Wonkette: That's Not What He Said! Mayor Pete / Hillary Clinton Edition

[ehrnst]

Twitter being Twitter, there is not a hell of a lot of nuance in the discussion. And that's why Yr Wonkette, just last week, inaugurated what we're afraid will have to be a regular feature during Campaign 2020: "That's Not What She/He Said," in which we take various chunks of the Dems In Disarray Narrative and give 'em a good hosing-down. So let's take a look at the idea that Pete Buttigieg is a snotty terrible man who trashed Hillary Clinton, shall we? We shall!

First up, one of several tweets accusing Buttigieg of just LOVING the glass ceiling and wanting to keep women in their place. (For those keeping score at home, this is actually the position we hope to debunk):

Link to tweet

/

Gosh, that DOES look terrible! And if it had been all he'd said, then it would be terrible. Except it's a pull quote that pulls the quote right out of any context. Here's the full question, and Buttigieg's answer, and we think the context matters more than a little:

"One of the hallmarks of the campaign so far has been a really rich and detailed debate about policy within the Democratic Party. Is that what's important right now? Or should the Democratic Party simply be organized around the simple premise that Donald Trump is a national emergency and must be defeated above all else and that the policy particulars should take a back seat to that?

So actually I don't agree with either of those approaches. The problem with making it all about him is that's what we did in 2016, and when we make it all about him, then there's a lot of voters in places like the industrial midwest, where I live, who say, "Okay, but who's talking about me?" Part of how we lost our way in 2016 was, first of all, it was all about our own nominee. "I'm with her," was literally the button."

So the context is not "Why do you hate Hillary Clinton and all the women who supported her," but rather "should Democrats focus on the threat of Donald Trump to the exclusion of all else?" AND ALSO "what should the role of policy arguments be in this election?"

https://www.wonkette.com/thats-not-what-he-said-mayor-pete-hillary-clinton-edition

[PunkinPi]

1. Pull quotes are often chosen to create drama...

and fwiw, Mayor Pete was a DNC delegate for HRC in 2016.
https://www.953mnc.com/2016/07/06/democratic-delegates-indiana/

[Talking Tom]

9. So it's a false quote?

A pull quote is a quote.

[PunkinPi]

11. Not a false quote, just one out of context, as the article above illustrates. nt

[Talking Tom]

13. There's no relevant context

If I say to someone,
"I don't like you" and then I add it's gonna rain tomorrow, I can't say that I somehow like the person because I spoke about rain too.

[PunkinPi]

15. The tweet in the OP is the pull quote, the full context of the quote is

is fleshed out in the article. YMMV

[karynnj]

25. But there is "no, I don't like you"

I don't get why you can't get that he is essentially saying that we need to speaking not about our nominee or Trump -- but what we will do to solve the problems people face.

A better attack was that in 2016, Clinton HAD hundreds of policies with detailed plans. However, much of what was repeated ad nauseum was about the two candidates.

[SFnomad]

20. It's a lie by omission. When a partial quote is given without clear context

You seem to like push polls too, so I'm not surprised you're defending this also.

[lark]

2. WTF Watson?

I watched that segment and did not get Hillary bashing out of it. In fact, I always agreed that I'm with Her wasn't the "best" slogan and didn't really like it but totally supported it as I 100% supported and love Hillary. I really really like Mayor Gary, he's definitely in my top 4 at the moment. Bring on the debates!!!

[NurseJackie]

4. Who's Gary?

I really really like Mayor Gary, he's definitely in my top 4 at the moment. Bring on the debates!!!

Who is Gary?

[lark]

5. Buttiege (don't know if I have the spelling right)

The Mayor of South Bend Indianapolis. Since his last name is difficult, he goes by Mayor Gary. He's running for president on the Dem side and is a really smart progressive.

[NurseJackie]

7. Ah, okay. I think maybe you mean "Pete"...

Since his last name is difficult, he goes by Mayor Gary.

Ah, okay. I think maybe you mean "Pete" instead of "Gary".

[lark]

21. My brain is not firing on all cylinders still.

I had a concussion 15 days ago and still find little blips like this, damn. I am so tired of it.

[lapucelle]

26. Mayor Pete. South Bend, Indiana.

Gary is a city in Indiana, as is Indianapolis.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

14. Watson is a loon

[patricia92243]

3. He was pointing out a campaign should be about idea, etc, not the

necessarily about the person in the campaign. No matter who the person is.

[lark]

6. Exactly!

That was my exact thought process last time.

[Talking Tom]

8. He referred to our nominee in 2016

Our nominee in 2016 was Hillary Clinton.

[patricia92243]

18. If our nominess had been John Doe, the conversation should not be about him

or Trump but ideas, platforms,etc.

[Renew Deal]

10. I don't have a problem with what he said

[WeekiWater]

12. He actually left policy when trying to make a point about talking policy.

That will never be a strong point for him. It's ok and no one got hurt. I don't like the whitewashing of the fact that Clinton ran on an amazingly robust platform. Seems the in thing to do to dismiss that. The only reasons it's gotten away with is because Clinton was bigger than life. Clinton is a brand, these other peoples names are not.

I'm really liking Buttigieg.

[marylandblue]

17. It was a point about messaging through principles and policy, not about policy itself

You are right, Clinton is a brand. So is Trump. The Clinton brand lost with better, more detailed policy. He is saying his campaign will not be about his brand, but his ideas. At least that's what he wants to do. The message a campaign sends can be garbled before people receive it. I hope this doesn't happen to him.

[StevieM]

16. This is total fiction. Our 2016 campaign slogan was "Stronger Together."

"I'm with her" was one of many catch phrases and buttons that were floating around, just like on every campaign. And it was essentially just a feminist statement, reminding people that there was finally a female candidate who seemed like she had a good chance of winning.

Seriously, Stronger Together was written on her plane. And it was all over the place at her rallies and at the convention.

But hey...Pete just told Cenk Uygur and Anna Kasparian what they wanted to hear. And I assume that was the real goal here.

[BooScout]

19. + 1000

Exactly.

#ImWithHer was a viral hashtag that struck a cord with a lot of women in particular. 'Stronger Together' was always the official slogan. If good old Pete thought he'd score some points with his interpretation, he was mistaken. In fact he just managed to get himself moved to my 'I don't think so' list with Sanders, Biden, Gabbard and Gillibrand.

[progressoid]

22. That wasn't just "floating around".

It was designed and distributed by the campaign.

At an event in March put on by the New York chapter of the professional design association AIGA and the design team for the Hillary Clinton Campaign, graphic designer Ida Woldemichael opened her speech with a bang. “So you’ve all heard the phrase, ‘I’m With Her,’ yes?” she asked, and then paused. The crowd’s strong applause seemed to suggest the answer was yes. “I wrote that,” she responded simply.

It wasn’t a humble brag—the story that proceeded that statement, about how Woldemichael came up with “I’m With Her,” illustrated the way that setting up a branding system for the campaign allowed for deliberate design decisions to be made even in the most harried of scenarios. “I’m With Her” went from Woldemichael’s sketchbook to a bumper sticker in a matter of days.

Yes, the phrase “I’m With Her” was invented by a designer one random morning in the campaign’s Brooklyn headquarters. It has since come out of so many mouths, been used in so many articles and hashtags, and been scrawled on so many signs–and is generally so entrenched in our rhetoric about Hillary Clinton now–it was almost a surprise that it had any origin story at all.

[StevieM]

23. My point is that there were various catch phrases and buttons.

Like "drain the swamp."

But the campaign theme was stronger together. The slogan was stronger together. Every bit as much as "Make America Great Again" on the other side.

And I wasn't trying to apologize for the catch phase. I was simply pointing out that it is historically inaccurate to say that it was her campaign slogan.

In any event, it is not correct to say that HRC's campaign was all about the candidate. Donald Trump is the one who said "I alone can fix it." Hillary's response, and central message, was "We don't say that in America. We say we'll fix it together."

[jalan48]

24. So what? It should be about the issues and not about the identity of a particular group.

[lancelyons]

27. If he said what you claim he did it's clear he was talking about Hillary

If he said what you claim he did it’s clear he was talking about Hillary In a derogatory way. I think Hillary’s slogan was “stronger together” so he got that wrong as well. It was us supporters that said “I’m with her”