Pete Buttigieg 2020 campaign megathread

[henster]

So far off to a bad start, picked a pretty lousy news day to announce with Venezuela and SOTU back and forth dominating the news. And so soon after Harris announced, probably should've done it earlier in Jan right after Warren.

[henster]

Buttigieg boom is all due to him actively reaching out to media and speaking to everyone who asked and they rewarded him with coverage. Harris & others should take cues and be more proactive with the media they've been kind of laying lay and it has hurt them.

[henster]

I wouldn't put my money on Buttigeig, I still think its going to be Biden vs Bernie, the issue I see for Pete and for Beto as well is they more or less only appeal to upper middle income or high income college whites, the media is full of such people, hence why the media likes them so much but the Democratic party is far more then white college liberals earning $80,000 a year. Non-college whites, Hispanics, African Americans don't really seem interested in Pete or Beto, they support Bernie and Biden mainly. The media really needs to stop over hyping candidates that appeal to the identity of most journalists which is middle to upper class college white liberals. 

I think once Beto gets his campaign in full swing & begins doing all of the media shows etc... he will have some appeal with both Latinos & AA.  He will naturally appeal to Latinos given that he's from El Paso & represented a district that is overwhelmingly Latino- so there will be a natural comfort level (the same way southerners tend to identify with other southern candidates, etc).  Also- he will have some inherent trust among AA for little things from his past (Pretty publically standing up for NFL players during the Senate election when not many others were & when it served no benefit to his campaign.  And as other little things come out or are talked about -- like Beto's dad being the state chair for both of Jessie Jackson's presidential campaigns.. Jackson campaign some for him during Senate primary- and there is a chance he may in the Presidential Primary as well).

I still think it will end up coming down to:

Bernie, Beto & (Biden or Kamala... whichever wins SC).  Bernie & Beto are putting the most effort into setting up a national grassroots campaign which will pay benefits.  Also- I think after voters in Iowa kick the tires of all the non-Bernie options... Beto will end up being who many end up with (especially when he joins in on the media shows- where ppl can see he talking about specific policies very comfortably... which will help get rid of the "Platitudes narrative" (something that Obama got hit for early on as well).

Beto has been pretty absent from the media apart from the Vanity Fair article he hasn't really done anything like The View or The Breakfast Club. I think the lesser known candidates need to move away from the traditional campaign rallies and events and focus on getting as much media spotlight as possible right now. Klobuchar is making the same mistake, she is completely invisible instead of getting her name out there she's just doing little events here and there.

[henster]

His mistake was even engaging BuzzFeed on this when most of the other candidates didn't even elaborate their stance on exemptions. Harris was simple 'people should get vaccinated'.

[henster]

Such an absurd controversy he was literally doing what the hosts wanted him to do. Why are people acting like this was his idea?

[henster]

Pete is possibly the second most boring democrat candidate this election and him forcing gentrifying of his city obviously shows he does not have the best interests for minority groups. Can the democrats of this forum actually be smart and support someone way better, come on there is like 20 people running and almost every single one other than Beto is more interesting.

It is surprising that he has caught on so much, I don't really find him particularly charismatic and like you said he is pretty boring.

[henster]

The whole police shooting thing is why I'm not really sold on Pete yet. This is probably the biggest leadership test he'll face and it really pales in comparison to the decisions Senators or Governors have to make on a daily basis. His job as Mayor and its scope are just so insignificant, I have a hard time voting for him over other qualified candidates.

[henster]

Yea.. Pete isn't ready.

https://twitter.com/keithboykin/status/1142233502257225728

[henster]

I can't get over him wanting to leapfrog from Mayor to President despite doing nothing remarkable during his tenure. And I hate how the media acts like he revitalized the city or something when all he did was govern during the recovery.

[henster]

Yea.. Pete isn't ready.

https://twitter.com/keithboykin/status/1142233502257225728

This is pathetic. South Bend has a race problem and he's acting as a product of it.

I doubt he even had substantial black support there to begin with, both his Mayoral elections were super low turnout. He won with 8,000 votes last time would not surprise me if that electorate was 80-90% white.

[henster]

He should've said 'I'm not campaigning right now I'm here to listen to you as your Mayor' or something along those lines. Or not go to the protest at all in the first place.

[henster]

His campaign is over.

[henster]

If Biden was a mayor right now, and this happened, how would he respond?

If Harris was a mayor right now, and this happened, how would she respond?

If Sanders was a mayor right now, and this happened, how would he respond?

If Warren was a mayor right now, and this happened, how would she respond?

Most of them would've called for an investigation, held a presser for the media and not a town hall where things could get out of control, closed meetings with activist & family. Sometimes leaders know not to put themselves in positions where they could look weak. Town halls are probably the worst format for dealing with emotional situations like these, as you saw it was a borderline riot a few times.

[henster]

I think he should've responded to Swalwell's swipe instead of just giving him a glare he raised a salient point of holding the cop responsible. Pete looked weak not defending himself there.

[henster]

Buttigieg is polling 0% with AAs in the new CNN poll. Stick a fork in him.

Yeah, I like the guy, but this is an untenable position in a Democratic primary or even in the general election.

I think it'd be noble of him to drop out and start a PAC using the $20M he has to help elect down ballot candidates. Because at this point its nothing but a vanity run for him.

[henster]

Any updates from South Bend?

Seen a few brief clips of him spending time in the City trying to work on issues with his constituents....

Key item he will need to address on Debate #2 will be how he has addressed fundamental issues in his City, and if successful could help his numbers jump so long as it's authentic and not a media stunt....

He got hit with all this at the wrong time, vast majority of which was not directly on his head, but hard to see tons of DEMs jumping on the train to lead the charge against Trump until he resolves all of this in a way that looks Presidential and lasting.

Disagree with some of his policy positions, but guy seems likable enough with a decent resume overall, but standards of small town midwest mayors might even be harsher than NYC mayors, where you are basically a Governor of a large state (Not that this is always successful)......

Tripwires for Mayors are everywhere and even from larger cities it doesn't mean a translation from Mayor to SEN or GOV, let alone POTUS.

I would like to see Pete handling sustained attacks from other candidate, I'm a bit doubtful he'd fare well. Swalwell seemed to rattle him and he even gave him a death stare just for criticizing him. It wouldn't be hard to deliver a damaging blow, 'You can't manage a city of 100K people how can you manage the country...etc.'  Any of the 0-1%ers could do this.

[henster]

There's no reason Pete shouldn't be running ads on black radio and BET right now. He has the $$ to do it and nothing to lose.

[henster]

His whole campaign seems like an ill conceived startup in Silicon Valley. VCs (rich liberal donors) throwing money at a hopeless idea, until it becomes clear it'll never work out.

[henster]

Pete is gonna fade away if his strategy every debate is to not attack anyone.

[henster]

It makes no sense to have Pete on a VP ticket he has little no appeal to black voters or other voters in POC coalition. Warren has issues winning over black voters as is right now it wouldn't make any sense to have a VP who struggles to appeal to them aswell.

[henster]

He also appeared to criticize decriminalizing border crossing in the last debate after raising his hand in support of it in the first debate. He's not as skilled of a politician as people think, remember this is a guy whose never won a statewide election in his career. We've never really seen anyone else pin him down on his mediocre Mayoral record, I don't think he'd fare well under closer examination like Kamala didn't.

[henster]

He's becoming a caricature of a corporate neoliberal candidate at this point.

https://twitter.com/Robillard/status/1187832892455563264

[henster]

I can't believe people are trying to make the McKinsey stuff an issue and not the fact he fired a black police chief for trying to blow the whistle on racism going on his department. The SB police department has a major issues and is strife with systematic racism that Pete hasn't dealt with in his 7 years. This should be the line of attack from every candidate going after Pete.

[henster]

The guy has a bigger ego than Trump. There are literally several races in Indiania he could run for an actually be qualified for and have a decent shot of winning. Why doesn't he run against Walorski or Governor, Galloway is taking the leap in Missouri. To be a Mayor of a college town and then think you can just be President demonstrates a huge level of narcissism.

[henster]

Interesting...

https://twitter.com/Brand_Allen/status/1207447578406772736