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So, Kamala Harris has her book tour with the election retrospective. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it blames other people for a few things. But what drew some attention is that apparently some of the digs at fellow Democrats were notable, actually giving some the impression that she must be retiring from politics, though she's since tried to unburn some bridges.
What's drawing possibly the most attention is her description of the VP selection process. She said Josh Shapiro was too ambitious and had started for asking details about the VP's residence. She said that Tim Walz was actually her second choice, which is a bit hurtful if you're Tim. Eyebrows have been raised at this, but even more so at her reason for not choosing her first choice, who was Pete Buttigieg - literally described as the "ideal partner", if not for this one flaw, she says.
He's gay.
It did not really go over well. Buttigieg himself said he wished she had more faith in Americans. She was confronted about it by Maddow recently, here's a clip, asking her to elaborate, as it's "hard to hear."
I saw one twitter user summarize her answer as: "I didn’t not choose Pete because he was gay… I didn’t choose him because he is gay and I had 107 days."
This raises a number of questions. Was it right to be tactical like that? Was she correct about the tactics? Was it particularly absurd to say it out loud? Was this just an excuse, and there was some other reason? Is it hypocrisy by Harris? Is her point about having less time to run a campaign cope, or on some level a legitimate objection that such a short campaign must by nature adhere to different rules and strategies?
On the one hand I can see it. It was a short campaign, and the overarching philosophy was to play it safe. In retrospect, probably wrong. (And also an I told you so moment for me). In that light Harris is being perfectly consistent. On the other hand Kamala herself acknowledges that her own identity was potentially a barrier, is the concept of 'too much diversity to handle' a real thing, much less from those on the left? It is true that even Obama had his doubters about whether his campaign was doomed because of racism. Personally I don't buy that, I don't think it made much of a difference, but some people do think about it and still do think along the same lines. The flipside of that is also true, however: say she names Pete, would any alleged homophobia backfire onto Trump and his team, would it supercharge identity politics within the base, or is it a non-issue altogether?
My honest opinion? Again, like Obama: I don't think him being gay would matter. He's a great communicator, and would have been an asset. Although, he would need something of substance to explain, so it's not a full slam dunk, and I don't think it swings the election unless Pete gets to tack on his own new policies.
(There's other stuff to say about the memoir but I'll leave that for a different top-level post if people want to get into it.)
I’m surprised at the controversy.
It seems like this was a tactical choice. I think this also reflects exactly in how I see Buttigieg, as the absolute stereotype of the political striver.
It’s clearly not a good choice to run a gay man in 2024, especially when the effective ad from Trump they keep talking about is “I’m with you, she’s with they/them”. Pete does not deserve the presidency for running through the gauntlet correctly. It’s not a crown. People actually have to vote for him.
Pete Buttigieg could have done Joe Rogan and come out looking good. He has real charisma and he is good at communicating his values.
People fixate on the they/them part of the ad, but the important pronoun is you. You don't get people to support you by convincing them that you deserve their vote, you get people to support you by convincing them that you support them. The message of the ad is this: 'Kamala Harris isn't for you, she's for minorities and Groups and special interests and the sacred cows of her weird San Francisco Progressive ideology. If you're just a regular person she doesn't give a crap about you.'
It landed because Kamala Harris is bad at acting like she cares about regular people. That's something Pete Buttigieg excels at. Obama had the same talent.
Before Obama won, lots of people said a black man couldn't be President. Now a bunch of people are saying a black woman can only be present if her running mate isn't gay. It feels like a god of the gaps fallacy to me. The better explanation is that charisma is real and more important than identity checkboxes.
I don't think I get that from either of them. Pete's always struck me as a soulless striver lizardman type. Like Beto, he can ape the motions, but he lacks the Trump/Bill Clinton knack for leaving the people he talks to with the impression that he's personally invested in them.
And Obama's utterly unique trait was the way people would project onto him whatever they wanted him to be. Even the man himself seemed bemused by the phenomenon. But even then, the projection wasn't "Obama cares about me personally", it was as a totem for All Good Progressive Things, but especially technocratic expertise elevated to a messianic level.
Pete did pretty decent at Surrounded even though that's not perfectly representative. The funny thing is, though, that his worst answers were always about something specific to Harris: 14:14, an undecided voter said that her debate performance was shit, and asked Pete about if her character is so good, why didn't it come through? 31:22ish, another one asked why Harris said something about censoring social media if it contained misinformation as an attack on free speech (although very, very interesting: Pete called the Trump TV license campaign trail threat out as not just a free speech threat but a real threat, not just a Trumpian bluff. This was 10 months ago; he was 100% correct). Still, Harris feels like a millstone around the campaign's neck in most of these questions, and that's not good considering she was the campaign.
And most painful, 37:17, a voter outright says it.
Damning. Pete responds with some (true) stuff about how, ok she's a sitting VP, she's paranoid about the media jumping on a gotcha line. Then he says, well, people have their strengths and weaknesses, and she'd be a good president - which is straight up conceding the point about her bad communication, if you look past the tact. But people can tell. That voter sure did. People just say these things, it's not like they hide it, the Harris campaign really should have known this was an issue. Anyways, I think Pete would do just fine on campaign if he's the one driving the bus, I think you're a little too down on the communication, even if it's not, admittedly, an effusive personal charm kind of thing. If there's one thing holding Pete back, it's probably that he feels the need to try and appease the Democrat sacred cow talking points at times, which would be less the case if you're behind the wheel.
So I shared many of your feelings about Buttigeig, and felt that he would have done well at the top of the Democrat ticket, and then I had to deal with his office and him professionally as the secretary of transportation, and now I have to disagree in the strongest possible terms. While he has charm and charisma, as a professional executive head of a functional body, dude is fucking incompetent. In my experience he was totally unable to make an independent decision without 17 layers of ass-covering consultation, totally unable to tell when brown-nosing subordinates might be completely full of shit, and worst from a political perspective, totally unaware of when optics might demand his presence or at least general visibilty, such as when a major transportation disaster has occured, and the Secretary of Transportation might plausibly be expected to have input.
If the DNC wants to lose badly in 2028, I can think of few better ways that having Buttigeig be the nominee.
To be fair, that sounds more like his presidency would be a disaster, rather than him having poor chances of winning.
Maybe, but he burned a lot of bridges with people who would make very good attack ads. Like 40 year career, apolitical professionals ended up hating his guts and can make a very good case for why he made Americans less safe, and would happily do so on national media outlets. Perhaps I'm underestimating the capabilities of the DNC propaganda arm, but especially with his, erm, demographic disadvantages with certain key voter segments, I dont think he would stand a chance.
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