Pete Buttigieg has ended his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination with a call for Democrats to unite in their fight to beat Donald Trump in the election.
The 38-year-old former mayor of South Bend has never held statewide or national office but made a strong run in the Democratic primary, winning the Iowa caucuses narrowly from Bernie Sanders, now the national frontrunner, to whom he placed second in New Hampshire.
But Buttigieg could not make progress in Nevada and South Carolina, the first two states with influential minority voting blocs.
There are two well known facts relevant here.
1) The Democratic voting base is heavily dependent upon Blacks turning out and voting 95 to 85% D. Lose that overwhelming preponderance and no national D candidate has a chance.
2) Blacks are, for whatever reason, less cool with the gay thing than other sections of the population.
The first time Mayor Pete meets a significantly black electorate (D primary in SC is perhaps 55 to 60% black voters) he bombs.
What in buggery did he or anyone else think was going to happen?
This is not to say that black voters should be like that. Nor that I approve of them being so. But didn’t anyone think of this when they cooked up the initial plan?
What is amusing though is the manner in which the press tends not to link those two facts together. There’s lost about how first openly gay candidate and all that. And very little indeed about which part of the electorate wasn’t convinced.
The language we use matters - it provides clarity to our own thoughts and enables…
It is now generally acknowledged that the structure of the NHS needs to be overhauled…
In the film Apollo 13, a loss of oxygen causes the crew to start inadvertently…
There's an idea out there which seems intuitive but then so many ideas do seem…
When we think about the darkly opaque goals of modern central bankers as they relate…
As the papers recently filled with the distressing images of desperate souls looking to escape…
View Comments
Some sort of tax write-off? I've been wondering about Bloomberg's campaign, if he's spending all that money not to become president, but to spend the money for some outside reason. Just as Trump's plan seemed to be that spending loads of money losing the 2016 election would result in more moolah than actually winning and having to actually do Being President.
I don't believe funds spent on a vanity political campaign can be deducted from your income. But, yes, a vanity political campaign could produce independent benefits, such as Trump's reality-show franchises. Mayor Pete's time on the national stage prepares him to write a book that people would actually buy or get a gig on a cable-network opinion show. Having been "mayor of the third largest city in Indiana" plus being "openly gay" did not.
Yup. He raised his national profile big time. He ought to be able to cash in on that.
Too much time doing pub quizzes means I know that South Bend's main claim to fame is being the host city for Notre Dame University. Does that signify for Americans? I think ND is better known for sporting prowess rather than academic achievement.
It's pretty topnotch. I know a number of graduates. Most rankings will put it in the top 20.
I'm sure ND is a fine school, but the THES places it just outside the top 50 of US universities (~150th worldwide).
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/2020/world-ranking
Well, there are a lot of different rankings. It's a fine school. We can debate about whether it's the crap of the cream or the cream of the crap.
Known exclusively for athletics, here in the Northeast. They compete with many East-coast teams (Atlantic Coast Conference). They are indeed also a top-notch Catholic university, though occasionally in the news for notorious pandering to not-Catholic-at-all notions.
Quite true, black Americans are not "us with dark skin" but a completely different set of people with somewhat different history and distinctly different values, which include a separatism streak, a tendency to reject people like Bloomberg when the word is that he hates us (supercharged by Bloomberg's instinct to run from past policies rather than try to explain them). Buttigieg's only notoriety was posing with "his husband," and black voters were never going to warm up to that.
@Tim
Wrong question, try:
What Did Mayor Pete Receive for Dropping Out?
Next
Amy Klobuchar ends campaign and endorses Biden
Minnesota Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar is ending her Democratic presidential campaign and will endorse former Vice President Joe Biden
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2e3m2Q6YJU
Eric Trump reacts to Buttigieg dropping out of 2020 race
Eric Trump joins 'Fox & Friends' ahead of Super Tuesday and says Pete Buttigieg 'sold his soul' to the Democrat Party by dropping out to help Joe Biden and hurt Sen. Bernie Sanders
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fE57e7afHk
Warren next to exit and back Biden?
Biden vs Bloomberg vs Sanders?