Daniel “What-i-gieg?” Buggigieg is the incumbent mayor of South Bend Indiana. He’s also the media’s flavor the the month among the roughly 225 Democrats running for the 2020 Presidential nod.
Why?
Is it the intersectional lottery – he’s a gay midwestern Democrat? Or is it his accomplishments as mayor of South Bend?
It’s the lottery:
While Chicago is notorious for its murder rate, in 2015, Buttigieg’s South Bend actually topped Chicago’s 16.4 homicides per 100,000 people with a homicide rate of 16.79 per 100,000 people. Those numbers put Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s city on the list of the top 30 murder capitals in the country for the year.
In January, three shootings in one week killed two teens and left a woman paralyzed from the waist down. In one summer week, the casualties included a 12 and a 13-year-old. Last year, a man shot 6 people when he opened fire on 50 partygoers in a house and was sentenced to 100 years in jail.
By 2017, shootings had risen 20% on Mayor Buttigieg’s watch. Rapes increased 27% and aggravated assaults rose from 183 in 2013, the year before Buttigieg took office, to a stunning 563 assaults.
It’s hard to know which are flying faster, bullets in South Bend or dollars into Buttigieg’s campaign.
But then with Democrat politicians, effectiveness isn’t the issue.
The ability to divert the low-information voter base with a raft of hopey-changey unicorn piffle is.
Indiana is one of the states most adamant about the freedoms to own and carry weapons. It’ll be interesting to watch how he bridges that chasm. If he gets that far, maybe he’ll match Gore’s accomplishment of not getting the electoral votes from his own state.
It’s “Pete Buttigieg”.
In fairness to him and the notion candidates actually connect to voters because of whatever superlative attributes they might have…. He does come across as the smartest, most temperamentally balanced candidate they have there in the group of 25 or whatever.
He’s undoubtedly left doctrinaire on gun control but you could foresee him avoiding typical lefty rhetoric there because he’s more knowledgeable.
I’m laughing that Pete has a caricature of VP Pence living in his head. From the sound of it, it’s not merely rent free, but it seems that Pete is paying the figment of his imagination to be there.
It strikes me that “effectiveness” in terms of results has never really been the Democrats’ strong point. Extend a panic into a ten year Depression? Democrats will give you credit for solving the problem. Take a prosperous city like Detroit or Gary and make it the world’s murder capital? Democrats roll out the red carpet.
Worth noting as well is that when I looked at Google Maps on satellite, it’s the west side of South Bend that has the missing houses that are a sign of things gone very, very wrong. So you’ve got one side with 30 murders per 100k and the other with probably 5, most likely.
It’s “Pete Buttigieg”.
Are you sure it’s not “Beto Buttigieg”?
I cant wait for the primary debates, how nasty will they be with each other?
I cant wait for the primary debates, how nasty will they be with each other?
Unlike last time, they won’t be busy preparing for a coronation. Smart spectators in the front rows at the debates will look as if they are attending a Gallagher performance.
I cant wait for the SNL paraodies. It will be appointment viewing.
By the way, Schlichter doesn’t much care for the guy. YMMV.
NW,
Its Beta O’Rourke, because he is the classic definition of a 21st century beta male.
Well, he’s advocating the politicization of the SCOTUS and his father was a Marxist, who revered the Communist Manifesto who dedicated a significant portion of his academic career to the work of Italian Communist Party leader Antonio Gramsci, an associate of Vladimir Lenin. But, hey. What could possibly go wrong if he’s elected?
In Mayor Buttgag’s defense, I’ve been to South Bend, there are a few really nice neighborhoods there; trouble is, those neighborhoods are not very vibrant. All the action takes place in and around the downtown area, which is *very* vibrant.
Swiftee, are they by chance white, gated communities? I genuinely have no idea. Never been to South Bend, maybe someday.
POD, South Bend is not just the home of some icky independent football and party school, but is also the historic home of Studebaker. Hence its neighborhoods near the city center (and for a couple of miles out) tend to be house after house on small lots, classic Midwestern small city, really. East side is where the white collar lived, west side is mostly where the blue collar lived. Problems are mostly west side. (and at Notre Dame, but that’s different problems)
When blacks started to move in in the 1960s, it was to houses formerly inhabited by white Studebaker hourly workers on the west side. Similar dynamics to Gary, but thankfully South Bend had the wisdom to have somewhat saner mayors than Richard Hatcher. I grew up between the two in Chesterton–where many people fled from Gary after “neighborhood breaking” efforts.
Comparing Buttigieg and Beto makes sense — they’re both ambitious lefty politicians who are in red states and thus can’t win statewide office (as Beto demonstrated), so they’re trying to cut out the intermediate step. Buttigieg might be less of an empty suit than Beto, but that’s damning with faint praise.
I guess the novelty of being the only reasonable candidate in the Democratic field may have its advantages.
It’s not reasonable to be fixated on Veep Pence.
Most people have no idea how intensely Pence is hated in by gays. Buttigieg holds one way conversations with Pence, in public, on the campaign trail. Father issues or homoeroticism is my guess.
POD how dare you.
Buttgag won because transient college students are allowed to vote in local elections and vibrant native populations refuse to vote unless there’s a free pack of Newports and a cold 40 in it for them.
Pence, the consummate fake victim.
It seems Pence uses religion as an excuse for his behavior while Buttigieg uses religion as tempering a guide.
Self-righteousness v. righteousness.
I guess the novelty of being the only reasonable candidate in the Democratic field may have its advantages.
“Reasonable” don’t appeal as much to the Democratic Party base, so I guess the “advantage” is that Buttigieg won’t waste as much time in the primaries before deciding to drop out.
Um, Emery, Pence didn’t pick the fight. Buttigieg did. And in doing so, he was clearly using religion as an excuse for his (ahem) behavior, claiming that whoever chose his sexual orientation was God.
Sounds like using religion as an excuse to me, and an excuse for which I’m at a loss as to where you’d find it in Scripture. Pence, on the other hand, was simply noting what Scripture says about the matter in his older remarks about same sex mirage. To summarize; ain’t in Scripture.
Ian: If the Democratic contenders continue talking about reparations I will guarantee you Trump will be President for a second term. I’ve never seen such an amazing display of self-delusion and self-sabotage.