Over the last month, the media has finally begun to pick up on the grassroots buzz behind two longshot 2020 candidates, South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg and entrepreneur Andrew Yang.

In a race featuring six sitting U.S. senators and a popular former vice president about to enter the fray, it's worth considering how a mayor of the 299th largest city in America shot to third place in Iowa polling and how a no-name math nerd running on a universal basic income has managed to rival Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., in Wisconsin.

Yang is running the more unconventional campaign, having built a shockingly extensive Internet ground game. Yang's appeal starts with wonkiness. His website features more than 70 separate policy proposals, all of which detail problems to be solved, goals, guiding principles, and the actual proposal itself, at times with dozens of bullet points per topic.

More than Yang's attention to detail is his choice of issues. Yang's UBI, a $1,000 "Freedom Dividend" issued to any American who wishes to opt in to the program, intends to offset the market instability created by automation.

One the most fundamental issues of Trump's economic agenda has been applying 20th century solutions, such as tariffs and overzealous protectionism, to the 21st century problem of automation, which is responsible for 88 percent of manufacturing job losses. Yang's technocratic view of the government won't vibe well with many small-c conservatives, but he continually highlights market-oriented solutions to problems usually highlighted by progressives. For example, for every spending package proposal, such as a $6 billion fund for an "American Mall Act" to reappropriate closed malls, there's a call to deregulate nuclear energy to combat climate change and zoning reform to solve housing shortages.

Yang and Buttigieg both stand out for their relatively tempered demeanors. They don't apply the same apocalyptic rhetoric the senators have adopted, and they certainly don't insult Trump voters or Trump country in the way that most of their competitors have.



Trump is our president today because we automated away 4 million manufacturing jobs that left thousands of American communities decimated. Retail and driving jobs will follow. If we do not wake up and secure the future for all Americans, this will get much worse. pic.twitter.com/QsbE1gyyXD — Andrew Yang (@AndrewYang) February 8, 2019

I want to flag another thing about this @PeteButtigieg interview. He talks about race and the economy in a way that gets beyond the tedious "LOL but economic anxiety" versus "not everyone in Trump country is racist" debate:https://t.co/2IqZ9MlFsn pic.twitter.com/QH0dch2d09 — Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) March 19, 2019



While Buttigieg is running the far more conventional campaign, it feels like anything but. Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., wages open attacks on observant Catholics. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., has coerced his competitors into embracing the immediate abolition of private health insurance and a "Medicare for all" bill priced at $32.6 trillion in its first decade alone. Yet Buttigieg has taken a softer approach.

Buttigieg, who is openly gay, said of Chick-fil-A, "I do not approve of their politics, but I kind of approve of their chicken. Maybe, if nothing else, I can build that bridge. Maybe I’ll become in a position to broker that peace deal."

On healthcare, Buttigieg has squared the progressive circle, advocating for an all-payer rate setting and an effective Medicare buy-in. Again, stalwart conservatives won't be won over, but the disaffected center may be a lot less frightened of that than Bernie's plan to immediately nationalize one fifth of the economy.

None of this ought to be notable. Being sane, civil, and specific in policy proposals ought to be the baseline norm, not exceptional. Yet we don't live in normal times, and Yang and Buttigieg have stood out. Statistically speaking, their bids are next to impossible, but other Democrats should take note and perhaps dial down the outrage and hone in on actual policy.