Buttigieg has a natural (or perhaps unnatural) advantage as a homosexual backwaters mayor over his competition - predominately married Washington careerists with white children. He enjoys an automatic status of piety from an establishment orthodoxy that treats homosexuality as a high virtue to be celebrated, and gets to claim a spot well up the victim hierarchy of the aggrieved left. His major advantage is the strategy potential that this opens up for him - if he is wise enough to exercise those options. For one, it gives him some space from having to constantly pander to victim groups. Just being a small-town gay "Christian" mayor from Mike Pence's home state is nearly enough. He can just drag his gay husband onto stage and all but state, "I too have been oppressed by our common enemy, those bigots."
He has recently decided to break from his well-crafted character to call for reparations for blacks and for families separated at the southern border after being detained trying to enter the country illegally. The Buttigieg handicap is that blacks and Latinos aren't as excited with LGBT as the white yuppies. It was not only personally embarrassing to be polling at 0% with blacks in South Carolina, but certainly alarming to his strategists. The response has been to go extra-large on white-to-brown welfare promises. Basically, he is offering the standard Democrat minority vote-buying scheme, but with backpay. It's normal for Democrats to engage in these Praetorian bidding wars, but for Buttigieg it works against his natural advantages. The sane candidate can't just start promising payouts to invaders because his polling numbers are off. His disadvantage with minorities is baked in to his character, so he's not going to win them over by engaging in the same pandering as the other candidates. They're all engaging in similar rhetoric, so he's trying to play a game he's rigged to lose. He's taken the status quo approach, but he's not the status quo candidate.
Instead of playing insider softball, he should take a queue from Trump and nuke his opponents while playing to his own advantages. I believe that Mayor Pete could derail both Biden and Warren while earning a ton of free publicity, if he'd only wipe off that dopey grin for a bit and play some hardball.
Right now is the perfect time to go after Biden for his Ukraine corruption. With impeachment voted on by the House, but Pelosi awkwardly hesitating to deliver the articles to the Senate, this is an excellent time for him to remark to the media that Biden needs to be held accountable too. The media certainly would like a distraction away from the impeachment hiccups. The only reason no one is calling out Biden now is that they're afraid of angering establishment Democrats. They're afraid of the likes of Nancy Pelosi. That's why he should simultaneously criticize her for not getting the articles of impeachment delivered. Put her on her heels, create a media storm about Biden, and show the pundit class that this outsider is to be taken seriously.
After that clears, go relentlessly after Elizabeth Warren for her racial appropriation. That's going to push the needle on black support more than the standard incremental pledges for welfare, which are monotonous. He could all but make Warren out as a plantation owner, enriching herself on the backs of minorities, stealing their entitlements, etc. If he plays his cards right, he can torch his opponents and win the nomination without having to lunge back to center after the nomination, and play the role of the reasonable guy versus wildcard Trump. In fact, any of the other candidates could do so. It probably plays best for Buttigieg as an outsider, but still the fruit is so low-hanging that all who resist it are fake candidates. Buttigieg may be playing for a Cabinet or VP slot, but that means he isn't really running for president. Bernie Sanders obviously isn't looking for VP because of his age. He only runs for the adulation he gets on the campaign trail. Tulsi Gabbard has already openly mocked Hillary Clinton... why doesn't she go after Biden or Warren? Are any of these Democrats playing to win?
No comments:
Post a Comment