The McKinsey Kid Has A Vision-- Himself In The Oval Office... Same Vision As Status Quo Joe

Yesterday, Bernie's campaign announced it just finished a massive fundraising quarter-- $25.3 million in the past three months, significantly more than the $18 million he raised in each of the previous two quarters this year and nearly identical to the third-quarter figures announced by the campaign at this point in 2015. He's received contributions from over a million Americans. No other candidates have. The average donation during the third quarter was $18.07. Despite an aggressively anti-Bernie jihad from the corporate media and from establishment suck-ass pundits-- always working hard to portray the campaign as dead-- Bernie is still a potent threat to the billionaires and the status quo politicians they own.

Mayo Pete was 11 then-- and just known as Pete-- but he's raised millions from dirty corporate interests, listening to slimy pols like Trump and Biden instead of Bernie and Elizabeth

Kamala raised $11.6 million-- a big haul for a campaign that's not going anywhere and about the same she's raised in the two pervious quarters. That Yang guy raised $10 million; proving, once again, that some donors are insane. Cory Booker also reported his financial quarter-- over $6 million, good for his campaign, which still hasn't gained any traction with voters. His RealCleatPolitics polling average is 1.4%, tied with Julian Castro in 8th place.

Mayo Pete's polling average is 5.4%-- 4th after Biden, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie. The most recent national poll-- by Morning Consult for Politico-- has him 5th place, behind Kamala Harris among registered Democrats:

That poll also shows that Pete also has a way to go when it comes to name recognition. 22% of primary voters say they've never heard of him. From least known to best know, the percentage of voters who have never heard of the 2020 candidates:

• Tom Steyer- 42%
• Steve Bullock- 39%
• Tulsi- 38%
• Marianne Williamson- 37%
• Michael Bennet- 37%
• John Delaney- 32%
• Tim Ryan- 28%
• Amy Klobuchar- 28%
• Andrew Yang- 24%
• Mayo Pete- 22%
• Julian Castro- 21%
• Beto- 17%
• Cory Booker- 17%
• Kamala- 14%
• Elizabeth Warren- 8%
• Status Quo Joe- 100% name recognition
• Bernie- 100% name recognition

Mayo Pete also reported his quarter-- an impressive $19.1 million, though significantly less than last quarter, prompting observers to compare his campaign to a "slowly deflating balloon."

As I've been saying since he announced, Pete's one chance is for Biden to self destruct so that rabidly anti-progressive forces that are behind the Status Quo Joe campaign rally to Pete to prevent Bernie or Elizabeth from getting the nomination. Yesterday, Sahil Kapur reported that even Pete is pitching himself that way now-- "an alternative to moderate Democrats who might not be sold on Joe Biden... On a recent bus tour of Iowa, Buttigieg framed his argument, emphasizing the need to 're-center our politics' and recapture the notion of freedom and faith from conservatives who he says use those terms to 'club people over the head.'"

That message could find a new audience as Biden, the leading moderate, is tangled in the impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump.

So the 37-year-old mayor of South Bend, Indiana, is positioning himself to be the standard-bearer for moderate Democrats if the front-runner fades.

Despite raising a staggering $51 million in 2019, Buttigieg has been stuck in fourth place, between 5% and 7% in national polls. Part of that’s because he’s hard to define. He’s a little-known mayor of a small city. He eschews ideological labels. He blends a message that sounds like Elizabeth Warren with a platform that looks like Biden’s and a courteous Midwestern demeanor that calls for national unity.

His “re-centering” message is designed to counter Republican caricatures of Democrats-- he told Iowans that “freedom” isn’t just about businesses having fewer regulations, it’s about being free of crippling health care costs; and he says big government should get out of the way of women making reproductive choices.

That approach cuts both ways: It adds a measure of political viability in the minds of some Democrats, but it also makes it hard for Buttigieg to break through in a cluttered field and Trump-dominated news cycle. His campaign is betting that voters will change their minds once they tune in.

Biden has been perched in the top seat since he entered the race in April. But his age, lackluster debate performances, verbal gaffes and the Ukraine scandal all have raised questions about his durability.

Warren has benefited the most from Biden’s sag but she faces persistent questions about whether her policies-- including a public health insurance proposal that would eliminate private coverage-- are too far left for a general election audience.

That’s where Buttigieg hopes he comes in.

He knows he can’t out-progressive Warren and Bernie Sanders, so he’s sharpening his elbows and depicting his comparably moderate agenda as more viable. He’s wary of attacking Biden for fear of alienating other Democrats, so he gently pokes him on his age.

Iowa’s first-in-the-nation contest is Buttigieg’s opportunity to dispense with rivals like Kamala Harris, who are also courting moderates. It’s an overwhelmingly white state kicking off a race in which he has struggled with non-white voters. His relatable Middle American style plays well in a state where voters expect to personally meet the candidates. And it has catapulted outsiders in the past.

“Iowa is critical,” Buttigieg said last week after a campaign event in Clinton, Iowa. “We will be able to demonstrate our strength in this campaign through our results in the Iowa caucuses.”

The subsequent contests are bleaker. New Hampshire is the neighboring state of rivals Warren and Sanders; Nevada and South Carolina have high shares of non-white voters, who Buttigieg barely registers with in polls.

Nationally, Buttigieg is tied with Harris for fourth place, but in Iowa, a recent Des Moines Register/CNN poll placed him statistically tied for third place at 9% with Sanders, or 13 points behind Warren’s lead.

At an event in Dubuque, Iowa, he touted his “Medicare for all who want it” plan and nicknamed the sweeping Sanders-Warren proposal “Medicare for All whether you want it or not.”

Buttigieg recently hit Warren for being “extremely evasive” about the fact that her health care overhaul would raise taxes on the middle class. Warren has rejected that framing and argued that middle-income people will come out ahead because of the elimination of premiums and individual costs.

He hopes to win over Democrats who are drawn to Warren’s calls for big structural change to government but who want a candidate who isn’t bruising for a fight, the very quality that put Biden in the No. 1 slot.

“I love her. I’m a huge Elizabeth Warren fan,” said Elaine Bryant, an innkeeper in Denver, who said she’s leaning toward Buttigieg. “She a little more aggressive and that’s off-putting-- in anyone, not just because she’s a woman. He seems very relatable.”

Buttigieg, talking to reporters on his Iowa bus tour, said he cares about results.

“She and I are after the same goals,” he said of Warren. “But her pitch has a lot more to do with fighting-- she’s more interested in the fighting part of it. I’m more interested in outcomes.”

The youngest candidate in the 2020 race makes frequent, generational contrasts with Biden, 76, cautious not to suffer the same blowback as did other Biden rivals who mounted frontal assaults. He also argues that Democratic nominees who are Washington insiders keep losing, without criticizing Hillary Clinton in 2016 and John Kerry in 2004.

...Yet for all his focus on a governing vision, Buttigieg is more comfortable talking about it in the abstract. He says he’ll pay for his health care plan with higher corporate taxes without offering details. He says he favors a wealth tax but has declined to get specific. He laments policy failures that have accumulated over decades but refraining from naming any mistakes by former President Barack Obama He has championed expanding the federal courts but said he’s not wedded to one way of doing it.

Faced with questions about Trump last Tuesday, hours before House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced a formal inquiry, Buttigieg said it wasn’t his focus: “My message is: Yeah, he needs to be impeached, now let’s get you some health care.”

Bullshit! And it turns out that Mayo Pete is more like Biden than anyone could have imagined-- and not just in trying to kill Medicare-for-All, a project both of them are engaged in. Watch: