Winnowing the Candidates – Part 1

There are already too many Democratic candidates for the 2020 Presidential race. So each month, I will reduce the field by one candidate through an announcement in this blog. If more keep joining the race, we may have to eliminate a candidate every two weeks. After my blog post, the candidate named in the post will be notified and expected to withdraw from the race. Maybe by the 2020 convention, we’ll have the field whittled down to a single, strong candidate to defeat Donald Trump in 2020.

The first candidate I am eliminating from the race is …

Pete Buttigieg. That may elicit two questions from you.

1. Who is Pete Buttigieg?
2. How do you pronounce his last name?

That last name is a problem. I can’t say Buttigieg without forcefully emitting a burst of saliva from my mouth. Maybe he should shorten his name. Upon further review, maybe not.

As for who Pete Buttigieg is, he’s been the mayor of South Bend, Indiana since 2012. Here’s downtown South Bend.

Look a little small to you? Hey, size doesn’t matter, or at least I have been plying that idea for as long as I’ve been alive. South Bend does have a little over 100,000 residents, but is only the fourth largest city in Indiana. Indianapolis has over eight times more people, and Indianapolis is a small city. Maybe a little more experience might be in order, like running Evansville, Indiana with a quarter million residents might be a good idea first.

I like Mayor Pete a lot. He’s a Harvard grad, Rhodes Scholar, and a veteran. I find his platform to be progressive. I think he can be a rising star in the Democratic party and maybe a presidential candidate in the future. Oh, I almost forgot to mention he’s very young and openly gay.

I’m not surprised by the young part. We need young candidates with new ideas. I am surprised by the gay part. He’s from Indiana. I could have sworn that Mike Pence outlawed homosexuality when he was Governor of Indiana.

Gee, he seems nice. Somehow Mayor Pete eluded Governor Pence’s homophobic policies and actually married his partner.

Being an openly gay candidate will limit how many Republican votes can be swung his way. Being only thirty-seven and the mayor of a small city will also limit how many Democrats will vote for someone so inexperienced. We can’t take that risk in 2020. Mayor Pete, we love you. You’re great. I can’t wait to vote for you someday. Get some more experience outside of South Bend, Indiana. But until you do, you are out of the 2020 presidential race.