Pete Buttigieg Isn't Ready For The Big Time And He Looks More And More Like He Won't Ever Be

I am asked as a gay man what I think about Pete Buttigieg's non-disclosure agreement with his former employer, McKinsey & Co a shady and, it's increasingly becoming apparent, sleazy consulting firm.  Well, I think if a candidate for public office won't be totally open about his work history, he has no business asking for the public trust.  

There should be a law that anyone asking for election to federal office cannot use private non-disclosure agreements to hide parts of their past.  Private businesses are not entitled to have their private business overtake The Peoples' right to know who they're voting for. 

I haven't been a huge fan of Buttigieg's candidacy, saying from the start of it that he's far too young and inexperienced to be president and that I think he's running because in Indiana there is no path to higher office for him.  I had thought of going through a very good critique of him at the National Catholic Reporter, Mayor Pete brings his youth and old, tired ideas to the Democratic race, but other things came about. It's interesting to look back on it because Michael Sean Winters raised that issue in it before I saw it anywhere else. 

The fact that he is gay has given the mayor a veneer of progressivism. It is only a veneer. When will an interviewer ask him to explain what led him to work at the McKinsey & Company consulting firm, which is as deep into the establishment as one might go? What lessons did he draw from his time there? His verbiage strikes me as precisely the kind of consultant-driven p

ablum that consultants produce. But, more importantly, what about the economy and society did he learn while there? Inquiring minds want to know.

And if time working at McKinsey doesn't also make you a member of the establishment, pray tell, what does? Oh yes, a Rhodes scholarship.

The weirdest part of his candidacy, however, is that while he trumpets his youth, and traffics in the Kennedyesque idea that it is time for a new generation of Americans to take up the torch of leadership, his ideas are very old-fashioned. On his campaign website, the first item on his list for combatting poverty is expanding the earned income tax credit. The EITC has definitely been a great boon in the fight against poverty, but it was first enacted in 1975. His section on climate change lacks anything particularly innovative. And he suggests that because he served in the military, that counts as a foreign policy credential. My uncle Frank fought in the Battle of the Bulge but I would not have wanted him to be secretary of state.

I had already had grave doubts about Buttigieg over his comments in New Hampshire criticizing Democrats for not being concerned about the budget deficits, the last thing I'm going to support is a Democrat who dishonestly adopts Republican talking points which are a lie. I suspect someone told him that such talk would go over big with a New Hampshire crowd but apparently someone didn't bother to tell him that New Hampshire Democrats are not New Hampshire Republicans.  

Winters also talks about the emptiness of the "bringing America together" rhetoric:

It is also time for Americans on the left to get over the myth that some politician is going to come along and miraculously unite the country. Obama promised to do it, and didn't. Bill Clinton promised to do it, and didn't. Jimmy Carter promised to do it, and didn't. It may be what voters tell pollsters they want, but it only sets us all up for disappointment and, ultimately, disaffection from politics itself, which is why it is dangerous.

If there is one thing I don't want it's another Obama or Bill Clinton making nice with Republicans and disappointing the Democratic base.  I would certainly like to get all of those running on record on a number of loyalty issues LOYALTY TO THE DEMOCRATIC VOTERS WHOSE NOMINATION VOTES THEY ARE ASKING FOR.  If Pete Buttigieg doesn't understand that Republicans are never going to work with a Democratic President, he has disqualified himself from being the nominee of the party.  

Oddly, though I think he's clearly much smarter than Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg is reminding me of him more and more the longer this goes on.  I figured out a long time ago that Biden wasn't made of presidential timber, during his plagarism scandal.  I doubt the Mayor would do that stupid thing but he's doing a lot of the rest of why I don't want Biden to be the nominee.  Even odder, the oldest guy in the race - who I also think has no business running, Bernie Sanders, has fresher ideas than the youngest.  

Sean Michael Winters gives more reasons that this guy shouldn't get the Democratic nomination.  This is just a quick piece.