Your weekly bulletin on all things Pete Buttigieg.

Pete addresses attendees at the Senator Wahl Birthday event in Iowa City (Chuck Kennedy /PFA, July 14)

On the road again

Pete spent a lot of this week schlepping across the country, taking part in a scattershot of interviews and events, addressing everything from rallies in New York, Missouri, and Tennessee to a tech interview in San Francisco, a discussion at an AARP forum in Iowa, and the Young Democrats’ convention in Indiana. There wasn’t too much in the way of new policy in these events, so I’ll highlight a few of my favourite aspects from across them. If you listen to one thing this week, though, let it be the Recode Decode interview — Pete and the interviewer are on fire, and their back-and-forth is phenomenal.

⦁ Nurse, we have a burn victim: Pete dropped some absolute savagery this week. His blunt response to the feeble accusation that he didn’t care about Indiana by state republicans (“That’s cute — Indiana’s my home.”) was pretty brutal — but it was nothing compared to his destruction of Trump, who had complained that Pete didn’t seem like a “hot young star” to him. Pete took exactly zero prisoners:

“Lately, he’s been trying to get my attention. Poor guy. President of the United States, trying to get the attention of a 30-something year old mayor from Indiana — that tells you something. Poor fella.” Ouch.

⦁ “Nothing they say actually works in the real world”: At the Young Democrats’ convention in Indianapolis (July 18), Pete focused much more heavily than usual on the message of generational change — for understandable reasons. But perhaps his most powerful moment came in noting that every time that Republicans have pushed a policy agenda in the Reaganite, from trickle-down tax reform to climate change and the Iraq war, it has done nothing but harm. It’s a vital point to raise — and one which Democrats will need to hammer again and again in the 2020 campaign.

⦁ Pete’s retiree rendezvous: Along with Bernie Sanders and Steve Bullock, Pete attended a question-and-answer session with the AARP in Iowa this Saturday (July 21), and answered an impressive range of questions which ranged broadly in the areas of healthcare and pensions planning. In particular, there was interesting discussion on Pete’s healthcare plans — especially on drug pricing. Along with advocating for the import of drugs from abroad, where it made economic sense, Pete talked about how some generic drugs might best be produced by the government — a solution which would not only avoid predators like Martin Shkreli ramping up generic drug prices, but which also fits nicely into the selection of services which government provides in any case. As Pete puts it, the government already provides subsidised community swimming pools, so why shouldn’t they provide medication if it makes economic sense?

⦁ A right to be forgotten: Among the many highlights of Pete’s Recode Decode conversation with Kara Swisher (July 15) was their discussion on the right to be forgotten, which Pete advocates as a necessary component of the digital age. It’s a complicated enough issue in Europe, but in America, first amendment rights make the situation more precarious still, and legislation demanding that companies remove information on a given person is likely to face significant legal challenges. But Pete turned to his characteristic pragmatism, asking — so what if there are challenges to getting data protection and deletion laws passed? All the better, he felt, to start that process now rather than later.

Pete meets debate mates

In a convoluted format that involved ten figures coming together to discuss the issues of the day, the panel of pundits on CNN’s debate live draw (July 19) often verged on the ridiculous, with multi-camera shots telling us that there was no cheating by CNN in picking candidates, and, more importantly, that several of the news hosts relegated to raffle-picking duties had no idea how to shuffle cards.

Of course, we also found out that Pete will be on the first debate night, along with Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Beto O’Rourke, Amy Klobuchar, and five more minor candidates (including the queen of essential oils herself, Marianne Williamson). As I learned watching CNN’s coverage, being a pundit takes no more than a vague awareness of current affairs and a liking for the sound of your own voice — so here, in no particular order, are my thoughts on the implications of Pete’s debate placement:

⦁ This will likely be a quieter, more reserved stage. The big interrupters of the Democratic debates so far — Gillibrand and de Blasio in particular — will be performing on the second night of debates. On balance, this is probably good for Pete — his strength is not in butting in, after all — but it does mean that he’ll need to use the time as effectively as possible to make sure that his performance gets the reception he deserves.

⦁ It’s vital for Pete to appeal to black voters. Unfortunately, there are no candidates of color on night one — and the white candidate who attracts the most non-white support, Joe Biden, is also attending the second night. Pete has just released a plan for Black America which has drawn wide-ranging praise — in a field of debaters who collectively enjoy far less than half of Black voters’ support, Pete has both an opportunity and an obligation to show voters of colour why he deserves their support.

⦁ Pete will need to distinguish himself from the progressive frontrunners and centrist tagalongs. Aside from Sanders and Warren, who are the two most progressive democrats among the frontrunners, Pete’s competitors are more conservative in the main than he is. Pete will need to do two things on the stage — fend off attempts by more minor candidates to usurp his position as the (ostensibly) more centrist front-runner, and distinguish himself — and his framing of issues — from Warren and Sanders. It’s a delicate line to walk, but Pete’s great talent, to me, is the way he frames and segues between issues on the fly — and I have every confidence in his ability to do so come July 30.

Campaign correspondence

On a final note, I wanted to talk briefly about Pete’s emails, because they’re absolutely worthy not just of praise but of comment, too. One of my favourite blogs this season has been the excellent “But Their Emails!” (great name, I know), which tracks and analyses the emails sent out by various campaigns in the course of the 2020. Although Pete has sent just 36 emails this cycle — falling firmly in the lower half of campaigns — the quality of those emails is frankly without parallel, as But Their Emails often notes. Take Pete’s email this week on the Seneca Falls Convention, where a hundred delegates signed a declaration asserting that women were entirely the equals of men. In the space of five hundred words, Pete ranges from the topic of gender equality to race to the responsibility of white men to use their privilege to help oppressed people.

Or perhaps have a look at his email today, which almost casually links a discussion of the audacity and hope which drove the Apollo programme to the responsibility and opportunity which America has today in combating climate change — and their ability to rise to the challenge.

Pete’s candidacy is historic, and will be whatever the outcome of this primary. But for me, it is this ability to frame — to take issues of immense complexity and nuance, and condense them down into those crystal-clear principles of freedom, security, and democracy — that makes it, and him, so special. It’s what the Democrats are going to have to do if they want to win in 2020 — and it’s why I believe Pete’s the candidate best placed to.

Pete’s Peaks

Pete continues to hover around the 5–8% range in polling — this week, Morning Consult brought up the lower half of that range, with Surveymonkey supplying the higher end. As a general trend, Pete’s showing his strength in early campaign states — his strategy revolves around his performance there, so the most important polls to see how he’s doing are going to be in Iowa and New Hampshire — where Pete’s been significantly over-performing his national polling share.

Pete Speaks

Pete addresses a crowd in Shenandoah, Iowa. (Fox News, July 21)

Kara Swisher interviews Pete on her podcast, “Recode, Decode.” (Vox, July 15)

Pete takes questions from the AARP. (AARP, July 21)

Pete is interviewed by David Axelrod (CNN, July 13)

Pete Peeks

From one mayor to another — Pete and Julian Castro exchange sleeve-rolling techniques.

Want to learn more about Pete? Check his website for information on him and the issues which underlie his candidacy. Or have a look at some of the podcasts he’s been a guest on!

Disclaimer: this post is not funded by or affiliated with Pete for America.