San Diego Union-Tribune Endorses Buttigieg

The animosity of Amy Klobuchar towards Pete Buttigieg on display last night during the Las Vegas debates will likely heighten in the wake of many seeing Buttigieg's performance as "more presidential" than hers and now Buttigieg's endorsement by the San Diego Union Tribune in a lengthy and reasoned editorial. While I remain conflicted in some ways as to which candidate to back - a friend had us to a Bloomberg event on Tuesday yet I have donated to Buttigieg - the Union-Tribune's reasoning makes the case as to why Buttigieg may be the one who can defeat Trump. Yes, the Trump base will never vote for a gay politician, but then again, they will never vote for a Democrat. Any Democrat.  Thus, the question becomes whether Americans of good will (I believe they are still in the majority) will vote for a gay man just as they voted for Barack Obama. We need a generational change in the leadership of this nation.  My generation and the even older one of many of  the Democrat candidates has left America truly damaged. Here are highlights as to why the Union-Tribune sees Buttigieg as the best choice:

Among the biggest questions in the 2020 presidential election are these:

How will liberals, moderates and independents winnow the Democratic field in the primary election on March 3 when California and 14 other states and territories vote on Super Tuesday?

If the economy stays strong through the general election, can any Democrat defeat Donald Trump, who is building that wall, claims to be the most pro-life president in U.S. history and who in three years has already ensured conservative dominance of federal courts for generations?

What would the United States even look like in 2024 if Trump is re-elected on Nov. 3?  It might be unrecognizable.

America is at a crossroads, even if that is of little or less concern to conservatives given their judicial and social gains under Trump. The sad truth is that four more years of President Donald Trump mean the White House will keep alienating allies, ignoring climate change, sabotaging institutions, tolerating cruelty on Twitter and in real life, and vilifying immigrants at the heart of the American story.

The alternative is a nation that rebuilds its good standing globally and restores decency to a presidency bereft of it while also moving toward a more expansive health care system, more comprehensive and humane immigration reform, reduced carbon emissions, increased gun safety, less national debt and an economy that works for everyone.

There are essentially two paths forward for Democrats, but one on the far left may alienate too many Americans to constitute progress. A middle road is more likely to bring Americans together.

Two candidates can lead the nation down that road with success: Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, 59, and former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, 38. Both are relatively young, have a Midwestern appeal and will try to work across the aisle — Klobuchar has passed more than 100 bipartisan bills in three terms in the U.S. Senate, Buttigieg emphasizes “how it’s being done” is as important as what gets done, and underscores a need to not have “some kind of equal-and-opposite meanness.” Their approaches paid off in the first two states to vote. . . . . They would also be trailblazers, as the first woman president or first gay president.

It’s close, but in the view of The San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board, Buttigieg is best suited to beat Trump because of his centrist policies, his military experience, his (admittedly small-scale) executive experience and the enthusiasm he’s inspired, with better fundraising and national polling, bigger campaign crowds and more news coverage than Klobuchar. He has shown he can manage a national campaign successfully. And in a nation that only legalized same-sex marriage in 2015, his message of generational change could actually inspire change.

Of the six strong Democratic candidates left, half are 77- or 78-year-old men, two are women, one of whom is 70, and then there is Buttigieg.  He may have only been mayor of the fourth-largest city in Indiana, but his fresh approach is transformational. He came out in an op-ed in a local newspaper while seeking reelection in 2015, choosing his ability to love openly over his presumed ability to advance more easily in politics.

At this early stage of the 2020 election, what is clear (and what fills us with hope) is that voters seem more eager to choose a moderate candidate than a progressive candidate to beat Trump. The San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board, which is generally centrist and highly critical of Trump’s harsh rhetoric and evisceration of civic norms, evaluated the field this month and decided that our endorsement would go to either Buttigieg or Klobuchar.

Sanders inspires passion among those who want dramatic changes but in our view is too far to the left and there are lingering concerns about his health after a heart attack. Former Vice President Joe Biden was solid in that role, but he has been an uninspiring candidate every time he’s run for president; in this cycle, he has seemed uneven and out of touch with modern America and its political climate.

Former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg . . . his overdue and ultimately inadequate disavowal of discriminatory stop-and-frisk policies, combined with comments in 2008 about the value of “redlining” and in 2015 about the value of Xeroxing descriptions of “male minorities 15 to 25,” and throwing young men of color “against the wall,” gave us greater pause.

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren is an intellectual giant with a mountain of policy proposals, displaying a tremendous preparation for the job, but her Medicare for All proposal ultimately proved a bridge too far for us, particularly when she mishandled the rollout of the details of its cost. Sweeping changes make sense, but they must be sold to the public, not imposed.

That led us to Klobuchar and Buttigieg. Importantly, she has something that he lacks: experience in Washington, D.C., and a long record of bipartisanship. But a report in The New York Times that she is a demanding and “often dehumanizing” boss is troubling. And her prior career as an aggressive prosecutor is worrisome in an era when the long-term fallout from the overly harsh punishment of redeemable people has given new momentum to criminal justice reform. . . . Nekima Levy Armstrong, a civil rights lawyer and former president of the Minneapolis chapter of the NAACP, told The Washington Post. “Rather than taking steps to help mitigate some of those concerns and issues, during her tenure in office, her policies exacerbated the situation.”

Questions about African American support have also dragged on Buttigieg, whose record as mayor shows his top staff didn’t mirror his city’s diversity and includes a controversy with an African American police chief whom Buttigieg demoted. But the way Buttigieg addressed the fatal shooting of a black man by a white officer in his hometown during this campaign suggests he’ll approach tests directly — that he’ll show up and step up.

Michael Patton, president of the local NAACP chapter, supports him, saying, “Pete is someone who has done significant work in our community.”

Then there’s something progressives should keep in mind: Buttigieg is running as a moderate, but he points out his “Medicare for all who want it” proposal would make him the most progressive president in 50 years. He also points out that when Democrats have been elected to the White House in that span, they have been young, first-time presidential candidates who were new to the national scene and “calling the country to its highest values.” He offers a message of hope and change when the nation needs both.

There’s lots to like about Buttigieg, so let’s look at what may make some voters uncomfortable.

Should his age matter? French President Emmanuel Macron was elected at age 39. The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, and the prime minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern, were 37 when they were elected. So … no, relative youth shouldn’t matter.

Is he inexperienced? While 16 presidents have been senators, three — Calvin Coolidge, Andrew Johnson and Grover Cleveland — have been mayors. Executive experience is executive experience. Buttigieg has it. And like all other presidents, he could choose smart Cabinet members.

Lastly, his sexuality. Buttigieg’s election would be something to celebrate because it would smash a ceiling and inspire a range of people to be themselves, but his sexuality is irrelevant to this job, to any job.

There are some people who will say Americans won’t elect a gay president. As they said of Barack Obama that Americans wouldn’t elect a black president. As they say of Klobuchar and Warren (and said of popular vote winner Hillary Clinton) that Americans won’t elect a woman president.

That is true only until it isn’t. . . . . People who discount Buttigieg because of his sexuality are just behind the times. People who discount him because of his youth or inexperience are just behind another candidate. That can change quickly, too, as votes get counted and campaigns get suspended ahead of a convention.

The New York Times Editorial Board asked Buttigieg how he would balance his devout Episcopalian faith with his duties as commander in chief, and he showed both his wisdom and his eloquence: “I think you have to accept the reality that you are living and working in a broken world just as we are all broken human beings and try to order your steps in a way that brings greater good than harm.”

That resonated with us, for its lofty rhetoric and grounding in humanity and hope: “greater good.”

It’s time for a generational change. It’s time to make America good again.  Vote Pete Buttigieg for president of the United States.

New Hampshire Primary Post Mortem

Results are still trickling in, but with 93% of the vote in it is possible to pick the winners and the losers in the New Hampshire primary.  While Bernie Sanders "won," Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar  were not far behind and between them showed that a majority of Democrats want a moderate for the Democrat nominee.  Sander - like Trump - seems to have a near fanatical core base beyond which he cannot rise above. The big loser, however, was Joe Biden who landed in 5th place seeming revealing what I have long felt: he simple does not have the spark or generate the enthusiasm needed to run against Trump. Add his constant gaffes, and even if he does better in South Carolina, his campaign looks like it needs to fold its cards and go home.  The other big loser was Elizabeth Warren who appears to have hemorrhaged support to Buttigieg and Klobuchar while never making inroads with Sanders' cult followers who do not grasp that winning only 25% of the party does not make Sanders' the choice of the people.  A column in the Washington Post lays out a post mortem.  Here are highlights:

The New Hampshire primary may very well be remembered for the third- through fifth-place finishers and for how surprisingly close the race between Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) — the overwhelming favorite who won with 60 percent in 2016 — and former South Bend, Ind., mayor Pete Buttigieg was. Sanders was leading in the polls, but he nearly fell to the former Midwest mayor less than half his age.

Sanders was projected as the winner, but the margin of his victory was modest (less than 2 percent). As in Iowa, he did not juice the turnout with an influx of new voters as he promised. The youngest voters made up 12 percent on Tuesday compared with 19 percent in 2016. The Democratic establishment has panicked at the prospect of a Sanders win, but he now looks like a vulnerable front-runner, with well over half of his support coming from voters 18 to 29 and more than half coming from “very liberal” voters. If he was looking to expand beyond his traditional base, he did not do it. He actually got a larger share of repeat voters than first-time voters. 

With the electorate heavily skewed in favor of electability (60 percent) rather than agreement on the issues, and about half the voters finding Sanders too liberal, there is reason to believe voters have become wary of Sanders as the standard bearer in a must-win election. His base of support seems not to have grown significantly from the start of the race.

Buttigieg, who won the most delegates in Iowa, finished strong in New Hampshire as well, overcoming questions about his experience. Buttigieg did almost as well with younger voters as with older ones, a sign of expanding appeal. His support was rather evenly spread among all education levels. . . . . He has yet to make inroads with African American candidates in other states, but he has grown beyond his initial base (mostly college-educated and older voters).

The shocker was Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), who charged past her opponents so quickly the polls never full accounted for her surge. A week ago, no one would have foreseen she would get to almost 20 percent of the vote and a third-place finish. She won voters who wanted to continue President Barack Obama’s policies (Obama’s own vice president came in third in that segment of the electorate), older voters, religious voters and voters for whom the debate was an important factor.

She didn’t focus her campaign on being a female candidate, but rather on being a moderate, a problem-solver and a Midwestern winner. She says, “That’s how I’ve always won. . . . When you are feeling left out, it is not enough [to run on gender].”

She concedes she lost time while tied to her desk during the impeachment trial, noting “I like to talk to people on the ground.” But she used some of that time thinking about the race and solidifying her message. Despite the punditry, she never bought into the idea the party had moved far left.

The stunning collapse of former vice president Joe Biden, who finished fifth and will get no New Hampshire delegates, cannot be underestimated. If moderate voters and African Americans (many of whom are moderate) get the sense he is no longer viable, the floor may drop out from him in Nevada and South Carolina, bringing an end to any hope for victory.

If not for Biden, Warren, who finished under 10 percent and failed to get delegates in her own backyard, would have been the big loser. A campaign that once seemed so promising now will be hard pressed to stay alive until South Carolina. Her refusal to go after Sanders and her effort to adhere to him on Medicare-for-all only to back away may have been her undoing. In a speech to supporters, she seemed to swipe at Sanders when she criticized candidates’ who boo rivals and seem to want to “burn the party down.” Her stress on unifying the party may be overshadowed by both Buttigieg and Klobuchar, who have made this a centerpiece of their message.

The field did narrow, with two candidates dropping out: Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), who never came on the radar screen for primary voters, and Andrew Yang, the champion of the universal basic income.

Among the most striking aspects of the contest, the vote-share of the moderate candidates’ (Biden, Buttigieg, Klobuchar) came in at more than 50 percent, swamping that of progressives Sanders and Warren, who together accounted for less than 40 percent of the vote. Here is yet another sign that Democrats are giving careful consideration to winning an election, not merely making a statement. That might be the best news of all for Americans angst-ridden about a possible second Trump term.

Multiple Routes to a Democrat 2020 Electoral College Win

At this point, there are several take ways in the 2020 presidential contest: (i) national polls mean little, and (ii) focus needs to remain on the list of states that in some combination will put the Democrat candidate over the 270 Electoral College number. But the combination of critical states varies and may or may not include the rust belt states where Trump's message of racism and shameless pandering to religious extremists caused voters to vote against their own economic interest. A piece in the Intelligencer looks at the possible routes to victory in an election that could well be the most important ever for America and by extension the world.   Here are article excerpts:

The sizable gap between Donald Trump’s 304-227 Electoral College majority in 2016 and the paltry 46.1 percent of the popular vote he commanded (trailing Hillary Clinton’s 48.2 percent) has made political observers looking forward to the 2020 contest more focused than usual on state battlegrounds as opposed to the national balance of power. And obviously, most Democrats have obsessed about flipping the three Rust Belt states Trump won that shocked everyone: Pennsylvania and Michigan (Democratic since 1988) and Wisconsin (Democratic since 1984). That Democrats made gains in 2018 in these three states has made them a continued focus for 2020, and moderate presidential candidates Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, and Amy Klobuchar have emphasized their supposed strength in the Rust Belt.

But all along there have been arguments for alternative routes to 270 electoral votes that might be open to a Democrat, and at Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball, Seth Moskowitz has laid them out in fascinating detail.

As he notes, flipping back the three big Rust Belt states would require (with all else staying the same) a conversion of a mere 78,000 votes — or 1,690 popular votes per electoral vote. But there’s been a lot of talk lately about Wisconsin being more obdurate MAGA country than it was in 2016. So is there a simple way for Democrats to win with Pennsylvania and Michigan? Well, yes: If they can win Arizona, which Trump carried by 91,000 votes in 2016, that would get the job done.

There is an even simpler route for a Democratic electoral vote majority: flip Florida, one of the closest 2016 states (Trump won it by just under 113,000 votes), and flip Michigan, too, and the Democrat would win even if the GOP retained Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina.

And there are scenarios for a Democratic win that won’t count on any of the lost Rust Belt states, with 270-plus electoral votes built on a combination of flipping Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina (requiring a net gain of 475,000 popular votes) or more simply Arizona and Florida (requiring just 204,000 additional net votes).

There’s even a contingency in which a Democrat could lose all three of the Rust Belt battleground states Trump won in 2016 — plus lose Arizona, Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina — but still get to 270 electoral votes by carrying blue-trending Texas.

The bottom line is that the Democratic path to victory in 2020 is no more preordained than was a Republican path in 2016 that we thought might require wins in places Trump ultimately lost like Nevada, New Hampshire, and Virginia. But it will remain true that no one should place too much stock in national polls unless the race becomes something of an unlikely blowout.