New Albany is a state of mind … but whose? Since 2004, we’ve been observing the contemporary scene in this slowly awakening old river town. If it’s true that a pre-digital stopped clock is right twice a day, when will New Albany learn to tell time?
Of course Super Tuesday proved to be a cinematic train wreck called "The DNC Dim-pire Strikes Back," and seeing as I don't much care for dystopian epics in fiction because they seldom compare to reality, I was compelled to seek solace in liquid form.
We can depend on the DemoDisneyDixiecratic Party establishment, because it ALWAYS lets us down -- both near and far, and speaking of closer to my home, it's only March and already Squire Adam has egg dripping from his face.
Perhaps this is an opportune juncture to remind readers that counterpoint is welcome at NAC. No anonymous submissions, please. I'll publish your viewpoint straight up, without commentary of my own. Leave the memes behind, and let's chat.
Meanwhile Mayor Jeff Gahan had a productive week. We looked on reprovingly as Deaf went shopping for state of the art, water-closet-powered timekeeping technology ...
I'd already selected the title (a Joy Division lyric), then found myself enduring yet another flashback from the 1970s -- although this one's from chorale, and thus actually a pleasant memory.
Substitute the word "drink" for "pray," and you'll understand my current worshipful posture.
They don't come much phonier than Squire Adam. What's he prattling on about?
Probably the big-money donations accrued by Buttigieg at California wine caves. After all, Dickey's only genuine superstar is Jeff Gahan (sorry, Jason), who has hyper-monetized New Albany politics with fat cat special interest money. Principles? Those can wait -- forever if necessary.
Dickey's friend Buttigieg will make a fine ambassador to Malta. Too bad we can't ship Gahan to Pitcairn Island.
Did you known that Mayor Pete used to be a fan of Bernie Sanders -- you know, back before the moneyed interests began lining up with their checkbooks? Here's the scoop.
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Pete Buttigieg on Bernie Sanders, by Pete Buttigieg (The Nation) When Pete Buttigieg was a high school senior, he wrote a prizewinning essay praising Bernie Sanders. Here, we republish the essay in full. This essay was first published in 2000 by the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. That year, Buttigieg was the winner of the library’s annual Profiles in Courage Essay Contest. In this new century, there are a daunting number of important issues which are to be confronted if we are to progress as a nation. Each must be addressed thoroughly and energetically. But in order to accomplish the collective goals of our society, we must first address how we deal with issues. We must reexamine the psychological and political climate of American politics. As it stands, our future is at risk due to a troubling tendency toward cynicism among voters and elected officials. The successful resolution of every issue before us depends on the fundamental question of public integrity. A new attitude has swept American politics. Candidates have discovered that it is easier to be elected by not offending anyone rather than by impressing the voters. Politicians are rushing for the center, careful not to stick their necks out on issues. Most Democrats shy away from the word “liberal” like a horrid accusation. Republican presidential hopeful George W. Bush uses the centrist rhetoric of “compassionate conservatism” while Pat Buchanan, once considered a mainstream Republican, has been driven off the ideological edge of the GOP. Just as film producers shoot different endings and let test audiences select the most pleasing, some candidates run “test platforms” through sample groups to see which is most likely to win before they speak out on a major issue. This disturbing trend reveals cynicism, a double-sided problem, which is perhaps the greatest threat to the continued success of the American political system. Cynical candidates have developed an ability to outgrow their convictions in order to win power. Cynical citizens have given up on the election process, going to the polls at one of the lowest rates in the democratic world. Such an atmosphere inevitably distances our society from its leadership and is thus a fundamental threat to the principles of democracy. It also calls into question what motivates a run for office — in many cases, apparently, only the desire to occupy it. Fortunately for the political process, there remain a number of committed individuals who are steadfast enough in their beliefs to run for office to benefit their fellow Americans. Such people are willing to eschew political and personal comfort and convenience because they believe they can make a difference. One outstanding and inspiring example of such integrity is the country’s only independent congressman, Vermont’s Bernie Sanders. Sanders’s courage is evident in the first word he uses to describe himself: “socialist.” In a country where “communism” is still the dirtiest of ideological dirty words, in a climate where even liberalism is considered radical, and socialism is immediately and perhaps willfully confused with communism, a politician dares to call himself a socialist? He does indeed. Here is someone who has “looked into his own soul” and expressed an ideology, the endorsement of which, in today’s political atmosphere, is analogous to a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Even though he has lived through a time in which an admitted socialist could not act in a film, let alone hold a congressional seat, Sanders is not afraid to be candid about his political persuasion. After numerous political defeats in his traditionally Republican state, Sanders won the office of mayor of Burlington by ten votes. A successful and popular mayor, he went on to win Vermont’s one congressional seat in 1990. Since then, he has taken many courageous and politically risky stands on issues facing the nation. He has come under fire from various conservative religious groups because of his support for same-sex marriages. His stance on gun control led to NRA-organized media campaigns against him. Sanders has also shown creativity in organizing drug-shopping trips to Canada for senior citizens to call attention to inflated drug prices in the United States. While impressive, Sanders’s candor does not itself represent political courage. The nation is teeming with outspoken radicals in one form or another. Most are sooner called crazy than courageous. It is the second half of Sanders’s political role that puts the first half into perspective: he is a powerful force for conciliation and bipartisanship on Capitol Hill. In Profiles in Courage, John F. Kennedy wrote that “we should not be too hasty in condemning all compromise as bad morals. For politics and legislation are not matters for inflexible principles or unattainable ideals.” It may seem strange that someone so steadfast in his principles has a reputation as a peacemaker between divided forces in Washington, but this is what makes Sanders truly remarkable. He represents President Kennedy’s ideal of “compromises of issues, not of principles.” Sanders has used his unique position as the lone independent congressman to help Democrats and Republicans force hearings on the internal structure of the International Monetary Fund, which he sees as excessively powerful and unaccountable. He also succeeded in quietly persuading reluctant Republicans and President Clinton to ban the import of products made by underage workers. Sanders drew some criticism from the far left when he chose to grudgingly endorse President Clinton’s bids for election and reelection as president. Sanders explained that while he disagreed with many of Clinton’s centrist policies, he felt that he was the best option for America’s working class. Sanders’s positions on many difficult issues are commendable, but his real impact has been as a reaction to the cynical climate which threatens the effectiveness of the democratic system. His energy, candor, conviction, and ability to bring people together stand against the current of opportunism, moral compromise, and partisanship which runs rampant on the American political scene. He and a few others like him have the power to restore principle and leadership in Congress and to win back the faith of a voting public weary and wary of political opportunism. Above all, I commend Bernie Sanders for giving me an answer to those who say American young people see politics as a cesspool of corruption, beyond redemption. I have heard that no sensible young person today would want to give his or her life to public service. I can personally assure you this is untrue.
It doesn't help that Buttigieg's economic strategy is more of the same neoliberal claptrap. Two Democratic Party candidates make sense: Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. After that, I pick up a good book and tune out.
The mayor of South Bend’s record on policing has overshadowed his other achievements
... His main problem is his failure to appeal beyond a core of white, well-off, highly educated and urban liberals. Those supporters offer up plenty of money and host generous fundraising events. Mr Buttigieg, a Rhodes Scholar and former McKinsey executive knows how to connect with them. As a military veteran he also gets a warm welcome from supporters, again predominantly white, in small towns in New Hampshire and Iowa. But look beyond those two early-voting states, for example to South Carolina where black votes will be decisive, and polls show the Indiana mayor would be lucky to pick up 5%.
Mr Buttigieg struggles with African-American voters for a host of reasons. Some—but not all—are beyond his control. It may be that a youthful, white politician with limited experience of working in the black community would always find it tricky to fire up support among African-Americans, however much he calls out racism or touts his own well-meaning ideas, such as his “Douglass Plan”, to empower black Americans. It is understandable that other candidates, including Joe Biden (as Barack Obama’s vice-president), Kamala Harris or Cory Booker, should have an easier narrative to tell.
He has presented himself as a Midwesterner who presided over the economic recovery of a former rustbelt city and was handily re-elected as mayor with 80% of the vote. But those things do not mean that African-Americans, even in his city, are enthusiastic. Places like South Bend have long histories of racial segregation and discrimination. African-Americans do worse than whites in the city in school and college. They suffer higher rates of unemployment and poverty. As mayor, Mr Buttigieg has not focused on addressing those problems. In his memoir, “Shortest Way Home”, he has little to say about civil rights and race relations, beyond mentioning some symbolic efforts to rename a street and put up statues to celebrate African-Americans ...
If Joe Biden can be VP, there's nothing stopping Mayor Pete -- except that if the Democrats nominate the sort of candidate likely to choose Mayor Pete as VP, Trump will win re-election.
Just try to imagine Jeff Gahan's probable handling of such municipal matters (his inept public housing putsch gives you a pretty good idea of his attitude) amid the veneration of local Dickeyite neoliberals, and the basic disconnect is easy to see. It's all surface sheen deflecting attention from functional vacancy.
Maybe Gahan can move to South Bend and be Pete's vice-mayor.
Black voters are wary of Mayor Pete, for good reasons.
... In announcing his candidacy, Buttigieg said, “But I would also argue that we would be well served if Washington started to look more like our best run cities and towns rather than the other way around.” The implication is that South Bend was one of the “best run” cities. Now Buttigieg has to acknowledge that he’s failed in dealing with one of the pressing municipal problems of our time, police violence.
But Buttigieg’s problems go even deeper. Buttigieg has often touted South Bend’s diversity and economic success. But the shooting of Eric Logan has exposed the fact whatever economic success South Bend enjoys has been unevenly distributed, with a glaring racial divide persisting.
"This week I did some research on Mayor Pete Buttigieg's administration and South Bend. There's a lot more work I need to do on his policies overall, but specifically I looked into his approaches to housing and homelessness - both of which I think both deserve sharp criticism."
There are times when sheer undiluted barrel-strength inanity leads unexpectedly to an interesting read -- which is to say that contrary to all previous experience, I've managed to learn something from Franklin Graham.
The evangelist Graham functions as a sort of professional court jester for our nation's cheerful contingent of theocratic fascists, a job he apparently inherited from his world-famous father Billy.
At the 1:21 mark of this video clip from 2007, the late, great Christopher Hitchens observes that any American president, however deserving of condemnation or impeachment, could always rely on Billy Graham to run to his side as a defender, toady and crony.
Franklin Graham has filled these shoes quite capably with regard to Donald Trump, hasn't he? That's because the very essence of both politics and religion is about accumulating power, and Graham gets it.
"I never said (Trump) was the best example of the Christian faith. He defends the faith. And I appreciate that very much."
The mind works in mysterious ways, and so let's begin with Graham's wholly predictable thoughts about Hoosier mayor Pete Buttigieg, which in a roundabout way led me from Graham via Leviticus to Old Gehenna.
It’s never a good sign when atheists are the ones offering context to Bible verses that Christians are quoting, but when evangelist Franklin Graham is involved, that’s usually necessary. In a Facebook post purported denouncing people heckling Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, Graham managed to work in the verse that condemns gay people to death.
Franklin Graham: "The Bible makes it very clear that homosexuality is a sin. 'If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination...' (Leviticus 20:13). That’s what God says and that settles it for me. I stand with the Word of God. I care enough about people to tell them the truth and to warn them about the judgment to come for all sin."
See? Don’t heckle people when they’re talking. Just go on Facebook and explain why they deserve to be tortured in hellfire for all of eternity. Like good Christians.
The full verse from Leviticus 20:13, of course, is “If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.”
At least the hecklers are just rude and ignorant. Graham thinks it’s loving to call for the death penalty for gay people who have sex… except he tries to hide it. Imagine cherry picking the Bible and picking a part that call for the execution of gay people who aren’t celibate. And then pretending you’re acting out of love. What a horrible person.
Graham's superstitious blather aside, Buttigieg being gay has nothing to do with anything, including his presidential aspirations, although Mayor Pete's political ambitions compel us to look past his private life and public speaking flair to those aspects of governance that matter most, as in platforms and policy ideas.
So far, Buttigieg is falling quite short on those job requirements. As usual, Bluegill offers this succinct summary:
The interesting part to me is how much Buttigieg’s fan club and hecklers have in common in terms of their reasoning— purely faith based on both sides.
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It should be obvious by now that Christianity's Bible hasn't had a prominent place in my world of books, so Graham's mention of Leviticus had me wondering about the name itself; what, where or who was Leviticus? I had no idea.
It never got that far, because searching for Leviticus brought me to this excellent article about Hell.
Hell? I always thought Gehenna was a Gaelic notion borrowed by Bob Dylan for the song "Idiot Wind."
Hell seems to be a collective assault on the American imagination — the culmination of our entire post-Columbus cultural history and political infrastructure. Ask anyone familiar with it to describe the scene and you’ll likely get the same description across the board — a furnace of torture, suffering, demons and unfathomable pain. Hell is embedded into our lives, whether we believe in it or not. It’s a place mutually visited by every person’s imagination that has been exposed to an Abrahamic society. It’s a place we condemn undesirables to, a place we reference to instill fear and obedience, a place we devotionally protect our loved ones from being exiled to. For all our certainty of its existence, Hell is perhaps the least understood of places, even by the most studiously pious of individuals. Its assertion into our culture and conscience is a testament to our collective religious illiteracy. So why is it so vital we understand its origins, rather than blindly accept what we’ve been told about it? The latter method has, well, rarely worked in the favor of the common person throughout history.
Alas, Hell is real. Yes, that’s right. Or at least, it’s based off a real place — an ancient landfill to be exact. Although there is no mention of a “hell” in the Bible, it is based on an actual place. In Jerusalem, in the Valley of Hinnom, there is a large trash dump referred to in the Book of Matthew as “Gehenna”.
Yummers. For some reason I can't stop thinking about free fried chicken and the posting of hitches.
It was originally used by the ancient Israelites who sacrificed children and burnt their bodies to appease the pagan Canaanite god Molech. In Leviticus 18:20, God expressed his hatred of the false god Molech, and deemed the place unclean. Gehenna was eventually used as a landfill by the inhabitants of Jerusalem, where people took their trash to be burned. The place began to wreak havoc on daily life in Jerusalem. The smell of burning sewage, flesh, maggots and garbage wreaked absolute havoc on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, causing documented medical problems like nausea and breathing difficulty. Clearly, the place was unpleasant — frightening even — and thus it’s no surprise that Gehenna was used, and still is today, as a metaphor for the final place of punishment for the wicked. It was first used as a symbolic depiction of Hell in Mark 9:47. Gehenna was translated to Hell later, around 1200AD.
In sketching the parameters of this human creation called Hell, the author surveys etymology, the Old Testament and other ancient religions.
The ancient Egyptians had a place called Duat referenced heavily in their Book of the Dead. Maps of Duat were often inscribed on the insides of coffins and sarcophagi to help the deceased navigate the underworld. It is the underworld where violators of the law are condemned, as well as a host of mythological activity. According to the Book of the Dead, the sun god, Ra, goes to Duat every night to battle Apep, the god of Chaos. The dead who enter Duat must travel through various “gates” guarded by anthropomorphic hybrids of human bodies with various animal heads. These gatekeepers were ferocious and vile. For evidence, one need not look beyond their names. Guardians of the Gates of Duat had charming titles like “One Who Eats the Excrement from his Ass” and “Blood Drinker who Lives in the Slaughterhouse”.
“One Who Eats the Excrement from his Ass” sounds like a clinical definition of "brown nose." But enough about board appointments. The author conclusion fits like the dunce's cap on the head of Franklin Graham.
If so much of our public policy is weighted on the words found within the Bible — the alleged words of God himself — it is troubling that we digest the heavily processed and filtered versions of them with such ease and lack of skeptic inquiry. It is imperative to our progression as a species that we understand the origins of our belief systems and the role they play in the human psyche — to instill obedience to the status quo and dissuade any violators with the fear of an eternity of suffering.
All this hellish business brought to mind something supposedly written by the French intellectual Jean-Paul Sartre: "Hell is other people." However, it's not quite so simple.
The line “Hell is other people” in French reads “L’enfer, c’est les autres” or “Hell is [the] others.” (The best known English translation of the play, by Paul Bowles, actually renders the line “Hell is just – other people.”) We get a little more of the flavor of the line in English if we read it as “Hell is the Other.” That’s closer to the point, I believe. Sartre says that the Other – that which is not ourselves – is, or can be, a source of our distress.
In closing, it would be criminal to omit Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers from this educational digression.
I like potato and you like potahto
I like Gehenna and you like Gahanna
Potato, potahto, Gehenna, Gahanna!
Let's call the whole thing off!
Or Alice Cooper, because America's last remaining vaudevillian always gets the last word.
I'll give a respectful nod to Pete Buttigieg for being that rarest of breeds, a Maltese-American. The Knights Templar aside, I'm not very impressed with Mayor Pete's positions so far.
This article interests me for two reasons. Secondly, it briefly surveys Buttigieg's policies to date, and these come up lacking. But before doing so, the author contrasts the political identifiers known as liberal and progressive.
There are an increasing number of Democrats locally referring to themselves as progressive. I've even done it at times, so no stones are being cast by me. I'm not sure being a progressive interests me much any longer, probably because so many local progressives are liberals -- and the governing elite is neither.
Anyway, I consider myself less of a "progressive" and more a Social Democrat of the mixed-economy, European model; since there's no place for such a beast in L'America, I scrape by as a pants-down independent.
And while independence may never be enough to win an election, it's an honest designation and describes me pretty well. I'm comfortable with that. Groucho Marx was supposed to have said, "I don't care to belong to any club that will have me as a member."
Yeah, that's me.
Here's the link, with the opening passage about the difference between liberals and progressives. Broadly speaking, I agree with the author's assessment.
The word “progressive,” means something. It’s not just the basic definition of moving progress forward, but it is a political ideology that stands opposed to the tenets of the ideology of liberalism. Liberalism approaches politics from the standpoint that the capitalism-based status quo is worth preserving, and policy focus should be on fixing its deficiencies around the edges. Progressivism takes the attitude that the status quo is the problem, and the only solution is to get rid of the system perpetuating the unsustainable status quo.
This is important because whether or not it gets covered, the dramatic ideological split on the left will have a massive impact on the 2020 election. In 2016, 43% of the Democratic Party did not vote for the party’s hand-picked nominee. Progressives are not some small faction of the party, and in fact, given that millennials prefer socialism to capitalism, you could define our generation—the largest in human history—as largely “progressive.”
I bring this up because Pete Buttigieg is having a moment in the early 2020 Democratic Primary, and the former McKinsey consultant has (falsely) branded himself as a progressive ...
Deaf Gahan may be agoraphobic, but he's also ambitious, and for a while the rumor mill emitted regular signals that he'd seek higher office.
But Deaf hates a contested race against his betters, and the Democratic Party somehow found younger cannon fodder to challenge Ed Clere and Ron Grooms, so it appears New Albany is stuck with the deadendanchorweightgenius of the flood plain, at least until someone defeats Gahan's imposing Elsby-sized sack o' cash.
We're undaunted, right?
Let's gather those HazMat suits, and we'll reason together in preparation for 2019, when there'll be one chance in the spring, and if necessary, a second in the fall to return Dear Leader to a purely workmanlike career in veneer.
Meanwhile, too bad about Pete Buttigieg's restricted political mobility. He seems actually competent.
We constantly hear that it’s the era of cities. Benjamin Barber wrote a book called If Mayors Ruled the World. Mayors are touted as pragmatic problem solvers who are taking on the challenges politicians at other levels of government are afraid to face.
One would think that if mayors were that much better than state or federal officials, then mayor would be a great stepping stone to higher office. However, that does not appear to be the case ...
... One such young mayor who has gotten huge attention is Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana.
Renn outlines the problems facing Buttigieg, then concludes:
A bitter irony is at play here: At a moment when the faces of the Democratic Party are 67-year-old Chuck Schumer and 77-year-old Nancy Pelosi, when so many novice Democrats are banging at the gate, spurred into action by powerful social currents and opposition to the president, one of the party’s most talented young politicians has nowhere to go.
Indiana is a red state and mayor hasn’t generally been a great route to higher office. Two Indianapolis mayors after Richard Lugar ran for statewide office and lost. But the pattern is clearly more widespread.
Looking around, you hear about lots of people who’ve acquired the monicker “Mayor for Life,” but not nearly as many former mayors who moved up to higher office at all, much less proven to be dynamos there.
A mayor who makes public speeches? How is it possible?
Pete Buttigieg lays it all out. The thinking is clear, and the delivery conversational. I try to imagine a New Albany mayor -- any of them -- communicating like Pete Buttigieg. Surveying the aspirants, I still don't see one. Is it time for the "Draft Ed Clere" movement yet?
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Mayor: Smart Streets will mean a more vibrant downtown South Bend, by Pete Buttigieg (South Bend Tribune) Walk around downtown South Bend today, and you’ll see tremendous investment and growth. From the recently renovated LaSalle Apartments, located on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, to the Courtyard Marriott under construction by the former College Football Hall of Fame, from the conversion of the JMS Building to the massive renovation of the former Chase Tower, there are signs everywhere of the fastest downtown growth in generations. What you might not realize is that each of these projects happened with the help of Smart Streets. Today we celebrate the completion of the repaving, streetscaping and traffic redesign known as Smart Streets, as planned and under budget. The city and our partners took roughly one year to complete work that would normally take three or more. Doing it this way was disruptive, but allowed us to get it over with quickly — like tearing off a Band-Aid. I appreciate the patience of the commuting public as daily routines were impacted, as well as the efforts of the planners, engineers, and workers who made it happen. We moved forward on this project after dozens of public meetings and several votes of the Common Council and Redevelopment Commission, with strong support from the downtown business community. Still, I recognize that not everyone is a fan of the changes. In particular, some residents have expressed frustration with the idea of traffic calming, a major feature of the project. Why would the city ever deliberately act to make traffic go slower? Isn’t the point of a road to get cars where they are going as quickly as possible? First, remember that the changes to commuting times are minor. A recent side-by-side comparison by The Tribune showed just a three-minute change in the overall drive time from Angela Boulevard in the north to the Chippewa roundabout on the south side — almost the entire length of the city. You can still get across the core of downtown in less than five minutes, most of the time. But why slow down traffic at all? A major reason is economic growth. Smart Streets isn’t just a traffic project — it’s economic development. And by that measure, it is already a tremendous success. We’ve counted a total of over $90 million in private investment from businesses who say Smart Streets was a factor in their decision — a threefold return on our public investment. If you’re glad that the Chase Tower is being renovated rather than torn down, or that Main Street Row is getting a new façade at private expense, thank Smart Streets. A vibrant city has streetscapes that work not just for cars but also for pedestrians, bicyclists and shops. The old traffic pattern forced pedestrians on Main Street to walk alongside a four-lane highway blasting traffic out of the area as quickly as possible — not exactly an inviting place to walk, socialize or shop. Today, our new downtown is a destination rather than a throughway. It’s a tremendous improvement, for which a few minutes’ slowdown is the price we had to pay. The other major consideration is safety. Not everyone loves roundabouts like the ones we have installed, but they can lead to dramatic safety improvements. Studies have found that roundabouts can reduce injury crashes by up to 80 percent. The slower speeds in the downtown area are also a safety enhancement: when speeds go from 35 miles per hour to 25, it cuts the risk of fatalities by more than half. No street design can prevent all serious accidents. But we know that Smart Streets improvements can save lives in the years to come. This is one reason the U.S. Secretary of Transportation recognized South Bend with the Mayor’s Challenge Award at a road safety summit last year in Washington. Of course, safety depends on users as well as engineering. We’re counting on residents to pay attention to signs and markings, and to familiarize themselves with safe use of crossings, bike lanes, roundabouts and other features. Green crosswalks are for bike traffic. Red areas are forbidden to cars. Divided sidewalks indicate two-way traffic. Taking advantage of Smart Streets improvements means spreading street smarts about how to use them. In the months and years to come, we will continue to tweak markings, signal timings and design to ensure the best environment for drivers, pedestrians, bicyclists and businesses. But the bulk of the work is behind us. Now is the time to become familiar with the improvements and changes, and take advantage of the increasingly vibrant downtown that South Bend deserves. Pete Buttigieg is mayor of South Bend.
Pete Buttigieg is pitching himself as the compromise candidate
... The tussle between Mr Perez and Mr Ellison, the front-runners among the nine contenders for the job, could be a boon for Pete Buttigieg (pronounced boot-edge-edge), the 35-year-old mayor of South Bend, Indiana. “We don’t want to relive 2016,” says Mr Buttigieg, alluding to the fierce battles between Mr Sanders and Mrs Clinton in the Democratic primaries. Mr Buttigieg presents himself as the compromise candidate who can bridge the divide between the Sanders and Clinton camps, build alliances with progressive organisations such as the American Civil Liberties Union and connect with the white working class as well as minorities.
Mr Buttigieg joined the race late, but picked up momentum quickly. He bagged the endorsement of five former DNC chairs as well as nine mayors of cities such as New Orleans and Austin, Texas. Howard Dean, another former DNC chair and former presidential candidate, thinks Mr Buttigieg has a shot at winning. If he were elected, the former Rhodes scholar and Harvard graduate would be the youngest, and first openly gay, chairman of the DNC. He would bring to the job his experiences as mayor, navy officer and nerd at McKinsey, a management consultancy (a CV remarkably like that of Tom Cotton, a Republican senator with big ambitions).
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