Mayor Pete's Announcement abt Black Support Cited People Who Aren't Black and Don't Support Him

[redqueen]

Hadn't seen this posted here yet. It's getting a lot of attention outside DU at least.

Mayor Pete’s Big Announcement About Black Support Cited People Who Aren’t Black and Don’t Support Him
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/11/mayor-pete-black-support-announcement.html

On Oct. 25, Pete Buttigieg’s presidential campaign released the following:



The link goes to an article in the HBCU Times—HBCU stands for historically black colleges and universities—which is credited to the three prominent black South Carolina figures above “and more than 400 Douglass Plan endorsers.” The article praises the Douglass Plan’s proposed spending programs and legal reforms, arguing that “there is one presidential candidate who has proven to have intentional policies designed to make a difference in the Black experience, and that’s Pete Buttigieg.”

The political usefulness of such a document is obvious for Buttigieg, who is polling very poorly with black voters both nationally and in South Carolina, which holds the fourth Democratic primary/caucus and has a majority-black Democratic electorate.

A problem: When the Intercept dug into the endorsement, it found that two of the three top-line black politicians listed say they never endorsed the Douglass Plan, and that at least 40 percent of the other 400 individuals whose names are listed are white.

...

[Celerity]

1. The main campaign never said all 400 were black, his SC Organiser made a mistake

in an non public email that also told all to opt out if they did not want to be listed as an endorser. It is a mistake I do admit, but not as hair on fire as it sounds.


Tim Ross was the SC Organiser who sent the miss-worded email.

Link to tweet

here is the email letter showing the opt-out part (from the OP's article's cited Intercept article's author, Ryan Grim's Twitter)

that s where the '400 were black' part was found, not in a public run-out

Link to tweet

[redqueen]

2. Yeah the opt out thing is getting a lot of attention too.

Not the best idea :/

[Celerity]

4. well, when you are dealing with so many people, I would think you need some way of doing it, but

Last edited Sat Nov 16, 2019, 04:10 AM - Edit history (1)

I personally would have only included people who said yes, not the 'pull them out only if they say no' route.

The organiser (who ironically is black himself) appears to have dropped the ball, but I am sure he will not get fired, it was an honest mistake (at least from what I can tell, who knows.)

[redqueen]

5. Yeah. I don't think it would be blowing up like this

if it wasn't in an area where he was already having to come from behind support-wise.

[tishaLA]

3. I enjoyed the fact that the campaign chose a stock photo

of Kenyans to represent African Americans in their "Douglass Plan" literature.

[redqueen]

6. Saw that too...

he's really taking a beating with these two things blowing up so close together.

Yikes.

[tishaLA]

8. It's a campaign awash in cash that somehow waited

until the end of September to hire a outreach director for African Americans despite his low polling in the demographic. It's easy for cynical people to put things together and believe he doesn't value those votes.

[redqueen]

9. That just can't be possible

everyone knows black voters are needed just as much as swing voters - more, actually.

Seems a more realistic scenario that they were just taken for granted.

[PatrickforO]

10. Not sure what to make of this. We'll see how he handles it.

It won't be the first time a campaign made a mistake, and we don't even know if the mistake was actually Buttigieg, his campaign staff or someone unrelated to his campaign.

We'll see.

[AngelicaHora]

11. At this point I just feel bad for Buttigieg

In the one area where he needs the most help (black outreach) his campaign staff is really dropping the ball with rookie and careless mistakes. This doesn't seem too serious, but it adds up. He only has a few months to earn people's respect and trust, and stories like these only make it more difficult.

[Thekaspervote]

12. The guy has a bright future. But is a mayor of a small MW city. Mayor, run for congress or gov

And work your way up. Get some REAL political capital under your belt.

[Celerity]

13. Ruby red congressional district in a ruby red state equals no real chance that route

Donnelly got lucky and drew a true RWNJ for Senate, but then got hammered in his re-election bid in 2018, and that was in a Blue Wave year. Indiana is pretty much hopeless unless you live in one of the blue districts.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

14. These are mistakes that make it clear he's not ready for the big leagues.

An “opt-out” endorsement? Really?