Pete Buttigieg
December 15, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
President-elect Biden has selected Pete Buttigieg to be Secretary of Transportation. Reportedly, Buttigieg had been considered for the post of U.S. ambassador to China. Fortunately, that won’t happen. The Chinese will be deprived of a good laugh. Biden must have felt he had to give Buttigieg something. The former South Bend mayor is now America’s highest profile openly gay politician. Buttigieg proved his popularity by making a fairly substantial bid
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December 11, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Susan Rice and Xavier Becerra were always likely to get plum appointments in a Biden administration. Both are important figures in the Democratic Party and both check a race/ethnicity box. But the appointments the two received are odd. Rice, a foreign policy/national security hand, will be Biden’s domestic policy adviser. Becerra, the Attorney General of California, is the nominee to run the Department of Health and Human Services. He has
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March 1, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Pete Buttigieg has pulled out of the race for the Democratic nomination. Buttigieg more or less tied Bernie Sanders for first place in the Iowa caucuses and finished second in the New Hampshire primary. However, his only hope for becoming the nominee — and it was a slim one — was a collapse of the Biden campaign and a failure of the Bloomberg campaign to launch. These occurrences would have
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March 1, 2020 — John Hinderaker
Pete Buttigieg has dropped out of the Democratic presidential race in advance of Super Tuesday. “Mayor Pete” went farther than most imagined when the campaign began, but he seems to be timing his exit well. While positioning himself as one of the “moderates” in the race–put aside whether this is actually true–he never really alienated the other candidates and their followers, other than some Bernie Bros who thought he was
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February 26, 2020 — Scott Johnson
One of the incompetent CBS debate moderators — someone should interview them to ask how they “feel” to have done such a poor job — gave the Democratic presidential candidates a chance to sign off last night by providing their personal motto. Does everyone have a personal motto? What a stupid question. My own, thanks to my grandfather S. Paul Johnson, is Courtesy is cheap and pays big dividends. Nobody
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February 25, 2020 — Steven Hayward
A lot of people have suggested that Mayor Peter Buttigieg is trying to be the white (gay) Obama, and it makes a certain amount of sense. But maybe he is taking this too far? Check out this 24-second video: Yeah, I think we had enough of this the first time.
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February 14, 2020 — Steven Hayward
You can be forgiven for thinking the left’s fetish over “intersectionality”—the deliberate attempt to keep all designated victim groups in good standing with one another through a unified matrix of oppression—resembles a Bingo game run amok because no one ever actually wins a round. The best example right now are the identitarians attacking Pete Buttigieg because . . . he’s not gay enough, or something. The New Yorker this week
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February 12, 2020 — Steven Hayward
I was in class again last night—how rude of Democrats to have their primaries on the one night a week I teach class, so I can’t drunk-blog the thing live and watch the media make fools of themselves—so I’m late to the after party. Rest assured that like Jane Fonda, I wore recycled sustainable clothing and jewels to the after party, to fight climate change. Of course by mid-morning today,
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February 11, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Amy Klobuchar charmed Meghan McCain today by saying that, although she’s always been “pro choice,” she “believe[s] we’re a big tent party, and there are pro-life Democrats and they are part of our party, and we need to build a big tent.” That’s mighty big of Klobuchar. Pete Buttigieg may or may not be as big. He doesn’t read pro-life Democrats out of the party, but says he won’t “trick”
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February 9, 2020 — John Hinderaker
Joe Biden’s hard-hitting new ad targeting Pete Buttigieg is drawing a lot of attention, in part because a number of commentators–Ann Althouse is one–detect a tinge of homophobia. See if you can spot it: To me, the ad is an appropriate attack on Buttigieg’s obvious lack of experience. I would criticize it for grossly exaggerating Biden’s own importance; throughout his political career, he has been a mediocrity at best. The
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January 10, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Rep. Anthony Brown of Maryland has endorsed Pete Buttigieg for president. Who is Anthony Brown? His biggest claim to fame is that he managed to lose a race for governor of Maryland to a Republican, something many of us thought was nearly impossible to do. Brown is important for Buttigieg’s purposes, though, because he is African-American and member of the congressional black caucus. Buttigieg is desperately seeking African-American support, of
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January 9, 2020 — John Hinderaker
“Mayor Pete” Buttigieg has been touted as a favorite in the “sane lane” of the Democratic presidential chase, but there is good reason to question whether any such lane exists. Earlier today, Buttigieg blamed Iran’s shooting down a Ukrainian passenger airplane on…President Trump: Iran allegedly shoots down a commercial airliner, and Pete Buttigieg’s first reaction is to blame America. Ridiculous.https://t.co/2e2ipUL3kh — Ronna McDaniel (@GOPChairwoman) January 9, 2020 This is contemptible,
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January 9, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Monmouth University is out with a new poll of the New Hampshire primary, the first one conducted entirely in 2020. It shows a logjam at the top. Pete Buttigieg leads with 20 percent. Joe Biden is right behind at 19 percent, followed closely by Bernie Sanders at 18 percent (the three are tied, statistically speaking). Elizabeth Warren is next. She polls 15 percent. After that, it’s all the way down
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January 2, 2020 — Steven Hayward
The “holiday season,” better known to Americans as Christmas and Hanukkah but now known as Impeachment Season to cosmopolite liberals, might be thought of as half-time in the presidential primary process. And the 4th quarter fundraising numbers for the Democratic field are starting to dribble out. News out this morning is that Bernie Sanders raked in $34.5 million in the 4th quarter (up from $25 million in the 3rd quarter),
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December 26, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
Pete Buttigieg has tried to carve out a niche among Democratic presidential hopefuls as the candidate who is comfortable talking about religion. Unfortunately, he’s only comfortable trying to use religion as a means of beating conservatives, especially religious ones, over the head. This annoying penchant was on display again in Buttigieg’s Christmas message. He tweeted: Today I join millions around the world in celebrating the arrival of divinity on earth,
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December 23, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
The Washington Post reports that some Democrats are mad as hell at Pete Buttigieg for abandoning some of his previous positions — e.g., Medicare for all and decriminalizing illegal border crossings. I think Buttigieg can live with their wrath, given that his move out of the hard left lane has corresponded with a surge in the polls, both nationally and especially in Iowa. However, the Post’s article, by Chelsea Janes,
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December 20, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
I didn’t watch the Democratic candidates’ presidential debate last night. In fact, I’m embarrassed to admit that I didn’t even know it was taking place. Based on accounts of the debate, I wish I’d tuned in. I take perverse enjoyment in seeing candidates I don’t like trying desperately to ward off defeat. Elizabeth Warren is such a candidate. Not long ago, she was right on the heels of frontrunner Joe
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