOtH WhItE mEn!!!  pAtRiArChY!!!!  wHiTe PaTRiARcHY!!!"

[libertpaulian]

Well rightly or wrongly, I think a Democratic ticket with two white males would be a difficult sell to the party. Perhaps Buttigieg's homosexuality would mitigate that somewhat, but in a historically diverse field like this I think diversity of the ticket has to be a factor the eventual nominee considers when making their choice.

 

That's what I'm referring to.  Some black, Latino, and young female voters would stay home due to Pete and Beto's identities as opposed to their politics.

[libertpaulian]

Pete has an aggressive fundraising schedule coming up:

3x New York City, Chicago, Minnesota and 12 stops in California during May.

The way this is going, he’ll pull in 30-40 million $ in the 2nd quarter ...

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/19/buttigieg-fundraising-california-1282196

Meanwhile Beto is actually going to the people and making his case before them.

Jeb! and Liddle Marco had aggressive campaign warchests from numerous fundraisers, too.

[libertpaulian]

The NYT out with a Balkan hitman piece against Pete:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/19/us/politics/buttigieg-black-police-chief-fired.html

Yet the #PeteFleet thinks he can excite enough African-Americans and Latinos to flip the Trump states blue?!

[libertpaulian]

Both Wohl and Berkman should be in jail

[libertpaulian]

This is why Jared Polis needs to be the first gay President, not Mayor Pete.

[libertpaulian]

This is why Jared Polis needs to be the first gay President, not Mayor Pete.

And when Jared Polis announces, out will come all the little controversies and skeletons from the past, he'll misspeak a few times, and there we'll go, searching for the next perfect candidate- on paper, at least...

We'd probably get anti-Semitic tropes in addition to the anti-gay ones (Polis is Jewish, both ethnically and religiously); however, he's been a Congressman for a decade and is now a Governor.  He's got a lot more policy chops (just look at his 2018 campaign for governor) and would have a much easier time deflecting from bullsh**t.  I'd also wager he'd give much deeper answers and wouldn't campaign as a flavor-of-the-month type.  Not to mention he's a pro-gun libertarian Democrat, which is right up my alley at the moment.

[libertpaulian]

lol, what's next, is he going to pose with a bucket of fried chicken and hold a bottle of hot sauce in his hand?

[libertpaulian]

The way he handled that AA voter shows he's a political lightweight.

[libertpaulian]

Beto has a chance to comeback simply because Pete is a moron

This aged well.

[libertpaulian]

I've been skeptical of Pete as just another Beto-lite (who himself is just Obama-lite), but it turns out it was the other way around. Pete is the real deal, although his issues with minority voters will probably doom him in the long run. At least he should have some staying power.

I haven't followed the Democratic campaign too closely, though there's something about Buttegieg I like. I'm surprised to find that you (perhaps) kind of like him. I'm curious, what do you mean by "the real deal"? I assume he's still beyond the pale for you in terms of your actual vote for a litany of reasons.

I do kind of like him. There are few things which stand out to me:

1) He's clearly intelligent and articulate, but not in an elitist or condescending way. Being both a veteran and from the small-town Midwest helps a lot with this, I think. Moreover, he seems to have clearly thought about a lot of issues at a deep level, and, most importantly, it feels like his thoughts are truly his. He just doesn't regurgitate the usual talking points about the usual issues. It feels like he actually is willing to think outside the box to come up with useful solutions which aren't simply exercises in creatively punishing the other party. We desperately need that in our politics.

1a) This is purely a visceral thing, but there's something about Buttigieg that seems animate in a way that most of the other candidates don't have. It's hard to explain, but he feels uniquely sentient, like there's life behind his eyes. Many of the others feel like robots trained to spew talking points. I don't know if anyone else feels this, but if so, maybe they could explain it better.

2) I was really taken aback by his answer about the South Bend shooting, or at least one part in particular: his answer of "I couldn't get it done" felt incredibly genuine and subtly pained-- it struck me as true emotion rather than the typical emotional melodrama most candidates throw on for show. Maybe it wasn't genuine, I don't know, but it sure felt real. His answer caused me to sit up and pay attention, and it's a rare day when someone actually lets the buck stop with them.

3) While he's a very liberal Christian, he's clearly a genuine Christian who respects faith and its teachings. I don't agree with his theology, but I respect it. Similarly, I don't agree with gay marriage or the fact that he's in one, but I respect that he seems committed and values marriage as a concept, whereas most Democrats seem to loathe the institution. And really, being in a gay marriage is not substantially worse than being in a third marriage, and it's not really more sinful than being a philandering womanizer like Trump.

I honestly think Buttigieg has a really good chance to be President someday, far more than most of the other candidates. I don't know if 2020 is his year, but I think it's going to happen at some point, if he plays his cards right. I think Governor of Indiana is his path forward, maybe after a cabinet post. What's more, I'd be mostly comfortable with him as President, which is not something I thought I'd say about a gay, socially liberal, Democrat any time soon. My main hesitation, beyond the typical left-wing social issue objections, is his support for court packing. That's a huge red line for me. I'm leaning toward supporting him in the primary, although I don't think I could pull the lever for him in the general.

If court-packing is your fear, I honestly don't think you have much to worry about.  Dems would be lucky to get 10% of their bold agendas passed, given they have a huge Senate problem.

[libertpaulian]

I think he would be a great vp (I would actually argue the best option) but a terrible top of the ticket

No. He’s definitely a top

[libertpaulian]

https://twitter.com/DJJudd/status/1161353495775272960

JESUS LADY.

Holy awkwardness Batman!

[libertpaulian]

MAYOR PETE! in third place in latest Iowa poll:

http://www.focusonruralamerica.com/2019/09/18/september-2019-poll-results/

[libertpaulian]

Buttigieg's percentage has gone up about 2 points in the RCP average in the last fortnight, not a tremendous surge but seems good for him.

Slow but steady wins the race more often than not.

[libertpaulian]

Buttigieg's percentage has gone up about 2 points in the RCP average in the last fortnight, not a tremendous surge but seems good for him.

Slow but steady wins the race more often than not.

Tbf Warren's got the dynamic too and she's got a better starting position.

I'm not disputing Warren's advantages.  However, I think Pete has more electable.

[libertpaulian]

Desticking this due to overall lack of commentary on the candidate in question.

I thought it was based on polling, not commentary. If it's the latter, Gabbard and Yang should definitely have stickied threads, lol.

This. Just because we’re not actively discussing Pete’s every move doesn’t mean he doesn’t deserve a stickied thread lol

Exactly.  Plus, he's surging in the polls again and is starting to nibble at Bernie's heels.  He deserves to stay stickied.

[libertpaulian]

Don't count him out yet!

https://twitter.com/Lis_Smith/status/1176562693001662464?s=19

[libertpaulian]

Yes, I admit that this has been very frustrating to hear from Pete. One of the things that I liked about him earlier in the year was his ability to draw contrast between his plan and Bernie's plan without insulting Bernie's plan on merit. Now it seems like he's most interested in tearing down medicare for all as a concept altogether. And that upsets me. Pete has proposed some genuinely good plans on racial justice, healthcare access for rural America, labor rights, and more. But I fear what comes next once m4a isn't the hot button issue anymore. What does he turn his back on next?

I still have faith in him to continue pushing good solutions to other issues, but he's lost me on this side of things. And I'm sure it has something to do with the corporate influence, which I've always been wary of with him, but trusted that it was just his way of making up ground as a nationally unknown figure against some of the most well-known names in Democratic politics. But it looks like there's more to it there. There always is.

I'm disappointed in him, to say the least.

I don't understand why some people have to be so purist on everything.  If healthcare becomes universal one day, WHO CARES if it's not achieved via a pure M4A?!

[libertpaulian]

There is alot of room for a more moderate candidate in the dem primary. However after the last week, I really hope its Klobuchar instead of Buttigieg.

I like Klobuchar, but I think she'd have even worse POC problems than Pete.

[libertpaulian]

At least Klobuchar and Biden have full plans with public options and ambitious measures for reducing costs. Maybe you can blame braindead political coverage for ignoring this in favor of the scaremongering melodramatics. But Buttigieg has little more than a slogan. He's contradicted himself on the details of his plan and the broad strokes alike.

How is Biden's plan more comprehensive than Pete's? I'm genuinely curious. This might help convince me to switch my support from Pete to Biden. As far as I can tell, Pete's plan is an extension of the public option such that it provides universal coverage in ways somewhat similar to multi-payer systems in Europe. I was under the impression that Biden was just offering a public option, not a universal system.

It's clearer on the details, probably because Biden didn't feel compelled to play footsie with M4A supporters for months while trying to get noticed. Buttigieg has a couple of ideas that place his plan marginally to the left of Biden's, such as out-of-pocket limits for Medicare and price caps, but fundamentally they are similar plans.

Biden also has remained silent on importing prescription drugs from Canada, presumably out of consideration to traditional Democratic allies like Senator Joe Mylan.

Anyway, te biggest difference between the two, for most voters, is that Buttigieg has, until now, praised single-payer as a long-term goal. Biden doesn't say that. But this isn't necessarily an important distinction, especially as Mayor Pete's recent rhetoric has been as dismissive of single payer as anything we have heard from Biden.

Buttigieg has executed a pivot no less dramatic than the disastrous turn that sank Kamala Harris, but he appears to have pulled it off with grace. It's clear that after quietly experimenting with different approaches, he's found his path, and it goes straight through the swathe of Warren supporters who like her not because she is the field's leading non-Sanders progressive, but in spite of that.

There's nothing wrong with experimenting with different ideas or evolving on them.  Marco Rubio went from being a neo-con on immigration (Gang of 8, anyone?!) in the spring of 2015 to being Diet Trump on the issue in winter 2016!

[libertpaulian]

He's been considered a rising star for a few years now:

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/12/opinion/sunday/the-first-gay-president.html

South Bend, Ind. — IF you went into some laboratory to concoct a perfect Democratic candidate, you’d be hard pressed to improve on Pete Buttigieg, the 34-year-old second-term mayor of this Rust Belt city, where he grew up and now lives just two blocks from his parents.

Education? He has a bachelor’s from Harvard and a master’s from Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.

Public service? He’s a lieutenant in the Navy Reserve. For seven months in 2014, he was deployed to Afghanistan — and took an unpaid leave from work in order to go.

He regularly attends Sunday services at his Episcopal church. He runs half-marathons. His TEDx talk on urban innovation in South Bend is so polished and persuasive that by the end of it, you’ve hopped online to price real estate in the city.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2014/03/10/the-most-interesting-mayor-youve-never-heard-of/

Regardless of how the city fares in the next seven months, that military background also makes the mayor stand out from the rest of the army of data-happy millennials that define the younger strata of the Democratic Party. If he has larger ambitions, and the local whispers about whether he would campaign for governor or Congress this year assume he does (he isn't running for either, and has instead already announced his intention to run for re-election in 2015), it's clear military experience has never hurt the ambitious.

When Buttigieg was at Harvard, he participated in protests against the war in Iraq, and even penned a few lines of President Bush-inspired poetry, a skill he perhaps absorbed from being around his literary-minded father (Sample rhyme: "But please, make no mistake here, / no Misunderestimation. / Reversing four years of my rule / Would take a generation."). "The decision to serve needs to be independent of your politics," however, he now says.

Pretty glowing words for a Middle America mayor!

[libertpaulian]

Without even bringing up the gay card, there are plenty of reasons why he has failed to secure much support from African-Americans so far. I don't think they'll affect him much, if any, in the general election, but they may keep him from getting the nomination.

If he does get the nomination, could he excite enough of them to win the "Big Three" that Hillary lost in 2016?  I'm not even going to delve into the matter of expanding the map into AA-rich states like NC, GA, and FL.