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Home » My theory on another reason Buttigieg and Klobuchar had no reluctance to drop out

My theory on another reason Buttigieg and Klobuchar had no reluctance to drop out

The New Neo Posted on by

I have little doubt that Buttigieg and Klobuchar were promised something for dropping out of the race in such a timely fashion. But my guess is that another reason they dropped out with such alacrity is that neither ever expected to be the Democratic nominee in the first place. They were always positioning themselves to be VP or to get other favors of some sort from the eventual nominee, and their speedy and well-timed withdrawal from the race has only enhanced their positions in that respect.

Comments

My theory on another reason Buttigieg and Klobuchar had no reluctance to drop out — 32 Comments

  1. Yeah, I’m betting on them getting an offer to meet Guido in a back alley or having their palms greased. Or both.

  3. I’m sure they came to the conclusion they would not win after seeing the polling for Super Tuesday so they dropped out because they had no chance to win enough delegates and they would only take delegates away from either Bernie or Biden, which they saw would cause a lot of dissension at the convention.

    It also costs a lot of money to run a campaign so why promise what you can’t deliver to donors who are shelling out money? I don’t believe they are cynical enough to run only with the hope of getting a job within a Bernie or Biden administration. It is possible I suppose but you’d have to say the same for other politicians [both Republican and Democratic] who have run for president in the past.

    The sheer effort to run a campaign is tremendously hard. And it sure would be a very exhausting and rather ironic way to essentially be doing a job interview for an administration of another candidate you have been trashing along the way.

  4. Montage makes some good points, but I think, in this age, everyone starts out hoping they will be the next Obama (who, IIRC, is reported to have not expected or planned to win, and only went forward when it began to look like a real possibility), and are looking for something to change in their favor.

    Not enough changed.

    As a reminder of why this is a really important election (aren’t they all?), I have two complementary posts for you.
    The first, from before the election in 2016, makes arguments that won’t be new to anyone here, and the second makes the same kind of arguments but more forcefully.

    https://fee.org/articles/it-shouldnt-matter-who-is-president/

    https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/attorney-general-william-p-barr-delivers-remarks-2020-national-religious-broadcasters

    As one political scientist has noted, while liberal democracy conceives of people relating on many different planes of existence, “totalitarian democracy recognizes only one plane of existence, the political.” All is subsumed within a single project to use the power of the state to perfect mankind rather than limit the state to protecting our freedom to find our own ends. It is increasingly, as Mussolini memorably said, “All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.”

    While many factors have contributed to the polarized politics of today, I think one significant reason our politics has become so intense and so ill-tempered is that some in the so-called “progressive” movement have broken away from the fold of liberal democracy to pursue a society more in line with the thinking of Rousseau than that of our nation’s Founders. That has played a major role in our politics becoming less like a disagreement within a family, and more like a blood feud between two different clans.

    Over the past few decades, those further to the left have increasingly identified themselves as “progressives” rather than “liberals.” And some of these self-proclaimed “progressives” have become increasingly militant and totalitarian in their style. While they seek power through the democratic process, their policy agenda has become more aggressively collectivist, socialist, and explicitly revolutionary.

    The crux of the progressive program is to use the public purse to provide ever-increasing benefits to the public and to, thereby, build a permanent constituency of supporters who are also dependents. They want able-bodied citizens to become more dependent, subject to greater control, and increasingly supportive of dependency. The tacit goal of this project is to convert all of us into 25 year-olds living in the government’s basement, focusing our energies on obtaining a larger allowance rather than getting a job and moving out.

    Political philosophers since Aristotle have worried that democracies are vulnerable to just this form of corruption. Probably the greatest chronicler of American democracy, Alexis de Tocqueville, foresaw that American democracy would be susceptible to this evolution. As he described it, our society was vulnerable to a soft despotism wherein the majority would gradually let itself be taken care of by the state – much like dependent children.

    Yet this process would be slow and imperceptible. The tyranny that results, Tocqueville wrote, “does not break wills, but it softens them, bends them and directs them; it rarely forces action, but it constantly opposes your acting; it does not destroy, it prevents birth; it does not tyrannize, it hinders, it represses, it enervates, it extinguishes, it stupifies, and finally it reduces [the people] to being nothing more than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.”

    It would be totalitarianism beneath a veneer of democratic choice. As Tocqueville summed it up: “By this system the people shake off their state of dependence just long enough to select their master and then relapse into it again.”

    Historically, our country has relied on a number of bulwarks against this slide toward despotism, each of which has been essential in preserving the liberty that has defined our democracy. Today, I would like to discuss three institutions that have served this vital purpose: religion, the decentralization of government power, and the free press.

    The sad fact is that all three have eroded in recent decades. At the end of the day, if we are to preserve our liberal democracy from the meretricious appeal of socialism and the strain of progressivism I have described, we must turn our attention to revivifying these vital institutions.

    The institutions are religion, federalism with states and local governments doing more and Washington doing less, and a truly divergent press with less monolithic control.

  7. In fact, PowerLine has several posts about Klobuchar and the cancelled rally, none of which reflect well on her, the Democrats, the BLM activists, or the press.

  8. “neither ever expected to be the Democratic nominee in the first place”

    Wait, you mean when Amy pledged to fight Global Warming at her announcement rally in a snowstorm … you mean, she wasn’t really serious?

  9. I’d look at the state of their campaign finances. As I understand it politicians get to keep the money and are under no obligation to send it back to the donors.

  10. Exactly correct newneo–they were in it for the VP slot from the beginning. I was thinking the same thing myself. They simply concluded that they would be more likely to get Biden’s VP slot by backing him now rather than by collecting enough delegates to negotiate a position at the convention.

  11. and then there are those unused campaign funds just lying around to be pilfered when no one is looking

  13. I’ll take a contrary view. I think they were pushed.

    Both Amy and Pete have run out of states where older whites are a majority of Democrats. Neither of them were particularly attractive to blacks. The results in SC weren’t promising for either of them.

    And offering somebody an inducement to quit isn’t the Chicago Way.

    I’m thinking both of them got a message that the gloves were going to come off if they didn’t drop out. Pete believed it. Amy didn’t until BLM showed up at her rally.

    I’ll also say this. Obama’s going to be the peacemaker at the convention but not for the reason everybody supposes. He’s going there to convince the reluctant middle that they should back Bernie after he either gets a plurality or majority of the delegates.

  14. “I don’t believe they are cynical enough to run only with the hope of getting a job within a Bernie or Biden administration.”

    Montage, speaking of cynicism, I wish I was still young and naive enough to lack the cynicism to know they both timed their departure to maximize their political capital.

  15. To riff on Neo’s thought, imagine you are a Democrat and end up being Biden’s running mate. Now imagine that Biden wins (I know, I know…). Now you’re the VP to a 79 year old president who’s already having multiple, daily senior moments. In four years you’re running for the top job, and you’re either covertly, or up-front, the acting president. Why WOULDN’T you grab that possibility?

  17. And offering somebody an inducement to quit isn’t the Chicago Way.
    I’m thinking both of them got a message that the gloves were going to come off if they didn’t drop out. Pete believed it. Amy didn’t until BLM showed up at her rally.

    For crying out loud. See Elaine Krewer (who has worked in state government and in newspapers in Illinois). Obama is nothing like a Chicago ward politician; ward politics in Chicago is a labor-intensive enterprise which requires you take an interest in people’s mundane problems and give them your personal attention. Obama is an introvert who was quite reluctant to deal one-on-one with professional peers, much less spend his life going to wakes, badgering the public works department about potholes on the corner of Garson and Portland, and wangling a patronage job for someone’s cousin Vinny.

  18. I’ve thought all along that Buttigieg was in it just to hustle his gayness to gay men in the media and to gay donors (lots of disposable income when you don’t ever have to buy diapers), all to parlay it into a cable gig after the campaign.

    I took his dropping out now as an indication that he has gotten tired of the daily tiring schedule of campaigning, and wants to get onto CNN or MSNBC sooner rather than later.

  19. Someone on another blog speculated yesterday that Buttigieg was in this from the beginning to raise his profile in the hope of being named to head an NGO in the Acela corridor. That sounds very plausible to me, and although it might not pay as well as a gig at CNN, it is probably cushier and is a better path into the patriarchy in a few years. That sounds like a good analysis to me. Judging by his troubles in South Bend, I would not be surprised if he has had enough of elective politics.

  21. “if you drop out now you’re not going to get a date with a Clinton associate”.

  22. I live in a Super Tuesday state and neither Buttigieg or Klobuchar had much in terms of campaign ads here.

  23. Mortimer Snerd on March 3, 2020 at 8:11 am said:
    A quid pro-quo perhaps?
    * * *
    nyuk-nyuk-nyuk.

    Also, Leland’s observation might indicate some support for Neo’s view – they never intended, or expected, to get that far! Their good showings in the earliest contests seem to have surprised everyone, including themselves.

  24. Steve White on March 3, 2020 at 8:23 am said:
    To riff on Neo’s thought, imagine you are a Democrat and end up being Biden’s running mate. Now imagine that Biden wins (I know, I know…). Now you’re the VP to a 79 year old president who’s already having multiple, daily senior moments. In four years you’re running for the top job, and you’re either covertly, or up-front, the acting president. Why WOULDN’T you grab that possibility?
    * * *
    That’s a very good point at the end; they have nothing to lose in grabbing for the brass-plated ring.

    A lot of us caught Biden and The Thing on the other Klobuchar post; he fluffed again yesterday morning, although this has kind of an amusing sidebar that indicates Joe isn’t the only one who can make mistakes.

    https://libertyunyielding.com/2020/03/01/thank-you-chuck-latest-biden-gaffe-too-good-to-be-true/

    I watched the following video from today’s “Fox News Sunday.” It was near the end of an interview with Vice President Joe Biden, who scored his first primary win — a big one — in South Carolina yesterday. The subject was Donald Trump’s assault on Biden’s mental alertness while speaking at CPAC. Trump’s comments, which included the observation that Biden belongs in a home, were frankly a little cruel. Declining mental health is nothing to poke fun at.

    Biden, to his credit, did a fairly good job of defending himself. Right up until the end of the segment, when host Chris Wallace thanked him for his appearance. Without missing a beat, Biden replied, “Thank you, Chuck.”

    https://libertyunyielding.com/2020/03/02/now-that-buttigieg-is-out-guess-whos-the-youngest-male-democratic-candidate/

    As Breitbart notes, Biden, at 77, is technically the youngest male on the Democratic side. Bernie Sanders is a year older, and Michael Bloomberg is Biden’s senior by four months.

    The joke, if it can be called that, is that Biden has increasingly demonstrated a mental unreadiness to assume the responsibilities of the presidency. As recently as yesterday, he committed a rather noticeable gaffe when he addressed Fox News anchor Mike Wallace as “Chuck.” Drawing further attention to Biden’s creeping dementia was the subject of the interview as it wound down: Biden’s mental acuity.

    For the record, the real Fox News Commentator is CHRIS Wallace.
    And Joe had a good excuse this time, or at least an understandable one: he had earlier that morning done an interview with Chuck Todd on NBC.

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/biden-refers-to-chris-wallace-as-chuck-during-fox-news-interview/ar-BB10B1g0

    “Mr. Vice President, thank you. Thanks for your time. Please come back in less than 13 years, sir,” Wallace said as the interview ended.

    “All right, Chuck. Thank you very much,” Biden replied.

    “All right, it’s Chris, but anyway,” an amused Wallace said.

    “Chris, I just did Chris. No, no, I just did Chuck. I tell you what, man, these are back-to-back,” Biden replied.

    I have some sympathy for Biden here; I certainly can’t tell all the talking heads apart. EXCEPT – he’s been listening to them now for 20-30 years, although apparently not talking to them.

  26. This is a puff piece for Joe, of course (originally published in WaPo), but it gives some interesting insights on the operations inside the Democrat establishment to put the No Malarkey Express back on the road.

    http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0320/resuscitated_biden.php3

    After humbling start, the 18 days that resuscitated Joe Biden’s candidacy

    By Matt Viser & Cleve R. Wootson Jr. The Washington Post
    Published March 2, 2020

  27. I would normally forgive Joe’s Sunday morning gaffe, as he had just done a piece with a guy named Chuck right before.

    However, if Trump said something like that (or any of the recent statements by Biden including half the population getting killed by bullets since 2007), they’d be drawing up new articles of impeachment and screaming “25th Amendment!”

  28. And it’s not like referring to “Chuck” was his only gaffe.
    There’s calling God “the thing”, “I’m running for Senator”, “vote for the other Biden” and “I’ll appoint a black woman as
    Senator (for the first time)” .., just in the last week

  29. On the other klobuchar post, Geoffrey surmised that, with Sanders as the likely alternative, “Biden is the lesser evil.”
    Here’s a reminder of why the emphasis is on “lesser” and not on “evil.”

    https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/03/democrats_are_watching_the_speeding_train_head_to_the_washedout_bridge.html

    Joe Biden has been in politics since 1972. Behind the good-guy persona is a self-centered, vicious, corrupt man. It would take a longer blog post than this to detail all the things that stand against him, but here’s a short list:

    He invented “borking,” when he joined with Teddy Kennedy to malign in the crudest, most vicious fashion one of America’s leading jurists, Robert Bork.
    For decades, he has smeared the reputation of the man who drove the truck involved in the accident that killed Biden’s wife and daughter.
    He lied about his academic record.
    He’s plagiarized on at least two occasions, with the second act of plagiarism destroying his first presidential run.
    He gropes children.
    He has consistently embarrassed female Secret Service agents by swimming naked in front of them.
    He’s enriched his entire family to the tune of billions of dollars in suspect business deals with Ukraine, China, Costa Rica, Iraq, Kazakhstan, and Russia, all countries in Biden’s portfolio as vice president.
    And note, please, that the above list has nothing to do with Biden’s political stands, which, while hewing left, are all over the board, drifting with the political winds. His only consistent position has been to hate the Second Amendment. He’s just another leftist who prefers to govern over disarmed subjects.

    It will be interesting, to say the least, to see what comes out of Ukraine as the campaign progresses, especially if the Democrats succeed in wresting a primary victory out of Bernie the Red’s clutches and bestowing it on Biden.

  31. All the Dem debaters got a huge amount of personal PR media attention. They had a chance to “stand out”.
    But didn’t generate much enthusiasm, except for Bernie.

    Dem voters seem to only be enthusiastic over magic thinking, and promises of ponies with one horn. (“There must be one in here with all the horse manure…”)

    But none want to be blamed by the Biden/ Bernie/ (Bloomie??) winner for getting in the way when they knew they had no chance.

    Had Amy been just a bit better, I’d have thought she did have a chance. She still has the inside track to VP.

    Mayor Pete is on track to be the gay man’s gay politician having, what the Flintstone’s theme song called, “a gay old time”.
    (…Wilma!!!)

  32. Aesop Fan,

    “Here’s a reminder of why the emphasis is on “lesser” and not on “evil.”

    This, times ten. He is a grade A jerk and a self-centered narcissist of the first order. I can’t understand why so many people, even those who don’t like his policies, add, “but he’s a good guy.”

    No. He’s corrupt, vengeful, dishonest, vain, creepy (can’t keep his hands off people) and of marginal intellect. Maybe he’s glib when you meet him in person (or was, when he had all his mental faculties), but so was Ted Bundy.

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