Mayo Pete May Be Better Than Trump, But That Bar Is Far Too Low When Picking The Best Nominee

A new poll from Morning Consult has some not so great news for Mayo Pete. Between October 25 and 28, pollsters asked registered voters a number of questions. Some were very standard, like Trump's job approval-- 55% disapprove (43% strongly) and 43% approve, and like who they would vote for if the election was today-- 39% Trump and 52% someone other than Trump. Individual matchups showed both Biden and Bernie beating Trump, but not Buttigieg. That match up looks ominous:

• Trump- 35%
• Mayo Pete- 29%
• undecided- 36%

It was the worst number for any of the Dems who might conceivably face off against Trump. And the next series of questions helps explain why:

1- Do you think America is ready for a president who is gay or lesbian?

• Yes, definitely- 19%
• Yes, probably- 21%
• No, probably not- 21%
• No, definitely not- 24%
• Don't know- 15%

2- Do you think YOU are ready for a president who is gay or lesbian?

• Yes, definitely- 33%
• Yes, probably- 17%
• No, probably not- 13%
• No, definitely not- 24%
• Don't know- 13%

So, 50% say they are more or less ready for a gay or lesbian president. (Asked if their neighbor are ready for a gay or lesbian president, only 26% said yes.) These numbers stack up badly when viewed about how voters look at most other groups:

73% are ready for a woman president
65% are ready for a Hispanic president
71% are ready for an unmarried president
45% are ready for an agnostic or nonreligious president
71% are ready for a president who is vegan.

(There was no question about if people or their neighbors are ready for a vegetarian president or a president who believes he has been accosted by interplanetary aliens.)

Morning Consult vice president Tyler Sinclair: Mayo Pete's sexuality "may be an issue for some voters as he remains in contention for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. Notably, 58% of Republicans, 32% of independents and 22% of Democrats say they aren’t ready for a gay or lesbian president. The comparative figures not ready for a female president are 36% of Republicans, 15% of independents and 8% of Democrats."

Opposing Mayo Pete because he's gay seems backward and primitive... especially when there are much better reasons to oppose him-- and I'm not even talking about how he spent most of his life living a lie as a closet case. No, I'm talking about another lie he lived: a consultant for McKinsey. Noe that's a reason to keep anyone out of elective office, let alone the presidency. And Team Mayo has finally figured that out and are vigorously trying to put that aspect of his bio back in the closet!

Daniel Strauss, reporting for Politico noted that Mayo Pete doesn't bring up his days at McKinsey the way he used to. Strauss wrote that "For years, Buttigieg’s stint at McKinsey & Company, the international management consulting firm, formed a key part of his political biography-- from selling Hoosiers on his “experience around economics and business” as a green, 28-year-old candidate for Indiana state treasurer to talking earlier this year about the “perspective” he gained as part of the business world. But the resume line has faded from Buttigieg’s stump speech amid revelations about McKinsey’s work with authoritarian governments and growing skepticism of large corporations. It’s unclear exactly what Buttigieg did in those formative years in business before he launched his political career. The South Bend, Indiana mayor has previously said he worked on projects involving renewable energy, “war zone economic development” and grocery prices, but a shroud of confidentiality covers most of McKinsey’s activities. What Buttigieg does say now is that the company has changed from the one he knew."

Mayo will never cop to it, of course, but the McKinsey teaches it's teams of robots is how to lie convincingly with a straight face-- the way Mayo Pete does on the stump. McKinsey is like a cult-- but far more dangerous and invasive than most cults turn out to be.

"I think they've made a lot of poor choices, especially in the last few years," Buttigieg said on the campaign trail in Iowa recently. "I left about 10 years ago, but it's really frustrating as somebody who worked there to see some of the decisions they've made."

Former colleagues at McKinsey saw Buttigieg’s stint at the company as a possible stepping stone a decade ago. One coworker recalled him expressing particular interest about workforce development projects in his home state.

"He was always clear from the beginning that his longer-term aspirations were to work in public policy and government," a former McKinsey colleague said.

The company formed part of his pitch when Buttigieg jumped into his first audacious political campaign: a statewide run in Indiana at the height of the tea party. In 2010, when Buttigieg challenged the Republican state treasurer, Richard Mourdock, he said, "My background fits this office."

"I'm young, but have a lot of experience around economics and business,” Buttigieg told The Times of Frankfort, Indiana.

That same year, in an interview with Indiana’s NPR affiliate, Buttigieg said he was “a professional geek” while at McKinsey where he did “a number of different kinds of analysis.” And seven years later, fresh off a failed run for chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Buttigieg again told David Axelrod, the former Obama strategist who has since become an informal sounding board for Buttigieg’s campaign, about how his McKinsey experience had paid dividends in his political career.

"I had to build a whole database, and that was when I learned about how big data works," Buttigieg said in a podcast interview. "Relational databases, a lot of stuff that's surprisingly-- has served me well as mayor and in the campaign world. And I learned how to work under a huge amount of pressure."

Buttigieg added: "The only reason I couldn't stick with it was I had trouble caring about something ... because it was my job, because I was being paid to care about something. And so even though I loved-- I thought the work was fascinating. I loved my colleagues, certainly paid very well. But I remember a moment in particular when I was working on this client studying, I got up to get a cup of coffee and I thought, I don't care."

More pointed objections to McKinsey and its work came along later. In April, during an interview with the New Yorker’s David Remnick, the magazine editor pressed the candidate on the news that McKinsey advised Purdue Pharma, a pharmaceutical company accused of exacerbating the national opioid crisis, on selling OxyContin.

Buttigieg responded, “The firm needs to be a lot more selective and a lot more thoughtful in the work that it does.” And when interviewed again by Remnick in October, Buttigieg said “it’s infuriating to see the choices that they’ve made” since he left the firm.