Pete Buttigieg falls into the GOP "divide and conquer" memes. Bad idea

I was impressed when I first became acquainted with Pete Buttigieg. I saw him speak at the Democratic Party of Wisconsin's convention in 2017, and thought this Mayor of South Bend was really on the ball with his approach to issues, and in giving the proper values-based messaging that so many Democrats were lacking at the time. I even chipped in $5 a couple of times because I felt it was important to have him on the debate stage with other Dem contenders for President.

But I wasn't thinking he would be a top-flight candidate for the Democratic nomination in 2020. And at least at this point, Mayor Pete needs to be considered that, at least given his standing in polls in Iowa (why we have nothing-ass states like Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina have such a prominent role in choosing the candidate of the more urban and diverse political party is a whole 'nother issue).

But that rise in the polls has a darker side. A lot of the reason behind Midwestern Pete's fundraising and mainstream media approval is because of his Coastal campaign team, especially his communications manager, Lis Smith. Smith was profiled in Politico magazine back in April, when Buttigieg was rising into the upper half of the Dem race, and it mentioned that her strategy of having the Mayor of South Bend get an interview with every outlet she could find.

Smith is a fierce New York City-based Democratic operative who helped engineer the plan to get Buttigieg in front of not just national political reporters, but anybody with a camera or microphone. There may be nobody more central to Mayor Pete’s media success—besides the candidate himself, and arguably his social-media-savvy husband, Chasten Buttigieg—than Smith, who serves as a communications adviser and all-around aide. In the past several months, Buttigieg has been not just all over cable and in the newspapers, but in Our Daily Planet, an environmental morning newsletter with just over 5,000 Twitter followers; in a financial planning podcast called Pete the Planner; and on West Wing Weekly, the obsessive episode-by-episode podcast breakdown of The West Wing. He’s been a guest on BuzzFeed’s morning news show, been featured on Vice’s nightly news show and sat down with a couple of the guys from Barstool Sports.

Oversaturation? Not possible, Smith says.

“I want him on everything,” she told me....

The speed with which Buttegieg emerged has been astonishing, which happens to be the speed at which Smith works. Schmuhl, his campaign manager, says a typical scene from the trail for the three of them is arriving 10 or 15 minutes early to the airport gate, and while he and Buttegieg—who he’s known since 8th grade in Indiana—take a moment to relax for a minute before boarding, Smith will head to the airport bar with her laptop and phone and begins texting and emailing reporters and clapping back to critics on social media. The candidate and the campaign manager dutifully board the aircraft, and just when it seems the door is about to close, as they start looking around nervously, in comes Smith, sunglasses and coat still on, laptop and cords dangling from her arms, phone pressed against her ear.

Which is a nice way to operate, if you think cutthroat marketing matters more than policy when it comes to picking the right candidate. However, it also means that Pete's "good, decent Midwestern guy" mask is slipping these days, and his NYC-based Communications Manager is a big reason why. The Dartmouth-educated Smith got badly ratioed on Twitter after making this stupid analogy, as a way to illustrate Harvard-educated Pete's "moderate" bona fides.

If you think that a worker who didn’t go to college should pay for college for a CEO’s kid, then @PeteButtigieg isn’t your candidate. https://t.co/dPCVf4KsLG

— Lis Smith (@Lis_Smith) November 29, 2019

First of all, this is terrible framing, as it's the same "divide and conquer" tone that Republicans use to justify screwing over the poor ("you don't get those benefits, why should THOSE PEOPLE?"). What Buttigieg and Smith should be emphasizing is how they will expand opportunities to certain people and expand Pell Grants, which in fairness, is part of Pete's college affordability plan.

Instead, they are choosing a NEGATIVE frame and cynically trying a resentment play against the rich to as the reason that the affordability program should be limited. That decision might get the approval of deficit scolds in DC and other oligarchs that are fine with the slanted field that is today's US economy, but it doesn't impress any voters across a variety of income levels. They shouldn't be talking about the limits of the program at all, or at least, not using the program's limits as a way to sell it in commercials.

As noted by longtime DC journalist Brian Beutler (whose current job is running Crooked Media), what Pete and Lis Smith are saying with this talking point leads to some very bad places.

This logic leads directly to President Pete agreeing to further Medicare and Social Security means testing in order to keep taxes low. https://t.co/AFC3aHKJ6Z

— Brian Beutler (@brianbeutler) November 29, 2019

And I have little doubt that McKinsey Pete from Harvard would be willing to sacrifice things that Americans take for granted to get a "long-term solution" for our fiscal issues, and would sell out workers in a second to get some kind of legislative deal that made him look like a "problem solver."

The reason our systems of Social Security, Medicare, and public schools and public streets work so well in this country as programs is because they are universal. Congressowman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez gave a great explanation why.

3. When you start carving people out & adding asterisks to who can benefit from goods that should be available to all, cracks in the system develop.

4. Many children of the elite want to go to private, Ivyesque schools anyway, which aren’t covered by tuition-free public college!

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) November 29, 2019

As AOC notes, there's nothing stopping rich people from using their money to have more options for retirement security or education (and they already get many tax advantages for doing so that poorer people don't have the opportunity to use). But what really scares corporatists is if everyone has a baseline of benefits for other attributes of life.

Whether that's medical insurance coverage, college access, child care, lessening student loan debt, or a higher minimum wage, these things take away the power of private businesses to control people's choices, and stops the cycle of increasing prices to take advantage of those who believe these items are necessities to get by in 2019 America. Which is exactly why a baseline of universal PUBLIC goods and access needs to be expanded in America. It gives the security and freedom to people that have had their hands increasingly tied over the last 40 years of increasing corporatism. And that freedom allows them to make better choices that improve their own lives, and will help our economy long-term.

Pete Buttigieg is smart enough to understand this, and he even used to say things like that. But he values campaign contributions and positive coverage from DC insiders even more (and he's getting a lot of both these days), and the ad that he's floating out in Iowa these days shows that. Being a moderate is fine, if you think the best outcome to a situation involves a solution that happens to fall on the "moderate" end of the spectrum. Cynical triangulation to attract rich voters/donors and the Beltway crowd is not.

"No, we can't", and "the status quo is fine" are not compelling reasons to encourage casual voters to get to the polls, and it doesn't help Dems win. If you see candidates shooting down progressive measures using GOP talking points or claiming "well, it'll never pass Congress", they're admitting defeat before the voters get to have their say. And if candidates have no deal-breakers on the right in who they will work with or in what solutions are on the table, then they will sell out progressives in a second, and I think many of us are done with that mentality in 2019.