Has Pete Buttigieg Become the Latest to be Favored by the National Party?

Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg addresses supporters at a campaign event, Thursday, May 9, 2019, in West Hollywood, Calif. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

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As the candidates roll through Nevada there are signs the DNC may have picked its candidate.

Like a poker player with bad tells, we might be seeing the Democratic National Committee tipping its hand on who it wants to back for the presidency. When the familiar sights of scripted events and the knee-jerk objections to perceived social injustices rear up you have to look at things a second time.

There was a revealing question-and-answer exchange yesterday in Carson City Nevada between presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg and a member of the audience at his campaign event. Mayor Pete was asked what his reaction might be if he were to win the vote for the presidency, but Donald Trump was unwilling to vacate the White House?

This question echoes an ongoing conspiracy floating in liberal circles that the president will contest the results of any election if he were to lose, citing irregularities in the voting and claim the result is invalid. It is an extension of the tinfoil-hat theory that Trump would try to pass legislation to grant himself a third term in office. That there are enough members of the Democrat party and the media to forward these as possibilities is laughable, considering these same sources love labeling any Trump supporters as a member of a cult.

The very fact that this question is entertained by a supposedly serious candidate is revealing, but not as revealing as other details surrounding the question. Rather than dismiss this crackpot premise as unrealistic Buttigieg offered up a pithy response to the query: “If he won’t leave, I guess if he’s willing to do chores we could work something out.” There’s some of that scintillating MidWest humor that has endeared Mayor Pete to the middle!

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But there is something else going on here. Obviously his glib answer was prepared, but this was more than a canned response showing a ‘’what if it is asked’’ level of preparation. It was wholly staged. The questioner was certainly a plant with a prepared question, and we know this because earlier in the day Buttigieg was in Reno, and a member of the audience at that location asked the very same question, and Pete delivered the exact same ‘’off the cuff’’ response.

Now no one is shocked that campaign events like these are choreographed affairs. This, however, is taking on a new level of orchestration with the Buttigieg campaign, and along with other signs it is becoming apparent that the national party has shifted its preference. While it has become clear that the DNC has no interest in Bernie Sanders becoming the nominee what has been less clear is who the apparatus will place in his stead.

In 2016 it was easy; Hillary was the clear choice and Bernie was the interloper. Actions had to be taken to tamp down his influence as a potential threat to her inevitable coronation in the party. This time it is far more problematic. It is a wide field, and the previous choices have done their best to self-destruct. With so many candidates desperate to get noticed many had tried to out-extreme each other for the sake of traction. The party had to cajole Joe Biden to step in and correct course, and all seemed right in the Democrats’ universe. He had led polling ahead of announcing and simply had to show up and smile, coasting to a convention anointing. But as we know the VP is incapable of shutting his maw and gradually Uncle Joe has talked himself out of the job.

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Liz Warren was then considered as the hoped-for savior, but she has fallen to the temptation of promising everyone everything. On top of the impossible promises, she has also been a consistent rival with the truth, offering prevarications that are provably inaccurate and casting her as a fading star. So it appears that the party, desperate for a moderate voice to counter Bernie’s flair for socialist dogma, has moved to back the South Bend mayor.

The next tip-off happened this past week when suddenly, after months lacking any such outrage, the press leaped forward with charges of homophobia against figures on the right. Within days both Rush Limbaugh and Sebastion Gorka were torched for comments they made invoking Buttigieg’s homosexuality, attempting to gin up controversy.

On his show Limbaugh said this of the Mayor: “They’re saying, ‘OK, how’s this going to look? Thirty-seven-year-old gay guy kissing his husband on stage, next to Mr. Man, Donald Trump.’” The loud reaction belies the fact that they do not analyze the entire discussion by Rush. He was not espousing conservative positions, he was speculating what the behind the scenes discussions on the Democrats’ side could be.

It is not inherently homophobic, as what Limbaugh described has happened. Buttigieg is 37, he is gay, and he has kissed his husband publicly. Rush was theorizing how the Democrat leadership was going to deal with selling this to the general public. But this is where the permissible dichotomy is exposed. It is fine for Buttigieg to display his gay marriage before the cameras in a political setting, but it is unacceptable to discuss that same marriage politically, somehow.

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Gorka’s issue was even more innocuous. On his program, in response to comments Buttigieg has made regarding abortion rights, he asked the question why are we are given a lecture on the subject from a homosexual man? It is a question with some merit, but the reaction to it from the left was swift. Gorka was branded a homophobe for posing the question, but those delivering the accusation were ignoring their own lectures on the subject.

The left has told us constantly that men should have no say in the abortion debate, but now that a gay man comments on it we should be listening? It makes no sense, but then the outrage does not rely on sense. The fact that these examples were blasted across the media within smacks of coordination, with a possible side note of delivering a message; no mention of the Buttigieg orientation will be tolerated.

Only adding to the prospect of internal machinations is the news that Mayor Pete had investments with the company that delivered the now infamous phone app that buggered the Iowa Caucus completely and is primed to be used in Nevada. To put a spin on the old adage, when it comes to who the DNC is favoring in primary season you simply need to only follow the outrage.

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