Vox.com: the case for Buttigieg

[MBS]

https://www.vox.com/2020/2/4/21121636/pete-buttigieg-beat-trump-win-2020-election-primaries?

Some excerpts:

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. Democratic primary voters are weighing competing priorities. They want a nominee who is progressive but still electable. They want a leader who is smart and even-tempered but who ideally isn’t of an age and health status that puts their ability to run a presidential campaign and serve a full term in doubt. They want a president who can represent underrepresented groups while speaking to Obama-Trump voters who feel threatened by that kind of social progressivism.There is a strong case that Buttigieg is the candidate who best fulfills those competing demands. He would be able to pair a form of liberalism that’s more ambitious than Obama’s with a sophistication about political institutions and structures that Obama sometimes lacked. The combination could prove incredibly powerful, and redefine the party for a generation. The results out of Iowa suggest that Democratic voters are beginning to see it too.
. . .
Taken as a whole, his agenda isn’t as ambitious as that of Sanders or Warren. But make no mistake: This is a bold wish list. . . The fact that his agenda isn’t as progressive as those on the left flank of the party is a plus for Buttigieg, not a minus. Sanders and Warren have performed a valuable service by making the objectively quite ambitious agenda of Buttigieg appear, by comparison, incredibly mild, a centrist approach to expanding the safety net. A perception of relative moderation will most likely help, not hurt, the eventual nominee. The most rigorous studies on this question from political scientists tend to find that moderate nominees have a distinct advantage over ones perceived as more extreme, largely because they don’t activate their opponent’s base the same way a more extreme nominee would.
. . .
But it would be a mistake to throw Biden and Buttigieg into the same bucket. Whereas Biden remains wedded to romantic notions of returning to a pre-polarization Washington where Republicans and Democrats hobnob and work frequently across party lines, Buttigieg has a clear-eyed view of the institutional barriers to progressive policy and how to remove them.
Biden has repeatedly told supporters that he expects the Republican Party to come to their senses upon his election. . . .It’s just one piece of evidence among many that Biden is out of step with where the party is.. . . Buttigieg, by contrast, has a much stronger connection to the more brass-knuckled realities of 2020s politics. Instead of relying of Republican goodwill, he has concrete plans to amplify Democrats’ relative power: by repealing the filibuster to enable the passage of popular social programs that Republicans will then be reluctant to repeal; using a slim Democratic majority in Congress to add DC and (if they so desire) Puerto Rico as states; reducing the Republican geographic edge in the Senate for years to come; and passing sectoral bargaining to build up labor unions as a countervailing power to American business. . . He understands that Democrats need to fight with all the tools at their disposal to get even a modest legislative package accomplished. And he’s laid out plans to use those tools.. .

What’s remarkable is that he’s been able to take that approach without coming across as shrill or unduly combative. He presents as a moderate, as a “hope and change” candidate like Obama who is able to use rhetoric and charisma to overcome the resistance of skeptical moderates and center-right voters. The model of a charismatic rhetorician packaging progressive ideas in a moderate message is one that has worked incredibly well for Democrats historically. Like Obama, Buttigieg would make history: He would be the first gay president, Chasten Buttigieg would be the first first husband, and the two of them would become America’s first couple barely six years after they were legally allowed to marry in their home state. And Buttigieg is unique in pairing the Clinton/Obama approach of hopeful promises of a changed politics with a more hardheaded approach to institutions and the rules of the game than Clinton or Obama ever had.

[keopeli]

1. A great OpEd! Well reasoned, thoughtful, and remarkably on point!

[MBS]

2. I'm so glad you like it!

I agree that it's an unusually good analysis.

[democrank]

3. Excellent with many important points.

Assuming “Republican goodwill” is utter foolishness. Pete Buttigieg seems to have his feet planted in reality.