{"id":78,"date":"2019-03-09T11:28:17","date_gmt":"2019-03-09T16:28:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drjonathancummings.com\/blog\/?p=78"},"modified":"2019-03-10T22:29:24","modified_gmt":"2019-03-11T02:29:24","slug":"pete-buttigieg-ppc-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drjonathancummings.com\/blog\/prospective-presidential-candidates\/2019\/03\/pete-buttigieg-ppc-6\/78\/","title":{"rendered":"Pete Buttigieg PPC# 6"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

So I definitely didn\u2019t know much about Pete Buttigieg before I went to see him.\u00a0 Just that he\u2019s a gay mayor from South bend Indiana whose name I have no idea how to pronounce. The main thing I was interested in is what would differentiate him from other candidates.\u00a0 If I\u2019m honest I can\u2019t say there is a whole lot that does, at least when it comes to politics. I learned he is in the Navy, he is short – by presidential standards, he’s about my height – and he pronounces his name \u201cPete\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m being a bit flippant, but of the candidates I\u2019ve encountered\nso far Pete Buttigieg provided the least substance.  His speech felt like it was 15, maybe twenty\nminutes long, where the others have gone for more like 30-45 I think.  He hit on many of the same issues that make\nup the Democratic platform at the moment. \nThe main point Pete Buttigieg used to differentiate himself is his\nconnection to Midwestern small town America. \nI\u2019m not sure I would consider South Bend, Indiana, population 100,000+ a\nsmall town, but I did grow up in a town of 4,000.  After living away from South Bend for a time\nthe pull of home brought him back and he recovered South Bend from a city\nranked as 8th<\/sup> worst, to whatever it is now. Apparently better. Now\nthat I think about it I don\u2019t think he said how he recovered it, or what about his\nsuccess in South Bend makes me a good candidate for president, beyond that he\nwas successful in South Bend.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other part of his speech that differentiate Pete Buttigieg\nfrom other candidates focused on the need to reclaim the use of freedom in the\nDemocratic Party.  Not in the way that Republicans\noften frame the use of freedom, as in a freedom from\u2026, but rather phrasing it\nin terms of freedom to\u2026   Such as freedom\nto marry, freedom to start a business, freedom to obtain an education, freedom\nto afford health care.  Freedoms that the\nRepublican approach has prevented Americans from accessing.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I found Pete Buttigieg to be extremely light on substance in\nterms of the how-to.  He gave a list of\nthings that we should have freedoms to, but it was just a list of things, not\nreally a list of policies, or plans to achieve them.  He definitely did not differentiate himself\nbased on policy in my eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When it came to actually meeting him and asking him my\ndecision-making question he did a fairly decent job.  Upon asking how he makes decisions, and how\nhe would advise his administration to make decisions and choose between\npolicies he talked about the fact that his first step would be to lay a solid\nstructure that would support addressing future challenges.  That way once that solid structure is in\nplace as new things arise he’d be able to adapt to them as they came up.  I\u2019m not sure exactly what he meant by\nstructure, whether he meant in terms of the first policy priorities, or staff\nand administration structure, but both or either are good I suppose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To me what Pete Buttigieg described is not exactly a decision\nmaking process but I would say that laying a good foundation is a good strategy\nfor to making better decisions in the future. I followed up by saying I was asking\nbecause I\u2019m a decision scientist and that’s why I’m curious about not just what\ncandidates\u2019 stances are but how they\u2019ll address future issues as they arise,\nmuch as he described in his response. He also said that as someone tasked with making\ndecisions for a living his is interested in the factors that contribute to good\ndecision making and that he thinks a lot about this. As the line of people behind\nme was quite long I didn’t follow up or get any specific responses as to what\nhe studied or how he’s gone about studying the field of decision science but at\nleast he\u2019s aware of it and finds it interesting.  That is seemingly more than can be said for\nmany politicians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Summary:  Without the one-on-one I was not impressed by Pete Buttigieg, but the one-on-one did raise my opinion of him.  Pete Buttigieg is probably good at governance based on his response to me as apparent success as mayor, and would govern to progress toward the generic democratic platform.  I don\u2019t think he has the campaigning skills to get himself into the position to govern though.  My conclusion is that he would probably be an OK president when it came to the day to day tasks, but I don\u2019t think he is a good candidate for president, and might struggle with the sales pitch part of being president.  Before talking one-on-one I would have placed Pete Buttigieg in Tier 5, and while I value his interest in decision making a lot and am tempted to bump him up for it, I don\u2019t think it matters much if his campaigning won\u2019t allow him to apply it in the White House.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ranking of those I\u2019ve meet so far:<\/p>\n\n\n\n