Pete Buttigieg Bows Out of Primary
Pete Buttigieg is ending his campaign for the Democratic nomination.
Pete Buttigieg, the 38-year-old former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, who skyrocketed to be a top contender in the Democratic race, is dropping out, three aides to his campaign confirmed to CBS News on Sunday. Buttigieg won the most delegates in the Iowa caucuses and then came in second in the New Hampshire primary, but struggled to come up with a path forward after losses in Nevada and South Carolina.
Biden/Buttigieg 2020.Report
Biden’s been way to loud about having a female as a running mate, he’s probably locked into that whether he wants it or not.Report
Mmmmm… I don’t think it’s likely. Biden is probably leaning more towards Warren, Harris of Klobaucher. Buttigieg is young enough to not be tapped and still have plenty of time to make his mark and, frankly, he wasn’t a big enough threat electorally that he would need the veep slot to be persuaded to stop campaigning. And, bluntly, Pete ain’t gonna flip Indiana.Report
My guess, a million years ago, was that the ticket would be Biden/Harris.
Sometime between WWIII in January and the Coronavirus Pandemic in February, I lost any confidence I had in my ability to game stuff out.
But, a million years ago, I had Biden/Harris as my guess.
So now I’m wondering “why did he drop out before Super Tuesday? Surely there’s enough Petementum to make some demands with his delegates at the Convention…”Report
The 15% threshold, Buttigieg dropping out increases the number of states Biden crosses it and reduces the numbers Sanders has. Last night was the moment of maximum leverage in terms of favours/promises to earn for dropping out, particularly since his Super Tuesday polling was soft.
It also extended the legs of Biden’s good news cycle leading into Tuesday by pushing the consolidation narrative.
Basically, Sunday was the sell high point on a campaign that was as much about giving Buttigieg a future in national politics as it was winning the Presidency in 2020.Report
AgreeReport
There’s something modern capitalist about the whole thing, building something with an eye for selling it as much as having it.
The whole thing has stricken a lot of people as empty and cynical, but I have to think there’s more value to your team to have a guy who knows how to productively cynical rather than the likes of Warren, Harris or Booker who start with useful advantages and trip over their own feet rather than use them effectively.Report
I agree firmly with this, well done.
I’d also add- staying in through Tuesday added risks. If Bernie ended up winning the nod and cratering Pete could absorb blame for hobbling the moderates by staying in on Tuesday.Report
Well, if so, he’s smart enough to sell high. Buttigieg/Ocasio-Cortez 2032!Report
Matter/Antimatter 2032! A campaign with a bang!Report
The ads write themselves.Report
Reverse that, and it is a plausible scenarioReport
Amy K bows out to consolidate with Joe Biden.
Dayum…Report
Maybe the difference between the GOP and the Democratic Party is becoming somewhat more clear? I am so proud and grateful to Pete and Amy both. Nothing is assured yet but they’re doing what they can to give the party the best odds this year.Report
Not sure what you mean by that North. The GOP didn’t boot Trump from the nomination and … won the election. The Dems are *trying* to boot Bernie from the nomination by using the same tactics they used in 2016 and they … lost that election.Report
Instead of (deep breath) Kasich, Rubio, Cruz, Carson, and Fiorina all staying in and letting Jeb! make it a Head-to-Head against Trump, the Democrats’ Rubio(?) and Fiorina are dropping out allowing Jeb! to take it to Trump, head-to-head.
Cruz is still in there, though.Report
Well Bloomberg, like Bernie, is only just barely a Democrat at all.Report
The GOP’s candidates each ran their campaigns out to the bitter end fracturing the anti-Trump vote and thus enabling Trump to secure the nomination.
Amy and Pete bowing out is minimizing that same phenomena in the Democratic run this year. It isn’t remotely the same as what happened in 2016 where HRC (not the Democratic party please mind) used her connections, favors and strength to intimidate rivals out of running at all.
I mean, I’m not surprised exactly. If they didn’t drop out you’d click your tongue about how the Democratic Party isn’t capable of coordinating its own actors to maximize their odds of success whereas when they do you shake your head about how they’re “rigging” the process to disadvantage Bernie. I don’t honestly remember, do you even support Sanders candidacy?Report
“If the didnt’ drop out you’d click your tongue…”
Whuh? My complaint about the Democratic party is *not* that it “isn’t capable of coordinating it’s actors to maximize their odds of success”. It’s that the people doing the coordinating are largely incompetent and act on interests I fundamentally reject. Just to repeat a constant refrain of mine, one (not the only) problem with the “actors” you’re referring is that they thought Hillary Clinton was a good candidate.Report
It’s hard to say for sure what they thought. They certainly though, correctly, that she would be a hard candidate to beat in the primary and they were right. It is a pity her retail political skills didn’t match her skills with working the party. In the end she didn’t cut it, though it still took Comey’s idiotic intervention to push her back past the finish line. It’ll still ultimately be on her, not the party actors.
To be clear, let’s assume that the Democratic Party actors are partially responsible for Pete and Amy choosing to step out before super Tuesday. Do you think the party is making a mistake pressuring them to do so. Is this an incompetent or nefarious act? Make the case.Report
I”d prefer the primary to follow a much more organic process – I mean, Buttigieg *clearly* only quite the race due to pressure and promises – but from a strategic pov, yes, the party insiders did the right thing
buying offmotivating Pete and Amy’s pre-super Tuesday choices. But let’s be clear here: the motivation for this consolidation of power isn’t to beat Trump, it’s to pro-actively prevent Bernie from winning.ReportAn organic fashion would be the GOP 2015 nomination contest and that’s the last thing any living functional party should want. Watching a hostile parasite (Trump) burrow into the GOP and devour its brains appears to have had a salutary effect on the Democratic Party.
In my opinion preventing Bernie from winning also happens to maximize the odds of beating Trump. You can’t honestly think he’d be the best bet against Trump do you?
And maximizing the odds that Bernie doesn’t get the largest number of delegates is the way to beat Bernie that minimizes the odds that his supporters are outraged and split from the party. Trump will be trying to make that happen anyhow of course.Report
You can’t honestly think he’d be the best bet against Trump do you?
My own assessment is that Amy K would have beat Trump and that between Joe! and Bernie it’s a coin flip. Joe! is a poor campaigner who Trump will chew up and spit out. Bernie is a good campaigner with tons of baggage. So corrupting (heh!) the primary process for Joe! doesn’t seem like a worthwhile trade.Report
I guess we just see different elements of the candidates. Believe me, I have no great delight in Joe being the candidate but I’ve seen how Bernie gets when people start pushing back on him and compared to turning red and shouting at the top of his lungs about revoultion Joes deficiencies seem mild in comparison.
But I appreciate you clarifying, I do agree Amy would have been the better candidate against Trump but, ya know, ya gotta win the nomination first.Report
It’s where you wonder if Biden really had to be in the race…Report
He sure as hell didn’t need to be, no. But he was and he distorted the whole damned contest because he was.Report
“The Dems ”
That’s doing a lot of heavy lifting. Are you talking politicians? Which ones? Voters? Which ones? Some shadowy cabal? Which ones?
Honestly, looks exactly like a normal primary to me as multiple competing wings of a party jockey to come out on top.
What I’m missing here is the guiding hand you’re implying is at work here.Report
An insight that I liked just because it had a poker reference.
If you want to fold when you should check, you shouldn’t have called (or raised) the big blind.Report
Wait, who has enough stroke to get both of them to drop out? (I sincerely doubt that it’s Tom Perez…)Report
I maintain that Klobuchar was primarily motivated by staying in longer than Buttigieg, so getting him was the way to get her. Not so much hidden hand as dominos falling.Report
If it’s Obama and he endorses this afternoon or tomorrow morning I’ll be delighted!
Or do you think that’d be overkill?Report
Obama has been signalling that he’s deliberately staying out of it to play peacemaker when the dust settles and there’s a winner. Its a necessary job and nobody else can do it. Its not the smart move to get involved until the contest is over regardless of what he thinks of any particular candidate.Report
If it’s Obama, then he pretty much *HAS* to endorse this afternoon or tomorrow morning.
I doubt it’s Obama, though… (For reasons including the ones that Brent mentioned.)
I imagine it’s someone with money. Someone who, presumably, ain’t Bloomy.Report
A behind the scene’s player with outsize influence within the top ranks of the party.
So it’s Putin.Report
Heehee! Projecting much are we George?Report
My bet is that it’s the Clintons.Report
Its the Cloward-Piven Strategy of community control, as described by Saul Alinsky.Report
She certainly has stroke and has the ear of a number of donors/bundlers.
Is she the type to take the attitude that a loss with Biden beats a win with Bernie?Report
Not just donors. They can ask Mayor Pete, “What do you want to work on next?” and then honestly tell him they know someone funding that and looking for a front man.
I would not be surprised to learn there’s some amount of antagonism towards Bernie left from 2016.
So far as I can tell, Bill’s still a fan of the DLC way and triangulation.
In the back of their minds, there’s the possibility of being a compromise candidate around the third or fourth ballot. (Hey, we’re living in an era of political long shots.)Report
I’m placing a marker here. There will be no brokered convention. There never is.
Whomever walks in with the most pledged delegates walks out the candidate.
Everything else? Frantic masturbatory attempts to make a normal primary somehow seem epic. To sell clicks and eyeballs and basically it’s the normal useless reactionary hot-takes without any sort of thought.
There’s nobody planning a brokered convention. God, I’m so tired of the conspiratorial tone of modern politics.
I guess smoke-filled rooms and shadowy figures are just a very comforting fantasy. It lets us pretend someone’s in charge, instead of just messy democracy that goes off in whatever fool direction it wants.Report
I agree that it’s highly unlikely anyone except the delegate leader when the convention convenes will get the nomination. But even former candidates for president can take a moment for a fantasy.Report
I think you both have good points. Perhaps Obama is best held in reserve for uniting the party once the knife fight ends.Report
Unless perhaps the knife fight ends with Hillary on top.
How will this happen, you ask? Because Hillary is going to send some hot young nurse from the CDC to hug Biden and Bernie at their rallies, about a week after the nurse took one for the team (and got paid lots of money) to kiss a bunch of corona virus patients.
Sure, that will result in a massive outbreak within the party ranks and within the states holding the rallies, but Hillary can write that off as collateral damage.Report
Hee-hee! Uh huh, no doubt George, she schemed that while resting her heels on the shellacked coffee table/corpse of Vince Foster in her posh basement lair at Comet Ping Pong pizza.
One problem with your scenario, George, is that Hillary is- herself- in the vulnerable age bracket for corona virus. And since you’ve previously indicated you think she’s barely healthy enough to stand on her own she’s probably in too fragile health to be messing around with biological political warfare.Report
Oh, she’s no doubt get infected or have it otherwise blow up in her face, but that’s the story of her life. But she never seems to learn from such outcomes, and goes all in anyway, time after time.Report