Another Demportrait

And now a bipartisan moment - I like Pete Buttigieg. That is to say, Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly are right to say that he is the only "likable" candidate. His smile seems genuine, unforced and uncoached. He is nice, which I am told by John Tesh is a property valued above all else not just by the all-important Suburban Educated Woman but by all women. He makes jokes unforced although, like his "Why don't we nominate a Democrat!" joke, are almost certainly scripted...but still are funny. Of course, that is the first of his weaknesses which the delightful former prosecutor now Schumer water-carrier, Klobuchar, was too happy to point out: EVERYTHING is scripted. If you did have a beer with him at a BBQ, he would ask you first what beer you wanted him to drink or whether you wanted him to drink pop instead.

His second weakness is that he has been the Mayor of Nothing for 8 years recently. But in a World where the last three Presidents were in order a complete political novice, a community organizer and political placeholder and a governor who made little impression in a state where that's the idea, that does not seem a relevant problem if it ever was. After all, just what did his opponents do for anyone before their mirrors told them they should be president?

But the most worrying problem beside his inability to gain traction after two remarkable come from no where performances in the two most important primaries on the presidential calendar, is he is spineless. The best example: his renouncing his once saying that "All Lives Matter". Mayor Pete, in other words, demonstrates as well as anyone the strange fact that even the apparent Underdogs in this edition of "Pin the Nomination on the Head Donkey" are as deeply cynical, conniving and ruthless as the front runners, truly a new height of political turpitude. This lack of courage is especially surprising in a man who decided to boldly run for president with absolutely no national profile except the trademark sticker "First Openly Gay Man to Run for President in US History".

If I was a Democrat, I would nominate him but insist that, if he has a chance with the Democratic traditional base of homosceptic hardhats and minorities and thus to win in November, he should explain exactly what he actually did to help people like that in his depressed, more black than average, shrinking and working class city for eight years. Then  I would advise him to spend a lot of time campaigning in other Inner Cities and talking about how he is going to help them and pray Trump hasn't already beaten him to it.