Pete Buttigieg

Many voters say they're OK with a gay president, but America isn't. I don't buy it.
USA TODAY Opinion • November 23, 2019

Many voters say they're OK with a gay president, but America isn't. I don't buy it.

Is America ready to elect its first openly gay president? I hate that I just started a column with a question, and I hate that the question has to be asked.

Yet as South Bend Mayor and presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg's campaign continues to build momentum, particularly after the last Democratic debate, his electability is being carefully examined. Buttgieg, 37, is the first openly gay Democrat to run for president. And for some Americans, his sexuality could become an issue.

According to a Politico/Morning Consult poll published Wednesday, half of U.S. voters say they are personally ready for a gay president, but they are divided on whether they think the country is ready. Fifty percent of respondents say they are either “definitely” or “probably” ready for a president who is openly gay, compared with 37 percent who say they are definitely or probably not ready.

But only 40% — four in 10 voters polled — say they think America is ready for a gay president; 45% do not believe so. The poll was conducted Oct. 25-28.

Similarly, a Quinnipiac University poll released in early May, showed that 70% of voters said they were open to electing a gay commander in chief, though only 36% thought the country was ready.

In essence, these voters are saying: "Yes, I’m progressive. Yes, I’m open-minded. Yes, I denounce homophobia and bigotry. But my neighbors Becky, Jack and Billy are not and do not."

Can we trust the polls? Or the voters?

It’s an interesting if puzzling dichotomy — voters who claim they would not penalize Buttigieg for being gay, but are fearful others would.

I call baloney.

I want to believe these folks, really I do. But I think it’s easier to point the finger at a fellow countryman than to acknowledge that one may have bigoted or prejudiced feelings about Buttigieg. Because who wants to admit to homophobia?

People tell pollsters what they think sounds good, and more so what they think makes them sound good. How many Americans flat-out lied about supporting Donald Trump's candidacy for president in 2016? No one wanted to publicly declare it, but behind the privacy of an election booth Trump was their guy.

Democrats, desperate for an electable nominee, are likely squeamish about these tolerance indicators. On one hand, it would easy to ignore polls of this sort because they are so unreliable these days. But it would be a fool's errand to dismiss them and the sentiments of potential voters — even if the numbers aren't precise.

So, can Buttigieg become the country's first openly gay president?

Echoes of Barack Obama's campaign

During Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign, we were barraged with a similar question: Is America ready for its first black president? More directly, will white people vote for an African American man?

Remember all the think pieces? The constant punditry by cable news commentators? It took Obama’s victory in the Iowa caucuses, with its heavily white electorate, to convince Democratic voters around the country that a black candidate could win.

And it turns out, America did elect the nation’s first black president. That doesn’t necessarily mean America was ready to elect Obama, and some argue the current occupant of the Oval Office is evidence of that.

This country has struggled with race and homosexuality — no, I’m not comparing the two — for generations. But America is also experiencing an evolving view of homosexuality and acceptance of LGBTQ individuals, particularly in the last decade.

A focus group of black voters in South Carolina, commissioned in mid-July by Buttigieg's campaign, found that his sexual orientation could be part of the reason Buttigieg isn't gaining ground among African Americans.

What criteria should voters consider?

Still, it comes down to another question in my estimation: Is a president’s personal life or sexual orientation aligned with his ability to do the job? Absolutely not.

And let’s not lose sight of Buttigieg’s pedigree. This man is a Rhodes Scholar and Ivy League graduate. He’s a war veteran who served in Afghanistan. Buttigieg has the money to stay in the race for the long haul, and voters are taking notice of his proposals.

In a crowded field, Democrats would be smart to suss out the real issues with each candidate.

After all, there can be arguments made that some of the Democratic candidates are too old. Some could certainly debate — given past voter behavior — whether the field of candidates is too, um, female. (Shout out to Hillary Clinton!) My point is this: Buttigieg, like all candidates, must pass the most important test of all, the political test. If he is to win the Democratic nomination and a shot at the White House, he needs people to believe in his proposals and his ability to get the job done.

Should voters reject Buttigieg or that potential because he is gay? Of course not. But I have no doubt that there are some who will.

Temple wrote:

if American wanted free for all health it needed to put it in place after world war 2

What DID begin around that time was most full time jobs, even retail and crap like that, coming with BENEFITS - usually fully-paid health insurance. So, in a practical sense, working people DID have "free" health insurance. I know my parents did, and I did until the mid to late 80's when we started having to chip in, a little at a time, and here we are. The burden shifted away from the employer and onto the employee without a corresponding increase in wages.

DECEMBER 7, 2019 / 4:17 AM / UPDATED 2 HOURS AGO
Buttigieg pledges billions to curb education disparities
Michael Martina
3 MIN READ

DETROIT (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg vowed on Saturday to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to improve public education if elected, with a plan that boosts funds for “underserved children” and expands early childhood learning.

Buttigieg, who has campaign stops this weekend in Iowa where he has surged into the lead in opinion polls, has faced skepticism among black voters, some of whom have said economic gains in South Bend, Indiana, where he is mayor have left behind minorities.

The campaign’s plan echoes proposals from other Democratic candidates, including U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who has called for ending racial disparities in public education and a ban on for-profit charter schools.

“Far from putting our kids on a level playing field, America’s education system takes already vast disparities and makes them worse,” the 37-year-old mayor said in a statement issued with his plan.

Buttigieg vowed to invest $700 billion to ensure universal affordable daycare and pre-kindergarten education for the first five years of a child’s life. Under the policy, families in poverty would have fully subsidized care, and no family would pay more than 7% of income on early learning costs, he said.

The campaign told Reuters that under Buttigieg’s plans K-12 education would see $425 billion in increased funding over 10 years, which would be paid for by stronger tax enforcement on corporations and the wealthy. $300 billion of that would be Title 1 funding for schools which have a large proportion of lower-income students.

He would spend $500 million to support racial and economic school integration, partly through dedicated outlays for affordable housing in high-performing school districts.

Buttigieg would also ban for-profit charter schools, which are publicly funded but privately run, sometimes by for-profit companies. Republican President Donald Trump has sought to increase federal money for such schools, but critics argue they take resources from other public schools to serve select groups.

Buttigieg, who has never held statewide or federal office, is battling Sanders, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, and former Vice President Joe Biden for the lead in national polls for the Democratic nomination to challenge Trump in the November 2020 election.

Warren, a former teacher, has called for an $800 billion investment in public schools, canceling student debt, and for quadrupling funds over the next 10 years for Title 1 schools.

Biden, who has strong support among black voters, has vowed to make community college free and invest $70 billion in historically black colleges and universities.

That $$$ junk is nothing but dreams..
All, candidates saay much the same since the beginning of time..
They offer but do you get?
It takes a lot of partnership.
Butty is the best of the lot..
It's best to vote for the one that's not a kook.

Yeah, Trump promised better, cheaper health care without state lines. Didn't happen. It has to go back to being an employment benefit, or become a tax paid benefit. The way it is, is failing. As for education, take all the big-bucks sports crap out and focus on actual learning. Not too many people in the USA end up on a professional sports field. Let them have sports and phys. ed., of course, but take the corruption and b.s. out of it. Kids who excel in other things like ice skating, gymnastics, etc., fine tune it outside of school.

Published 1 hour ago
Pete Buttigieg earns 3 'Pinocchios' over claim he slashed black poverty rate 'by more than half' in South Bend, Ind.
By Danielle Wallace | Fox News


Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg was awarded “Three Pinocchios” – the highest bluff rating on The Washington Post’s Fact Checker scale – after claiming last week that he had “cut the black poverty rate by more than half” in South Bend, Ind., since he became mayor there in 2012.

Buttigieg made the assertion at a Dec. 2 meet-and-greet in Allendale, S.C. – where the majority of the population is black. According to the Post, the 2020 hopeful used estimates from the Census Bureau but “cherry-picked the most flattering instead of the most scientifically reliable” set of data.

“The more reliable five-year estimates indicate that the African American poverty rate has declined far less in South Bend during the years Buttigieg has been mayor — not more than half, as he said, but 6 percent,” the Post said.

Buttigieg’s campaign told the Post that it drew its number from the American Community Survey (ACS), which is conducted every year by the Census Bureau. The African-American poverty rate fell from 53 percent to 24 percent when comparing 2011 with 2017, according to the one-year data set. Still, Buttigieg’s campaign left out available data from 2018, which shows South Bend’s poverty rate for African-Americans rose to 32 percent last year.

“So the total decline during Buttigieg’s time in office would be nearly 40 percent, not more than half, when using his preferred metric,” the Post said. “Even when using his preferred metric, Buttigieg left out data from 2018 that complicates his claim. He earns Three Pinocchios.”

Published 1 hour ago
Buttigieg donor list leaves off names of more than 20 contributors: report

Pete Buttigieg left the names of some of his biggest donors, including former U.S. ambassadors and Obama donors as well as a Hollywood producer, off a newly released list of his campaign’s top financial supporters, according to a report.

The news comes after the South Bend, Ind., mayor aimed to quell criticism from top-tier Democratic rival Sen. Elizabeth Warren -- who took aim at him last week, accusing him of lacking transparency and mingling with the wealthy to fund his presidential run.

On Friday, Buttigieg’s campaign published a list on its website of more than 100 people who have raised at least $25,000 for his bid for the White House. Politico reported Tuesday that the public list omitted more than 20 high-level fundraisers.

The names left off Friday’s list included those of Boston power broker Jack Connors Jr., who vouched he was “all in for Pete Buttigieg” in an invitation to a June fundraising event, and Hollywood producer Jordan Horowitz, who produced the critically acclaimed film “La La Land,” according to Politico.

Other names left off the list: John Petry, a hedge fund investor; William Rahm, senior managing director at the private equity firm Centerbridge Partners; Nicole Avant, a former U.S. ambassador to the Bahamas; and John Phillips, a former U.S. ambassador to Italy. Both Avant and Phillips have supported Barack Obama.

Fox News has reached out to both Buttigieg and Warren's campaigns for comment.

The 20 people and couples left off the new list were previously disclosed in an internal campaign fundraising report obtained by Politico. In a statement to the news outlet, Buttigieg’s campaign said some bundlers – the names of people in its “Investors Circle” sent out internally to donors over the summer -- were “inadvertently” left off the new public disclosure list.

“In creating this updated list, we went through to recalculate totals from the earlier list to make sure we were being accurate,” Buttigieg campaign spokesman Chris Meagher said in a statement.

Amid tightening polls ahead of a New Hampshire primary and Iowa caucus early next year, Warren, D-Mass., has taken aim at Buttigieg and former Vice President Joe Biden for accepting campaign donations from the wealthy and well-connected.

Buttigieg has also faced criticism from the left for an alleged lack of transparency about his work for global consulting firm McKinsey & Co. He responded last week by releasing a summary of his work there and called on the company to release him from the nondisclosure agreement he had signed. It later did, and Buttigieg released a list of clients for whom he had worked.

His clients from 2007 to 2010 included Michigan Blue Cross Blue Shield, Canadian grocery store and retail chain Loblaw’s, Best Buy; a combination of the Natural Resources Defense Council, Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy, for an energy project; environmental nonprofit the Energy Foundation, the Department of Defense working on building the economies of Irag and Afghanistan, and the U.S. Postal Service.

Links at https://www.foxnews.com/politics/buttigieg-20-names-omitted-bundler-donor-list-warren

Published 1 hour ago
Buttigieg hauls in $24.7 million in final three months of 2019
By Paul Steinhauser | Fox News


Pete Buttigieg’s presidential campaign announced early Wednesday morning that the South Bend, Ind., mayor hauled in more than $24.7 million in campaign cash during the October-December quarter of fundraising in 2019.

The haul by Buttigieg – who becomes the first Democratic presidential candidate to reveal his or her fourth quarter figures – is roughly equal to the $24.8 million he raised in the April-June quarter, when he outpaced the large field of White House hopefuls. Buttigieg’s fundraising dipped in the July-September quarter, when he brought in $19.1 million.

Buttigieg’s campaign touted that the fourth quarter haul brought to more than $76 million the total amount raised by the mayor since launching his campaign early in 2019.

Thanks to his fundraising prowess and his surge in polls in the early voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire, the mayor – once the longest of long shots – has soared to top-tier status for the Democratic nomination, joining former Vice President Joe Biden and Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.

In announcing the report, campaign manager Mike Schmuhl highlighted that “these figures are even more astounding considering that Pete started this race less then a year ago as an unknown candidate, with just a few staffers and zero dollars in the bank.”

The campaign reported that 326,000 individuals contributed to the campaign in the fourth quarter, with an average donation of roughly $33. In the entire year, the campaign said it received more than 2 million contributions from 733,000 individual donors.

Campaigns wanting to showcase their fundraising figures will blast out their final numbers later on Wednesday or in the coming days, as campaigns with lackluster cash hauls typically will wait until the end of January deadline to report their figures to the Federal Election Commission.

After a dismal third quarter of fundraising – when he hauled in just $15 million – Biden should see an end-of-year boost.

“We have the chance to make Q4 our biggest fundraising quarter yet. That would certainly be a big deal,” he said Sunday in a fundraising email to supporters.

Biden's best fundraising quarter to date was the April-June period, when he brought in $21.5 million in the nine weeks after he declared his candidacy in late April.

Sanders raised $25.3 million in the third quarter, besting every other Democratic White House hopeful.

The populist independent senator from Vermont tweeted on Monday, “We are closing in on an incredible 5 million donations before our end-of-quarter deadline.”


Bernie Sanders

@BernieSanders
We are closing in on an incredible 5 million donations before our end-of-quarter deadline. This is the movement that scares Trump. Join our town hall from Winterset, Iowa and chip in at http://berniesanders.com https://www.pscp.tv/w/cNqRTzMyNzU3OTl8MWxEeExvcG96bGFKbdTM4BcssXnjy2md-vSbFU9bgNOjAtUdjBiS3Vyai-jb …

5:43 PM - Dec 30, 2019


And in Iowa on Monday night, Sanders noted that "the average contribution is about $18 apiece."

He had 3.3 million individual contributions at the end of September. Do the math, and that means roughly 1.7 million donations in the past three months. Multiply that by the contribution average, and the senator should top his third-quarter haul.

But for Warren, a decline in national and early voting state polls in November and December was expected to be accompanied by a dip in campaign donations.

Warren raised nearly $25 million in the third quarter but appeared to be scrambling to reach $20 million in the fourth, as her campaign made the unusual move of releasing its total to date early in order to drum up more cash.

“So far this quarter, we’ve raised a little over $17 million. That’s a good chunk behind where we were at this time last quarter,” an email sent Friday from the Warren campaign read. "Elizabeth Warren needs your help. Right now. The goal is $20 million for the quarter — that's how much the campaign needs to keep our plans on track.”

Tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang – a long shot for the nomination who’s risen in the polls and consistently made the debate stage – is also expected to top his $10 million third quarter haul, which was his best to date.

“We expect to raise more than $12.5 million, at least 25 percent more than the previous quarter,” Yang national press secretary S.Y. Lee told Fox News.

But Yang told Fox News in New Hampshire on Tuesday that he'll top that estimate.

"We’re going to top that, he said as he laughed. "We soft-balled it a little bit."


Paul Steinhauser

@steinhauserNH1
2020 Watch-NEW: ⁦@foxnewspolitics⁩ ⁦@seacoastonline⁩ walk and talk with ⁦@AndrewYang⁩ in Portsmouth, NH - regarding his Q4 fundraising haul, how he’ll ring in 2020, and his New Year’s resolution #AndrewYang #YangGang #nhpolitics #FITN #2020Election

12:31 PM - Dec 31, 2019

And the candidate touted that fundraising figures show that his "campaign’s growing very, very quickly, growing faster than any other campaign in the field."

Campaign cash, along with public opinion polling, is a crucial barometer of a candidate’s popularity and a campaign’s strength. Fundraising dollars can be used to run TV, radio and digital ads, beef up grassroots voter outreach, and build up staff. And the fourth quarter fundraising figures – the last quarterly report before Iowa kicks off the primary and caucus presidential nominating calendar on Feb. 3 – will be heavily scrutinized by political pundits.

“Fundraising numbers at this time in the primary calendar only heighten a campaign's strengths and vulnerabilities going into Iowa,” said Democratic operative Michael Ceraso, a veteran of the 2016 Sanders campaign who served as Buttigieg’s New Hampshire state director before parting ways with the campaign this past summer.

Not to worry, Temple - Trump will beat whomever remains at the end.

Trump can't control the climate.

It's too bad Butterguts didn't go to a reform center. He could have won, but not by tonguing his husband on stage.