Pete is Out
Buttigieg’s fundraising dried up and with a horrid showing in South Carolina, Buttigieg had little choice but to Drop Out of the Race.
The decision comes just 48 hours before the biggest voting day of the primary, Super Tuesday, when 15 states and territories will allot a third of the delegates over all.
Mr. Buttigieg canceled plans for a Sunday night rally in Dallas and a Monday morning fund-raiser in Austin, Tex., to return to South Bend, Ind., to address supporters. “Sometimes the longest way around really is the shortest way home,’’ he said.
“The truth is that the path has narrowed to a close, for our candidacy if not for our cause,” he said, adding “Tonight I am making the difficult decision to suspend my campaign for the presidency.”
Without mentioning opponents by name, Mr. Buttigieg said he was concerned about the impact he would have on the race by staying in, saying Democrats needed to field “the right kind of nominee” against Mr. Trump.
It is unclear if Mr. Buttigieg will endorse another candidate. He and Mr. Biden have exchanged voice messages, a Biden campaign official said.
In the last presidential debate, on Tuesday in South Carolina, Mr. Buttigieg forcefully warned that nominating Mr. Sanders, the front-runner, would lead to crushing defeat in the fall, not just “four more years of Donald Trump,” but the loss of the Democratic House majority secured by moderate candidates who won in suburban swing districts in 2018.
Out of Money
Buttigieg spent most of his funds winning Iowa. And a big fundraising boost never happened.
Unless you are a billionaire, lack of fundraising will do you in.
Billionaire Tom Steyer also threw in the towel so the field is down to five.
Warren likely has enough money to stay in, if she wants. And if she does, it will take votes from Sanders.
Expect Klobuchar to Drop Out on Wednesday
I expect Amy Klobuchar to win her home state of Minnesota on Super Tuesday, then drop out.
She too is out of funds.
What About Bloomberg?
Bloomberg has the funds to stay in. Whether he drops out depends on how well he does on Super Tuesday.
The longer he stays in, the more votes he takes from Biden. Bloomberg supporters don’t exactly want a socialist running the country.
VP Spot
I believe Both Buttigieg and Klobuchar are campaigning for a vice presidential spot. That’s the smart thing to do because Biden is a one term president. So is Bernie, but his VP preference would not be either Klobuchar or Buttigieg.
Klobuchar would be a strong VP candidate.
To beat Trump, the ticket is better off without any lightning rods. That rules out Kamala Harris.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
Biden is the DNC favorite, regardless what Sanders does. So Biden wins, even if he doesn’t.
So long, Booty Greg.
I guess running on a platform of ‘We need to bring people together’ wasn’t enough. Similar to Hillary’s ‘Stronger Together’, which I always thought was ironic since the democrats are clearly the party of intolerance.
This is really too bad. It means to me as a democrat that we have lost pretty much the last voice of reason and resonableness. It moves the democrats so far to the left that I for one can no longer consider myself a democrat, but before you do handstands about the destruction of your enemies I should also point out I will never EVER be a Nazi. Clearly one of the ancient frontrunners was going to end up winning a brokered convention, but the saner voices in the party and smarter people like Mayor Pete were the future of the democrats. Now, he and his kind will not be part of the party and the right has forced the left to be the very far fringe left. They might not win under those circumstances in 2020 but they will eventually win and when they do you will have nobody but yourselves to blame for the catastrophe that will be the likes of an 85 year old Sanders and his VP runniung mate AOC.
You will be paying slavery reparations, you will be paying the equivalent of $18 per gallon for gasoline. You will lose everything as the value of the dollar collapses to something more like the Venezuelan bolivar. Your children will be janitors if they have any jobs at all. But you will have Medicare for all, meaning a 5 day wait to be seen in the emergency room (that happened to me in Ireland where universal care is law, doctors were so overbooked they simply stopped being doctors, retired, left the country, became nurses, left the medical field entirely, so the government doubled down and said if a doctor is overbooked with his assigned patients he is forbidden to take any non assigned patients for a cash billing paid on the spot. I was an American with an an ear infection and was told to go to the ER in Dublin or Galway but to be prepared to wait days to be seen since people over 65 went to the front of the line and must be seen within 24 hours, imagine that, you are over 65 and the government says you have to be seen within 24 hours of reporting to an emergency room, meanwhile I was told it would be 5 days to get a script for antibiotics and I would pay cash on the spot if I was ever seen – that is Sanders healthcare plan for you)
I had wished and begged for the far left to just get their own party rather than be parasites on the democrats. Just as the GOP should have demanded the neo Nazi and Trumpian republicaans get their own party.
So now it looks like politics in America is so split that all reasonable adults and centrists need to be the ones to get their own party free of the radicals on both right and left. Since the odds of moderate republicans forming a party with modeerate democrats is about as likely as Trump growing a brain (or a heart) America is toast. And it is time we all look at what we have here.
A Sanders presidency with a Stacy Abrams chosen as his VP for no other reason than she is a black female will be utterly unacceptable to both the right and the middle. A second term for Trump and his evil henchmen is just as unpalatable to the majority of Americans. This will mean either civil war or at the least a dissolusion of the union with or without battle.
It is time we just admit that the USA did not work out after all. And then there is the worst case, that the whole nation just devolves into terror and chaos. And face it, the government cannot possible be in enough places at one time to prevent mass looting and race wars and neo Nazi atrocities, and the utter and complete failure of all that made America great.
This is Trump’s America. He did Putin’s job well.
By dropping out, Buttigieg no doubt won points with the party leaders. I don’t think that you have seen the last of him. I agree that I’m concerned by the rise of fascism, but not just on the right. Fascism, after all, is the view that government should be all powerful, and that means preventing free speech. You don’t see that from the nationalists on the right, but instead, from the Antifa types on the left. I find that a group that calls itself anti-fascist reminds me of the fascists of the past.
I love your writing ! There’s a breadth of vision and a sense of fairness, combined with an exciting sensationalism. It’s like a comic strip caricature nightmare of the US future. Personally, I think Trump was as necessary for America as Thatcher was for the UK, but I look forward to your future postings.
Holy crap. What hyperbole. Trump has almost completed his first term and there are no signs of fascism or naziism. If Trump wins, the next 4 years will be like the last.
You must be kidding right?
Democrats have always been the “progressive” party, which means constant change. There is always more social evolution that needs to occur, so it is, de facto, the party of malcontents with the status quo.
Republicans meanwhile are “conservative,” meaning keeping the status quo. So those who like how things are going and don’t want change end up Republican.
This is how it’s been, the “constant change” versus the “new normal.”
Let’s see who pledges allegiance to AIPAC March 1-3. Who ever shows up, I will cross off the list.
“When has a nominee for president picked one of the people who campaigned against him as VP?”
Ronald Reagan comes to mind immediately. I guess it has been awhile.
I don’t think Biden can beat Trump. If Sanders supports perceive that he was ganged up on by the Dem establishment, then I believe many will hold off their vote, just as they did in 2016.
As for: “I believe Both Buttigieg and Klobuchar are campaigning for a vice presidential spot. That’s the smart thing to do because Biden is a one term president. So is Bernie, but his VP preference would not be either Klobuchar or Buttigieg.”
When has a nominee for president picked one of the people who campaigned against him as VP? I couldn’t make Google cough up past instances of this but perhaps someone else can.
George H. W. Bush ran against Reagan in 1980.
That’s one. Any more?
Jojo, you clearly did not watch the debates.
Both Klobuchar and Buttigieg never went after Biden in any meaningful way. Buttigieg did go after “socialist” Sanders.
Klobuchar kept stressing (and correctly so IMO) that she is the one who can bring Republicans and Independents in the fold.
The candidates most alike, Warren and Sanders, had huge open feuds. It is clear (although I do not know why), Warren cannot stand Sanders.
It was very smart for Klobuchar and Buttigieg to do what they did.
Biden would do well with a female, non lightning rod as a running mate.
Unfortunately Mish the party apparatchiks are pushing hard for a Biden VP of either Abrams or Harris. As a democrat I can tell you either would be a non starter for me. And in the top four dem candidates all of whom are over 70, with Sanders, Biden, and Bloomberg all over 77 and all have had health issues, who they pick as running mate is going to be critical. And I should add that I would vote Trump before Sanders anyway. It would nearly kill me to do it, but Sanders is actually even more evil than Trump is, and what does that tell you about America’s future prospects?
Ha ha ha. Why are you so afraid of Sanders? None of his broad visions are implementable by executive order. Congress has to pass the laws. The president can’t create a law and pass it on their own (which is very disappointing for wannbe King Trump). Stop worrying. Be happy.
Voting for Trump in any possible scenario is way STOOPID.
The president can do a lot with executive orders. Look at what Obama did. All they have to do is declare a national emergency and implement whatever they want. It would be up to the Supreme Court to reverse it.
Agreed about the party apparatchiks. They want a nod to the base in the VP and a “centrist” at the head of the ticket.