Mayor Pete Buttigieg's Unlikely, Untested, Unprecedented Presidential Campaign

[babylonsister]

http://time.com/longform/pete-buttigieg-2020/?amp=true&__twitter_impression=true&fbclid=IwAR3xthqfIAzlWQ3sXp_IbUOMoBmOWqij2dOOcqyBip0-nrsxiQhnDM1Bl_0

Mayor Pete Buttigieg's Unlikely, Untested, Unprecedented Presidential Campaign

Photograph by Ryan Pfluger for TIME
Charlotte Alter/South Bend May 2, 2019

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When Buttigieg announced his exploratory committee in January, in a drab conference room at a Washington Hyatt, his staff was mostly just Schmuhl, his high school buddy turned campaign manager, and Lis Smith, a New York operative who helped Buttigieg run his long-shot campaign for DNC chair. Three months later, the staff has swelled to nearly 50 as ­Buttigieg bounces between rallies in Iowa and New Hampshire, fundraisers with bundlers and TV appearances everywhere.

Buttigieg has been ubiquitous by design. The campaign’s goal is to “break down the wall that exists between presidential candidates and the media, and therefore the public,” Smith says. The Buttigieg campaign has no digital department, according to Schmuhl, because it weaves digital media into everything it does. Instead, the campaign has an “experience team,” which focuses on everything from events to content. The campaign shared its logos and designs in catchy Instagrammable images, complete with a color palette so that fans can spread the Buttigieg brand on ­social media. It’s also rethinking the value of paid television advertisements, reasoning that most millennials watch TV through streaming services on their computers and phones.

Despite these new strategies, some of the old truths still hold. It remains almost impossible to win the Democratic nomination without significant support from black voters, and the Morning Consult poll found negligible black support for Buttigieg. The mayor is working on his outreach, eating lunch with the Rev. Al Sharpton at the famous Harlem soul-food joint Sylvia’s and scheduling a swing through South Carolina for early May. But winning voters of color may be difficult for a white guy running against two black Senators, Kamala Harris and Cory Booker, as well as Joe Biden, who served as Barack Obama’s running mate and has long-standing relationships in black communities.

In a primary divided between candidates who want to fight Trump and candidates who talk about uniting the country, Buttigieg is in the latter camp. That puts him out of step with the party’s activist base, who clearly want a fighter. Warren, for example, used the word fight 25 times in her announcement speech; Buttigieg didn’t mention it once. His husband says he’s never heard him raise his voice in anger. “We’ve almost fetishized fighting,” Buttigieg explains, sitting in his living room between an antique British musket and an old Soviet spying device, both relics of old and painful wars. “There is a point where you become so absorbed in fighting that you begin to lose track of winning.”

In the end, Buttigieg’s biggest gamble is his bet that voters are sick of a divided America and hungry for reconciliation. He believes independents and moderate conservatives could get behind a happily married Christian veteran. And he may be right. “Pete has a way of rallying people and getting them to come along with him,” says Jake Teshka, former executive director of the St. Joseph County GOP and the only Republican on the South Bend city council. “That’s what makes him dangerous as a candidate for the rest of the Democratic field. I can’t sit here and tell you that if he makes it through and he’s on the ballot in 2020 that I would vote for Pete. But I also can’t tell you that I won’t.”

[FakeNoose]

1. If Mayor Pete becomes our Party's Nominee, I'd be happy to support him

He seems to have a bright future in politics, and I'm glad he's on our side.

[LakeArenal]

2. I wish America was smart enough or mature enough to vote for Pete.

I wish him luck.

He’d make a perfect VP.