Buttigieg on Trump: "It is the nature of grotesque things that you can't look away." pic.twitter.com/OUiBF9DOxM
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) May 19, 2019
This is, objectively, a great clip for Pete Buttigieg! And when he’s the Democratic candidate (probably not this year, IMO, but in 2024 or 2028) it’ll get replayed as much as Barack Obama’s 2004 keynote DNC speech got replayed during his campaign.
This year, Buttigieg is still a ‘niche’ candidate in the primaries — he needs to introduce himself to as many potential swing voters as possible, and if he can do it with ‘earned’ (i.e., free) media, so much the better. And since he’s got the right visual markers for a Fox-News-viewer-approved presidential candidate (male, white, attractive in a properly ‘Heartland’ way), social marketeers would say he could only improve his status in the current Democratic primary scrum by literally showing himself off to the crucial low-info all-American voter.
Elizabeth Warren, by choosing to refuse a Fox townhall, made the right decision for Elizabeth Warren… and for the good of the Democratic Party as a whole (not to mention, IMO, the American polity in general). Fox News has been establishing their (insanely bigoted & sexist) version of Elizabeth Warren in its viewers’ tiny minds since 2012; nothing she could say or do on a Fox platform would improve that for the better. If she’s not in the Oval Office or the new Cabinet come 2021, she’ll be (happily) continuing her good work as Ted Kennedy’s successor, the first Lioness of the Senate. She can ‘afford’ to give Fox the back of her hand, for the greater good.
(And Kamala Harris, wisely understanding that Fox viewers have been primed to attack *any* Democratic woman like mobbing grackles, did the smart thing in following Warren’s refusal. Harris also has both a larger natural Democrat constituency and a broader national media presence than Buttigieg — more to lose, less to gain.)
Open Thread: Pete Buttigieg Made the Right Choice <em>for Pete Buttigieg</em>Post + Comments (192)