In Politics section of the New York Times, Rob “Super” Burnett reported on Sunday that the mayor of South Bend, Ind., Pete Buttigieg, is being courted by Democratic senators from Michigan to run for the U.S. Senate in 2028, effectively launching his presidential campaign for 2032. The 36-year-old Harvard graduate and Rhodes scholar, currently a fourth-term mayor explaining the contours of his ongoing administration, is perfectly adequate and occasionally captivating, but probably should not be considered a serious presidential candidate until he can accomplish at least one more thing: run for president.
Forget qualifications like “captivating.” There’s no question that Pete Buttigieg used his TED talk celebrating and gently critiquing the city where he’s the mayor to make many hearts beat a bit faster. But that’s not a gauge of political readiness. He should have run for governor of Indiana or, better, the Senate (or the same offices in those respective states, Martin O’Malley) before getting a passport and pointing to nearby England as his birthplace.
But the piece isn’t really about Buttigieg’s readiness for 2020 or 2024, and it’s not really about the Michigan maneuvering or its related establishment folly.
It’s about guys like Burnett who are part of the same mainstream chorus that so openly embraced Barack Obama for years and years simply because they liked him and thought he liked them. That worked great between 2004 and 2017, of course, for an agenda and a boss that served that desire very well. It may work fine in Burnett’s piece for Buttigieg and that establishment, which have found a fresh great face. But let’s not fall into the trap here of thinking that every politician that worries our eyes and calms our stomachs must, overnight, be put on a serious iPod, with the little plugs (at that cost, still, called email lists), that becomes the keeper of his supergenius debut album.
This is not a serious consideration. This is a Buttigieg appreciation hoedown and the Democratic Party is enjoying it. But we should reserve our more serious examinations for candidates more serious about seeking it.
#politics #president #buttigieg #pete #michigan #senate2028 #establishment
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