I am saddened to inform the assembled that Pete Buttigieg has gotten himself crossways with the shebeen’s First Law of Economics. To wit: Fck the Deficit. People got no jobs. People got no money. According to Liz Goodwin of the Boston Globe on the electric Twitter machine, Buttigieg took advantage of a gaggle on the campaign trail to unburden himself of several dubious notions.

“I believe every Presidency of my lifetime has been an example of deficits growing under Republican government and shrinking under Democratic government, but ... my party’s got to get more comfortable talking about this issue...And we shouldn't be afraid to demonstrate that we have the revenue to cover every cost that we incur in the investments that we’re proposing.”



After you, Mr. Simpson.

No, no, After you, Mr. Bowles.

Leave aside the fact that Buttigieg’s basic political assessment is dead wrong; Presidents Obama and Clinton pulled us out of Republican deficits and, arguably, their choice to commit their economic plans to do that crippled their ability to move on more progressive policies. The way he talks about The Deficit is straight out of, at best, the DLC Consultant Class hymnal. It is of a piece with his adopting conservative-lite talking points on healthcare (“Let the American people choose!" As though many of the American people have a choice) and other issues. It makes the McKinseyite criticism of him grow some real teeth, and it makes him very hard to trust with what could be a progressive populist moment.

(As Paul Campos at Lawyers, Guns, and Money points out, Buttigieg’s job at McKinsey wasn’t a youthful fling. He was there for most of his pre-political life when he wasn’t in the Army.)

Right now, based solely on observation on the road, I slot him in somewhere between Bill Clinton and John Kasich. The Obama comparisons cannot be measured by that metric. (On Thursday, several old Obama hands announced they were endorsing him, which makes me suspicious that their old boss may be seeing himself in Buttigieg, too.) The Buttigieg-Obama discussion takes place on a different plane than do arguments over grubby political issues. Buttigieg’s basic pitch seems to be that, like Obama in 2008, he transcends political dispute and is capable of elevating America once again to the top of the hill where it can shine again. What he plans to do once he gets there is anybody’s guess. Obama found the place full of snakes.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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