The Onion... But: Swing Voter Really Relates To Buttigieg’s Complete Lack Of Conviction

Writing for Politico Magazine over the weekend, John Harris noted that Mayo Pete's "teacher’s-pet glibness and implacable careerism" may be desirable traits for many voters. Other voters can't get beyond the big Mayo Pete problem, that no amount of slick p.r. will ever alter: his obvious lack of a soul. Mayo turned 38 yesterday. Mayo goes bad. Some professionalisms advice: "Once you open the jar, keep it tightly sealed in the fridge when not in use. Unlike ketchup or BBQ sauce, open mayo shouldn’t be stored at room temperature. Once you open the jar, keep it tightly sealed in the fridge when not in use. Unlike ketchup or BBQ sauce, open mayo shouldn’t be stored at room temperature. There are at least a few symptoms that your mayo has gone bad. Here they are:

• Any organic growths inside the jar, like mold or spores.
• Off, acidic, or putrid smell.
• Noticeable change of color, like darker shade of white or brownish-yellow.
• Off taste (although if you've tasted it, it may be too late.)

Still, wrote Harris, Mayo Pete "is still 17 months younger than Macaulay Culkin of “Home Alone” fame, an attentive reader notes. After all these years, that is a gap that shows no sign of narrowing. On the other hand, he is now a full three years older than Mozart-- another prodigy, but who never served one term as mayor of South Bend, Ind., much less two-- was at the time of his death... The very traits that usually impress—his fluency in political language; go-getter’s résumé; intense ambition carried in the vessel of a calm, well-mannered persona— are increasingly being greeted with skepticism and even derision. Notably, this is coming from his peers.

“Buttigieg hate is tightly concentrated among the young," a writer at The Atlantic observed. “Why Pete Buttigieg Enrages the Young Left,” read a headline in Politico Magazine. “Swing Voter Really Relates to Buttigieg’s Complete Lack of Conviction,” said a headline in The Onion. For months, the satirical site has been vicious toward him in ways that evoke the wisecracking cool kids at the back of the class mocking the preening overachiever in the front row.

The Buttigieg backlash, by my lights, flows from origins that are less ideological than psychological. I noticed it some time ago with some-- certainly not all-- younger journalistic colleagues in particular. He torques them in ways that seem personal.

They are well-acquainted with the Buttigieg type. They find his patter and polish annoying. They regard his career to date-- Harvard, Oxford, McKinsey, the mayoralty-- as a facile exercise in box-checking: A Portrait of the Bullshit Artist as a Young Man.

Above all, they wonder why the artifice and calculation that seem obvious to them are somehow lost on others.

These Buttigieg skeptics, in my experience, typically overlook another possibility: His admirers aren’t oblivious to the fact that he’s partly B.S.-ing. It just doesn’t much bother them. I’ll go a step further: Viewed in the right light, his teacher’s-pet glibness and implacable careerism are desirable traits.

The essence of American politics in recent years is contempt. The decadeslong erosion of respect for nearly all institutions-- the federal government, business, academia, the media-- was what tilled the soil for Donald Trump’s election. His insults of adversaries, his gleeful shattering of familiar norms and precedents are the living expression of the contempt Trump backers feel toward an established order they believe is not remotely on the level.

The opposite of contempt is a deferential faith that, on balance, the established order is on the level. Its most prestigious prizes are worth the effort, worth the ass-kissing along the way. B.S. ultimately is a form of respect. The fact that Buttigieg has spent a lifetime standing on his toes to pluck these apples-- president of the Institute of Politics at Harvard University, a Rhodes Scholarship, and now a shot at becoming the youngest person ever to reach the White House-- is the living expression of that faith.

It’s not just young people who have ambivalent feelings-- a stew of admiration, disdain, envy-- toward his precocity and candlepower. Sure he’s smart, but probably no smarter than Ken Jennings; no one is asking the Jeopardy! champion to run for president. The question is: To what end are intelligence and ambition harnessed?

“The words are great, but he has no soul,” said one senior Democrat whose name would be familiar to any Politico reader. “All head and no heart,” said an operative who helped make Bill Clinton-- another young man in a hurry, for whom smoothness sometimes came off as slickness-- president a generation ago.

The questions about Buttigieg’s B.S. quotient, however, are the same ones that might go to any politician or, arguably, to successful professionals in any field in which words, argument, the management of image (as opposed to measurable statistics like runs batted in or ordnance dropped on target) are coin of the realm.

...The fact that Buttigieg in his 20s was probably wagging his tail at landing a job at McKinsey-- another validation that he is one of the smart kids-- and this achievement now is a source of embarrassment in a party that has turned anti-corporate is kind of funny. But it is hardly an outrage. He served in Afghanistan; does it matter that he was well aware the military tour would be good for his political career? Just because someone may be slightly unctuous in his or her ladder-climbing doesn’t mean the person has no genuine convictions or that his or her achievements aren’t impressive.

Activists on the left are surely correct that Buttigieg does not represent the disruptive spirit of the age and that he is not an especially plausible vessel for the kind of foundation-shaking change they seek. Looked at through the prism of temperament and character, as distinct from his policy positions, he may be the most conservative candidate in the 2020 race, Trump included.

Buttigieg surely would be too conservative for his party and the moment alike—too establishment, too cautious, too Clintonesque-- were it not for two things. The first wave of coverage that greeted his early presidential campaign tended to emphasize the potential of his campaign even though he is young and gay. It became clear over time that both of these are essential elements. Imagine tweaking those parts of the bio. A 48-year-old straight former mayor of a small city would hardly be quickening pulses on the 2020 presidential campaign trail.

Two radical developments made it safe for someone like Buttigieg to be conventional in most respects. One of the developments-- the legal and cultural embrace of same-sex marriage-- is now so accepted that it’s hard even to recall that 20 years ago it was unthinkable and that even a decade ago it was a bridge too far for Barack Obama. The other radical development—Trump and his presidency—is even more consequential. If Trump hadn’t shredded the concept of plausibility, turning “I can’t imagine something like that happening” into an obsolete phrase, few people would find Buttigieg plausible in 2020.

But Trump did shred the old standards, and Buttigieg is plausible. What’s more, as he makes the turn from “mid-30s” to “late 30s,” it’s a little easier to ask: How young is he really?

He is one year younger than Al Gore was when he first ran for president, in 1988, and just a few years younger than Dan Quayle was when he was elected vice president that year, or when Theodore Roosevelt was when he was elected vice president in 1900 and ascended to the presidency less than a year later. Or, in a 2020 context, he is eight years older than Joe Biden was when he first became senator, and the same age that Amy Klobuchar was when she was elected top prosecutor for Hennepin County, Minnesota-- a jurisdiction with more than 11 times the number of residents of South Bend.

Too young, too impatient, too nakedly ambitious? Maybe for some voters, maybe not for others. But on Mayor Pete’s birthday, admirers and skeptics are both right on one count: We’ve seen his type before.

The Daily Beast reported last week that in his NY Times interview Mayo Pete told the editors that "he can’t stand any type of mayonnaise other than the unflavored original. Asked if he was familiar with his 'Mayo Pete' nickname, Buttigieg replied: 'I’m not. Do I want to know?' After it was explained to him by The Times panel that the name was given him by teens who think mayo is 'bland, 'white,' and 'gross,' he replied: "I get the white part." After telling the powerful story of his decision to come out as gay, he was told: 'This makes you less mayo.' Buttigieg responded: 'Maybe. Hopefully it’s at least a better flavor. I don’t know... I actually hate flavored mayo-- they do this avocado stuff now and it-- because I only use mayo when I’m making tuna salad. And I want it as straightforward as possible.'" The Times editors decided Amy Klobuchar would make a better president.

Let's move from Mayo for a moment to Status Quo Joe. I hope this ad-- the most effective ad of the 2020 primary so far-- will be played all over television in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina and in the Super Tuesday states as well... like California, Texas, Colorado, Minnesota, Virginia, North Carolina, Massachusetts, Maine, Vermont, Alabama, Oklahoma, Utah, Arkansas and Tennessee. Watch this 30 second spot. It shows one really powerful reason why Joe Biden should never, never be the Democratic Party presidential nominee.