Thursday, January 31, 2019

Is Pete Buttigieg Going Places?

First, Pete Buttigieg,  the mayor of  South Bend, Indiana can't be faulted for a lack of ambition,  a gay, 37 year old mayor of a mid-sized city that doesn't get in the national news much who declares as a candidate for president is shooting higher than a rational person would.  Hearing him on the radio he doesn't sound either stupid or delusional so I assume this is him getting ready to run for an office higher than Mayor but lower than President.  So I don't take his candidacy as being anything but that. I don't usually approve of futile candidacies but I don't think his is an exercise in futility, at his age.   I don't know much about him so I don't know if I'd like him and his policies.  He is a Harvard product and, if that wasn't enough, a Rhodes Scholar (Oxford, sheesh!).  I think we've tried enough of those to be unimpressed with them as public servants.  I can hear some point out that one of those who I will probably  support, Elizabeth Warren has links to Harvard.  Well, she taught there but she got her law degree from Rutgers, a public university.   Buttigieg's being a prep-school grad, St. Joseph's, attached to the Catholic Ivy-equivalent,  Notre Dame, doesn't inspire my confidence, either.   I'm not saying that someone with his background couldn't get my support but how he supports public schools is a make or break issue for a prep-Ivy guy.  And by that I mean real public schools not public financed preps, "charters." Those should be abolished.  I don't know his record on that, it might be excellent.  For all I know he's an exception to the prep-Ivy elite.  More on that in a minute.

The only reason I'm writing this is that during his interview on NPR this morning Buttigieg talked about Indiana being "a part of the country that has been neglected" something you often hear from people in the mid-west.  Well, actually, you hear it from states and regions all over the country.   Like people love to think of their region as characterized by "rugged individualism," and other such bromides but we all seem to love to think of ourselves as "neglected".  All those "rugged individualists" everywhere also seem to have a whiny streak of self-pity, as part of it. 

And it's not as if areas in those places most paid attention to, New York City, Washington DC, Los Angeles, etc. don't have neighborhoods and even boroughs that are as neglected as the most obscure counties in every state.   I think what that means is that the media ignores most of the country, which it does.  If the largely wealthy, largely white, largely prep-Ivy owners and gate keepers of the media either don't know about or don't care about the people who live where you do, it is "a part of the country that has been neglected."   The decline of local media, local newspapers, LOCALLY OWNED electronic media WHICH IS REQUIRED TO SERVE ITS LOCAL AREA BY LAW, contributes to that.

And, I don't think that Indiana is all that neglected, to tell you the truth, its rejected media-figure governor is likely to become president once Trump is forced out, he's probably already come to the corrupt deal of pardoning him and his family members - Republicans are the champions of saving the asses of their criminals by pardon.  Pence will, I predict, be as incompetent and sleazy and, in the end, despised as president as he was as Indiana's Governor.  Even the Republicans hated him.

Its congressional delegations have certainly held at least as much if not more power than the size of the state warrants, many of them going on to have control of departments and agencies in the executive branch.   Indiana comes in at #17 in terms of population so there are 16 states that have the right to complain that it has more influence in the Senate per person than their states.  Mine comes in at #42 and I admit that my having as many Senators as California and New York is wrong.

I am looking forward to getting to know more about Pete Buttigieg who may be the real thing, he seems and sounds credible.  From the little I've read about him online, he seems to be willing to make hard decisions that might cost him politically, no politician who is worthy of higher office chickens out of making those.  If he overcomes my allergy to Ivy I could even see supporting him in about a decade.  I would certainly like to see him serve in the House to get to know something about DC while avoiding becoming ensnared in the slimier parts of that mire.   I hope he is authentic.  I've supported a number of people from the middle of the country, Tom Harkin, Mo Udall, George McGovern . . . come to think of it, maybe I'd jinx him by supporting him.

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