Mayo Pete

Last week, someone suggested I switch from using "McKinsey Pete" to "Mayo Pete." Not everyone understood the McKinsey reference and Mayo seems to capture the candidate pretty well. I took the advice and-- BOOM!-- the New York Times was out with their blockbuster report that defined McKinsey really well-- McKinsey Advised Johnson & Johnson On Increasing Opiod Sales. And it isn't just Johnson & Johnson. The now-notorious Purdue Pharma also hired McKinsey to help them figure out how to get more Americans addicted to opioids to help their bottom line. Despite the Times report, no one from Johnson & Johnson, Purdue or McKinsey has been arrested yet. McKinsey hasn't even been sued yet.

On Friday, Kaiser Health New reported that "Court cases over the opioid epidemic are putting an embarrassing spotlight on McKinsey's strategic advice that's usually kept strictly behind a curtain. One lawsuit stated that McKinsey advised a pharmaceutical company to 'get more patients on higher doses of opioids' and study techniques 'for keeping patients on opioids longer.'"

Walt Bogdanich's Times piece informs his readers that "At the global consulting firm McKinsey & Company, the rule is sacrosanct: Never publicly disclose client advice. And for the most part, adherence to that rule has served the company well. But in recent months, as government officials seek to assign blame for the opioid crisis that has strangled large parts of the nation, McKinsey’s advice is surfacing in ways that are deeply embarrassing for the influential firm, whose clients include many of the world’s most admired companies."

I've been trying to make the case that his time at McKinsey is what has made me so distrustful of Pete-- and that's why I gave him that nickname. When I worked at Warner Bros, TimeWarner hired McKinsey to help us improve the business. After a few weeks of being annoyed by their presence and getting complaints from virtually all of my senior management, I kicked them out of the part of the building my company occupied. TimeWarner was angry but I didn't back down and, eventually, they just let it go. As consultants, they were full of shit, manufacturing problems to solve. Everyone I met from the firm was a smooth-talking bullshit artist-- way slicker than Trump will ever be, but equally repulsive.

Michael Sean Winters penned a column for the National Catholic Reporter about a month ago, Buttigieg won't win the nomination, and that's a good thing during which he explains why he doesn't think it would be a good thing for Pete to win the nomination. "What is my biggest reservation about Mayor Pete? At 37, he has an astonishingly full resume: mayor, Rhodes scholar, military service, learning a bunch of languages, playing the piano. More than one person has pointed out to me that being so accomplished at such a young age is characteristic of a certain type of Harvard grad and Rhodes scholar: They believe their principal job is résumé-building. And that is not really a quality we want in a president."

One item on his résumé also will prove very difficult for the Democratic Party primary electorate to swallow: After returning from Oxford, Buttigieg went to work at the McKinsey & Company consulting firm. McKinsey is to early 21st-century capitalism what the Pinkertons were to the late 19th-century iteration. Consulting firms do not do the killing these days, they only provide the information, values-free, that permits their clients to do the killing. Recently they made news for advising Purdue Pharma to "turbocharge" its sales of opioids. The company has long-standing ties with Saudi Arabia, and a report they did may have helped the Saudi government identify dissidents who were subsequently imprisoned or worse. McKinsey makes a great deal of money helping authoritarian governments burnish their image, and the firm was undisturbed about holding its 2018 company retreat four miles from a Chinese internment camp for ethnic Uighurs. The Uighurs can't afford McKinsey's fees, but the Chinese government can.

Buttigieg's time working in the belly of the capitalist beast has not led him to question what could pass for pre-Reaganesque GOP economic policy. His comments about economic policy are mostly platitudinous and conventional, but it is clear he does not share the suspicions of contemporary capitalism held by many of his fellow Democrats. At a CNN town hall last month, when asked about the challenge big corporations pose to the country, he said, "The biggest problem that I have with corporate America is the way that concentrations of wealth and corporate power have turned into concentrations of political power." Is that the "biggest problem?" Isn't it the concentration of wealth and consequent income inequality-- full stop-- that is the problem? Tackle that and you will simultaneously take care of the problem of undue political influence.

...The last thing the Democratic Party needs is another neo-liberal over-achiever who promises to bring the country together... The Democrats, and the country, do not need Buttigieg. They need a candidate who knows Sen. Mitch McConnell is not interested in bringing the country together, that the economy remains structured in ways that trap working class Americans into a series of bad options, with many bad consequences for our democracy and our society, and someone who will fight to change that. Going after Donald Trump with the young, gay, Democratic answer to Jeb Bush is not the way to beat Trump.

Not everyone hates Mayo. The Wall Street banksters see Pete as their guy when Biden self-destructs and they've been giving him beaucoup bucks. "Buttigieg, who led the Democratic fundraising battle in the second quarter with a $24.8 million haul, had some help from Wall Street in hitting that milestone," reported CNBC. "Richard Zinman, an executive director at J.P. Morgan, gave Buttigieg $2,000 in late April. James Mahoney, the head of global communications and public policy at Bank of America, gave the same amount to Buttigieg’s 2020 campaign in June. One former chief at Goldman who has given to all three candidates is Bob Rubin, who worked at the bank for over two decades and later became Treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton. He gave a total of $8,400 to Biden, Buttigieg and Harris."

But it isn't just banksters who like Mayo. The many, many brainless among Hollywood celebs dig him too. Bridget Read, reporting fro New York Magazine, asked "Who is Hollywood’s 2020 Democratic candidate? Is it Rosario Dawson’s bald beau Cory Booker? Is it Marianne Williamson, the Maryam Nassir Zadeh–wearing, self-proclaimed 'bitch for God?' Is it Bernie Sanders, of the Three Sanders Sisters (Shailene Woodley, Susan Sarandon, and Sarah Silverman), beloved also by Ms. Belcalis Marlenis Almanzar? Could it be onetime-Beyoncé-endorsed Beto O’ Rourke, who, if you will recall, was in a band?" And then she answers her own question, not particularly correctly.

No, it’s none of them (and it’s obviously not Bill de Blasio, who has the loyal support of only Steve Buscemi). The celebrities have anointed Pete Buttigieg, the docker-clad, multilingual, gay, ex-military mayor of South Bend, Indiana, who lost steam in the mainstream press after his somewhat prematurely characterized “meteoric rise” earlier in the year, but who has gained momentum among the people who know the least about anything to do with real life. That’s right-- he’s been touched by an angel, and the angel is Gwyneth Paltrow, and by touched I mean she gave him money and invited him over.

Filings released by the 2019 Federal Election Commission this week show that Mayor Pete was in second place this quarter behind only Bernie Sanders, raising $24.9 million from individual donors. GP is chief among them: This quarter she gave him $2,800 dollars, after hosting him for a fundraiser in May with The West Wing’s Bradley Whitford. It is unknown whether she and husband Brad Falchuk toasted Mayor Pete and his husband Chasten with fresh juice and served miniature dumplings made out of cabbage leaves but one can only hope.

In addition, Buttigieg received donations from Anna Wintour ($2,800), Mandy Moore ($3,818.86), Tom Ford ($5,600), Larry and Cazzie David ($2,800 each), Kevin Bacon ($2,800), Michael J. Fox ($2,800), Frances McDormand ($3,000), Matt Bomer ($2,800), Jeffrey Katzenberg ($2,800), Marilyn Katzenberg ($2,800), and John Stamos ($1,000). Other donors include Jennifer Aniston, Sean Hayes, Caroline Kennedy, Ryan Murphy, Ted Danson, Sharon Stone, and George Takei.

Celebs have given to other candidates this quarter too, of course-- Amy Schumer, Rosie O’Donnell, Scarlett Johansson, Ryan Reynolds, Bette Midler, and Shonda Rhimes have all supported Elizabeth Warren; and Rita Wilson, Emma Roberts, Jennifer Garner, Don Cheadle, Lily Tomlin, Leslie Odom Jr., and Cecily Strong gave to Kamala Harris. But Buttigieg’s surge in second quarter cash is surprising given his fairly stagnant poll numbers and his lack of name recognition (the other top contenders are already sitting U.S. senators).

So, why Mayor Pete? It seems like it would make the most sense for Williamson to receive Hollywood’s adoration, just going off her credentials alone: She’s a lifestyle guru who used to live with Laura Dern. Maybe it’s that Williamson is simply too spicy, and they can’t pick one of their own or they would be accused of being unserious, wacky, and out of touch.

Perhaps it’s that Buttigieg has the lack of experience maverick appeal of an outsider that celebrities so desperately crave. They can feel like they’re throwing their weight behind an underdog yet he’s also incredibly palatable, with a cute husband and their dog living in a remodeled Victorian house. But he also served in the military? Fun! He speaks Norwegian? Chic! And he doesn’t talk about how rich people are the problem all the time? Now that is refreshing.