I hope Harris picks Pete Buttigieg, but I suspect she won't. He's gay.
I suspect she will pick a straight White male.
Notice the irony: A straight White male would be a DEI choice.
The best choice for the job is the person who would bring a new round of enthusiasm, a bit of WOW! to the campaign. Pete Buttigieg can handle himself in public. He would make Trump look like a senile, ranting King Lear in comparison. It would be an easy-to-see contrast: Old criminal crackpot with demons versus an earnest, rational person.
If it isn't Pete -- and I think it won't be -- it is because of identity issues. A mixed-race, dark-skinned female needs a symbol of normal-ness, i.e. a straight White man.
Just by standing there beside her, a Mark Kelly, Andy Beshear, Tim Walz, Josh Shapiro, or Pete Buttigieg sends a powerful body language signal that she doesn't hate White men. Even though she is married to a straight White man, she would be accused by Republicans of disrespecting them if she doesn't choose one. If she were to pick a highly qualified woman, Gretchen Whitmer, for example, then it would be a female ticket, and femaleness would be the centerpiece description of the campaign. Men would feel displaced from their rightful position as the default normal. What's wrong with us? Man-haters!
She solves that problem with a DEI choice, a VP that demonstrates diversity, in this case gender diversity. It must be a guy. And probably not a gay guy. Otherwise: What's wrong with straight men? Straight man hater!
A college classmate volunteered to me that he preferred Mark Kelly as the VP pick. I asked him why, requesting that he not look anything up to rationalize and justify the preference he had announced, but instead to tell me what he knew about Kelly that was the basis for the preference. He wrote, "I believe I knew that he was a fighter pilot, probably based on newspaper reading the past week." That would have come on top of knowing Kelly was a male in late middle age, a U.S. senator from Arizona, and married to former U.S. Representative Gabby Giffords, who was shot and badly injured in an assassination attempt. That's about it. My classmate understood a tiny bit about Kelly's identity, not his policy positions on taxes, labor, fossil fuels, etc. He made inferences about politics and character from that. A fighter pilot surely has physical courage and a bit of electoral sparkle. Let's try a fighter pilot for VP.
Trump's confrontation with Black journalists at their convention was intentional and strategic. He chose to make Kamala Harris's very identity -- Black? Indian? -- a matter of controversy. JD Vance got on board, calling her a "chameleon." Trump is doing here what he did with Obama and his Hawaiian birth; call it fraudulent. Is Kamala Harris who she says she is? Trump just made her identity "questionable" because he questioned it. How easy! Trump also intentionally mispronounces her name. Is it Kam-a-LAH? Who knows who she is? What, really, is her name and race? Since there are questions, she must be hiding something. Why does she hide?
It's a trick and it works: delegitimize the identity of your opponent. Even today tens of millions of Americans, possibly a majority of Republicans, tell pollsters they doubt that Obama was born in America. Biden won by eight million audited, counted, and recounted votes. Trump says Biden lost and that Biden is illegitimate, a fake president, a fraud. His party follows along.
Identity matters because very few people know the policy positions held by candidates and officeholders. We have a general idea based on their party identity, their biographical identity, and who their friends and detractors are. We fill in the blanks and make our gut preference.
I like Buttigieg because he is a good age to be president, and because he articulates Democratic policies so very deftly in the face of hostile media. That's reason enough for my gut.
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15 comments:
Without knowing too much about any of them, here's what I see. Pete: A really good speaker. However, way too gay. (is there such a thing as being a just right gay?) That won't work. Shapiro is Jewish. With all that's going on in the Middle East and people taking sides, this is not the right time. So, cross him off. Kelly: The only thing most people know of him is that his wife was almost killed by a sniper. That's it. Nothing outstanding about him. Waltz: An older guy from Minnesota. Yes, he's from the Midwest, which helps, but his old look doesn't contrast with Trump. He's just an old politician. That leaves Beshear. His father was governor of Kentucky before he was elected the same. He's only 47, which is a better look. So, far this election has hinged on age. Put him together with Harris, and you have a very young looking team. He also won the governorship in a very red state. That says something.
I don't know how Harris is leaning, but these are some of her considerations. The election may well depend on her choice.
It’s going to be hard enough for too many Americans to wrap their minds around a female Black president. As you said, most Republicans still don’t believe Obama is a ‘real’ American. Let’s face it, racism remains rampant in the U.S. Whoever Harris picks as her running mate, it will be a strategic choice calculated to improve her odds of winning and I’m afraid a gay running mate wouldn’t do that, no matter how good he is.
I think Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear would be a good choice – a popular Democratic governor in a red state who obviously has cross-party appeal.
Buttigieg the 2020 presidential candidate had been mayor of a city scarcely bigger than Medford. His record as Secretary of Transportation has been a mixed bag at best. His identity marker might disqualify him now as a practical matter, but then again it’s also the primary reason he’s ever been in the conversation in the first place. Such are the wages of identity politics.
No matter who they pick the person will be viciously attacked so it's almost irrelevant.
In a country with a significant population of mouth breathing, moronic misogynists, bless their hearts, the very notion of a female chief executive is so threatening that a man in a secondary position, never mind it's all equal in theory, is adding insult to injury.
This is not a speculation that would happen otherwise, right? The VP's gender?
Seriously?
I still think Liz Cheney would be a fantastic choice, who's with me?
Vice President Harris should dump far-left progressives if she wants to win the White House, said Democratic political strategist James Carville.
“I wish she’d tell them all to go f— themselves,” Carville, 79, said during an episode of his “Politics War Room” podcast this week.
“Understand this, and I’m going to say this as clearly as I can: Anybody that has ever listened to anything that the progressive left has ever said has lived to profoundly regret it. Literally on every issue, they’re dead a– wrong,” Carville added.
Mixed bag at Transportation?
Pete's been great, and making travel better/safer for Americans.
He's a little too wonky for me. I think an astronaut would be great!
I agree with you, Mike. Before I read about his positions in Wikipedia, my response to mention of his name was always “who”? He is better than Shapiro on public school support, better than Kelly on labor issues, and LGBTQ friendly. His positions on crime issues would soften Harris’s tough prosecutor image. He’s better looking than Walz, and would continue the WOW Factor that is pushing Kamala’s momentum.
A COMMUNITY SERVICE TO SOUTHERN OREGON READERS OF COMMENTS.
THE FOLLOWING COMMENT WAS SUBMITTED FOR PUBLICATION ANONYMOUSLY. IT IS WRITTEN IN THE STYLE AND WITH CONTENT CONSISTENT WITH SIGNED COMMENTS WRITTEN BY CURT ANKERBERG, A TRUMP-SUPPORTING REPUBLICAN, AND A CANDIDATE FOR MAYOR OF MEDFORD. IT IS POSSIBLE THAT SOMEONE OTHER THAN ANKERBERG IS MIMICKING HIM, BUT IF SO, THE MIMIC IS DOING A GOOD JOB OF IT. FAR MORE LIKELY, IN MY OPINI0N, IS THAT THIS IS REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE FOR MAYOR CURT ANKERBERG. THIS IS A HEADS UP TO VOTERS WHO NEED TO DECIDE ON WHETHER OR NOT TO VOTE FOR ANKERBERG: THE COMMENT:
"Peter Sage says "I don't care if Pete Buttigieg is competent or not. What I care about is that Pete Buttigieg has a cute ass, and he can suck on a penis like no one else. Gay men give me chill up my leg".
Buttigieg was very late to acknowledge the East Palestine, Ohio, toxic train derailment; he oversaw what Axios termed a “historic string of air, rail, and supply-chain meltdowns”, during which he took an eight week parental leave. The FAA had to ground all domestic flights for the first time since 9/11 because of safety system problems.
Whether or not the comment Peter posted is from Angerberg, it’s definitely written at the MAGA level of comprehension. The sexual obsessions are obviously a projection of the author’s own desires, but that comes as no surprise – during the RNC in Milwaukie, a gay dating app crashed from the spike in new users. They should just come out of the closet, but there would go half their culture war.
I like Walz. He’s actually not that old, same age as Kamala. He’s a great communicator and was a high school history teacher for years, so he’s at least as good as Pete at explaining things. He’s got more fire in his belly than Pete (though I think Pete is great too). He inspires loyalty. He relates well to the Everyman. He isn’t a career politician. My problem with Kelly is he’s kind of dull, astronaut though he is. Beshear is a dynasty Governor and people don’t like dynasties. I love Shapiro but he will drive away some voters who want to make a statement about Gaza. All that said, I can live with whomever she chooses as long as they’re ready to expose Vance for the extremist he is and treat Trump with the contempt he deserves.
What the heck does "very late" mean?
You'd prefer the FAA not ground flights during safety issues? Supply chain issues are the Secretary's fault?
You're sick, but it's probably Fox-induced homophobia.
Carville will say anything to regain some of the relevance he had during the early Clinton years. Now he's a bitter old man shouting "Get Off my Lawn" at the younger Generations who may well save this Republic.
Snony. @ 9:02:
Well said, every word.
Anonymous, not snony, my bad.
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