I Was Really Tempted To Spend The Whole Column Making Fun Of This Guy’s Name
I would have to, but it turns out that really is small potatoes, this guy has all kinds of things that are just silly for a presidential candidate. Matter of fact he is so bad in the future historians may look back on his candidacy as one of the signs we had stopped being a serious country.
Qualifications:
He has what could be called if not particularly practical or useful education, receiving two bachelors degrees the first from Harvard in history and literature , and a second from Oxford in Philosophy, Politics and Economics. You have to wonder what he was hoping to do with these ? The most likely use would be academia hardly what you would expect from one seeking the presidency. But this is early stuff lets look at how he evolves.
A high point for him is that he is one of the few Democrat candidates that can actually list military service on their C.V. Whatever else we may think about him we can applaud his service to the country. While I would like to talk about this, I can’t find much about it. He was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Naval Reserve, in 2009. He was deployed to Afghanistan for seven months, and was mustered out as a lieutenant in 2017. I am not particular familiar with the Naval Reserve but I thought in the current military it was a matter of up or out and spending eight years in grade with advancing, is something remarkable for its unlikeliness.
His professional career seems to consist of what can at best be called schmoozing. He was a conference director for the Cohen Group, a consultant with McKinsey and Company, . He was there, he did nothing anyone bothers to mention or talk about, and he left after a short while without rising. The product of what still are considered some of the finest educational institutes in the world seems to have boiled down to nothing more than using the correct fork, and not offending the right people. He was there for awhile, did nothing anyone talks about and moved on before that caught up to him.
His political career has more meat on it but is equally flavorless. He worked for Jill Thompson on her failed campaigns for congress and governor of Indiana. He worked as a foreign policy advisor for John Kerry’s presidential campaign in 2004. Something of a pattern developing here.
Lets look at his personal efforts in politics. He has four campaigns under his belt, two failed two successful. On the successful side he has two campaigns where he won election for Mayor of South Bend Indiana winning handily both times. In terms of accomplishment in office there is virtually nothing. I had to dig hard for this but his top accomplishments as mayor there is getting a nightly laser art display the river. and getting money for parks. On the down side he seems to have mishandled his police dept. Firing the police communications director, while only demoting the police commissioner who orchestrated and ordered the illegal wiretaps.
On the failure side he also has two campaigns that ended in failure. The first he ran for Indiana treasurer and only managed to get 37% of the vote, and more significantly in 2017 he put himself forward for DNC chair. For whatever reason he withdrew from the election on the DAY OF THE ELECTION !!!. He let the freak show that was the candidate slate for DNC Chair push him out.
Now !!! If you think I went out of my way to make this guy look like an empty suit, you are completely WRONG !!! I had to dig to flesh out this guy there is just nothing there. His political chops are like a boy band’s musical chops. He is beyond vacuous as a candidate. Think I am saying this just because he is a Democrat ? I have made him look better than he makes himself
Pete Buttigieg is in his eighth and final year as Mayor of South Bend, Indiana.
Pete was first elected mayor in 2011 at only 29 years old, and re-elected in 2015 with 80 percent of the vote.
Under his leadership, South Bend has reimagined its role in the global economy with job growth and major investment in advanced industries, with a focus on data and technology.
Pete served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy Reserve, and took an unpaid seven months leave during his mayoral term for a deployment to Afghanistan. For his counterterrorism work, he earned the Joint Service Commendation Medal.
In 2017, he ran for Democratic National Committee chair, earning national praise for his clear message and emphasis on rebuilding the Democratic Party from the ground up in every community. He currently serves as the chair of the “Automation and the Impacts on America’s Cities” task force at the United States Conference of Mayors.
The Washington Post has called him “the most interesting Mayor you’ve never heard of” and President Obama named him one of four Democrats who represented the future of the Democratic Party.
A Rhodes Scholar at Oxford and graduate of Harvard, he lives with his husband Chasten in the same South Bend neighborhood where he grew up, with their two rescue dogs, Truman and Buddy.
That’s his damn website and there is even less to recommend him there than what I came up with, and what I came up with is damn near nothing. Empty suits get insulted when being compared to this guy. I will give this he may well be the least qualified candidate for president ever.
Oh, about not making fun of his name ? Why bother
Drink up That’s it for the Watercooler today. As always it’s an open thread
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