A word about the "experience" thing for anyone running for President..

[Peacetrain]

I have to almost laugh.. I am seeing people say that Buttigieg is too inexperienced because he is the mayor of a city .. and Biden and Sanders and Warren are too old and have too much experience and we need new blood.. and sometimes I have heard it from the same person.. both sides.. ahh we went around the same bend with President Obama.. but if people are willing to run and put it all out there .. I say good on them, and how a person runs their campaign is going to give you insight on how they will run the government..

[33taw]

1. Actually, Buttigieg has governmental executive experience running a city the size of South Bend.

He also has military experience to be Commander in Chief. He also manages a personal budget responsibility.

[BannonsLiver]

6. No offense to Pete but

Deciding which pot holes to fix or where to put a new playground doesn’t exactly rise to the level of crisis president’s face. I’m generally with you on this, but let’s be careful about making sort of silly attempts to equate the two.

[33taw]

7. No offense taken. But, he certainly has other qualifications that make him a good candiate.

I like that he actually answers the questions. If we compare him to Trump, this is not all that silly. Trump had no governmental executive experience, no military experience, barely passed in school, and has four bankruptcies.

[jaceaf]

15. that's a low bar

I don't think comparing him to the absolute lowest standard helps your argument at all.

[33taw]

18. Yeah, I suppose that is true. Hopefully, we GOTV for whoever is the nominee.

I haven’t decided who to support, but I do like his willingness to answer questions and he doesn’t seem to have baggage.

[Lefta Dissenter]

27. Not only to answer the questions,

But to clearly explain the reasoning behind his answers. We learn that he is a thoughtful person who doesn’t see the world just in black and white.

[crazytown]

8. How about an airplane crash into houses

and the a so called ‘one in a century flood. (Dummy’s lost the House after a flood)

[marylandblue]

9. On the other hand, he was an intelligence officer in Afghanistan.

He probably faced life or death crises more than once while he was there.

[patricia92243]

16. Being able to work with people that don't necessarily agree with you is a huge part of

governing. Listening to people and taking advice are other things he has proved he can do. He has mentioned this in one of his speeches and I am sure will mention it more as time goes on.

Trump only worked with people he had the advantage over and were yes men. He won't listen or take advice.

[marylandblue]

17. You are downplaying what mayors actually do.

They don't decide which potholes to fix. A supervisor in the Transportation Department does that.

On the other hand, South Bend had a 500-year flood in 2018, which is exactly the sort of thing we expect Presidents to deal with too.

If it's an international or military crisis, no Senator or Governor has that type of experience either.

[BlueWI]

32. This.

I agree 100%. Being a successful big-city mayor is definitely relevant experience, combined with military service and wisdom.

Being a governor of Washington state and a former congressman is great preparation too! 😁

[Celerity]

19. he goes into depth about that in the very first question here

?t=1

If you have the time, watch the whole thing, he is quite extraordinary

[Uncle Joe]

36. I agree, Pete is very articulate and intelligent,

wise beyond his years.

[mobeau69]

21. Pot holes? When there's a police involved shooting with racial implications he gets the call.

His administration instituted a policy of posting all data on police use of force on the city's website (link below). Anyone can go there and look up the data. He manages a budget of $300 million and a workforce of over a thousand people. South Bend has problems and issues more like Chicago than Mayberry.


http://police-southbend.opendata.arcgis.com

[BannonsLiver]

24. Ok.

[True Dough]

26. Well written post!

[TwilightZone]

2. The ability to put together a compentent staff is equally, if not more, important.

I think a candidate's personal experience is overrated.

It's not that applicable experience isn't necessary or preferable, but the presidency is a group effort. No one can be an expert on everything, so the ability to put together a staff that will cover all the bases and provide expertise in a variety of areas is essential.

[Peacetrain]

3. Absolutely!! Amen to that

Trump showed us what he was going to be like by how he ran his campaign.. and it was awful, and he has been awful.. living off the rewards that Obama left..but that is going to run out as he runs the government into the ground just like he did his businesses.. so yep .. how they run that campaign gives good insight on how they manage..

[Stuart G]

4. Just a note of information. The current President of the United States had NO experience

working in government. None. He was not a government employee of any kind. The government of states that he worked in, sued him, and he used the government to declare bankruptcy a few times (??) but he never officially worked for a government agency or the state, national or local government.

...Buttigieg has more experience in the time he has worked in local government than the current occupant of the White House had before winning the election..

[Peacetrain]

5. He showed us plenty when he ran for office..

he was inept other than trading on what Obama left him... and he has run that to the ground.. I agree Buttigieg has much more applicable experience than Trump.. that is a fact

[marylandblue]

10. I think you are right that the campaign gives you some insight

I like the way Pete is running his campaign so far. He is doing all the right things that an insurgent should be doing. Right now he created a positive buzz about himself. None of the other onepercenters have managed to this. Klobuchar stumbled out of the block though she did good damage control. Castro can barely get airtime despite having had years of good press. Inslee's climate change agenda hasn't been enough to set him apart from the crowd.

O'Rourke is Buttigieg's only rival as an insurgent strategist, but so far he is mostly living in the afterglow of his Senate campaign.

[Peacetrain]

12. My husband is the one that pointed that out to me

a few years ago, and I think he got if off from someone else.. and it sure seems to hold up

[Cha]

35. No, Beto O'Rourke is Not

".. mostly living in the afterglow of his Senate Campaign."

He's building on his experience of running a state wide campaign in Texas and coming within less than 3% points of winning.


How the race between Ted Cruz and Beto O'Rourke became the closest in Texas in 40 years

“Who?”

That was the reaction back in late 2016 from former Houston Mayor Annise Parker when she first heard that a sophomore Democratic congressman from El Paso named Beto O’Rourke was mulling a challenge to U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. Parker, like most other Texans, had absolutely no clue who O’Rourke was, or why she should take seriously his potential entry into a race that many Democrats viewed as a suicide mission.

Almost exactly two years later, O'Rourke fell roughly 220,000 votes short out of 8.3 million of unseating Cruz, closer to winning a statewide office than any Texas Democrat in a generation. The strength of his candidacy helped Texas Democrats pick up two U.S. House seats, two state Senate seats and a dozen state House seats

.
https://www.texastribune.org/2018/11/09/ted-cruz-beto-orourke-closest-texas-race-40-years/

[marylandblue]

37. You are misinterpreting my remarks.

He did very well in his Texas campaign. That gave him a leg up for this one. He starts off relatively high in the polls because he already has a lot of name recognition. But the question remains as to whether he will grow to challenge the frontrunners. It's still too early to tell.

[elleng]

11. EXECUTIVE experience!

A FEW have it, including Mayor Pete, Jay Inslee, Senator Sanders (as mayor,) and others.

[33taw]

14. Biden has it as Vice President for 8 years.

[Cha]

34. Executive Experience for Biden..

Vice President of the United States.. Working with President Obama.

[joshcryer]

13. We weren't wrong about Obama.

[mcar]

20. I recall many on this board saying

Andrew Gillum wasn't experienced enough to run for president bc he was "only" a mayor. Wonder what the difference could be with ppl embracing Mayor Pete?

[marylandblue]

22. Well I didn't say that. I didn't even think of it because he wasn't running.

I wasn't interested in Pete either until I took a look at him.
Are the people now supporting Pete the same ones who said Gillum wasn't qualified?

[mobeau69]

23. Be prepared for but, but, but Tallahassee is so much bigger.

In reality Tallahassee is less than twice the size of South Bend. On game day weekends South Bend has a lot more people and all the additional headaches and problems that come with thousands of fans just like Tallahassee does.

[Bettie]

30. If Gillum had thrown his hat in the ring, I'd have been

happy to hear it.

He didn't and I had never heard of Mayor Pete. I like what I've heard from him.

I liked what I heard about Gillum (though, not being in FL, I didn't pay super close attention).

I also really admire Stacy Abrams.

Of the three, only one is currently running.

[Honeycombe8]

25. The person has to be special. Running for U S President is brutal.

It's not for the feint of heart, or for someone who can't think fast on his feet, not fully confidant, no sense of humor. The opposition is Trump, which will make it especially brutal. How will he handle being called "Little Petey" or "Creepy Joe" or her being called "Pocahontas"? It will happen, and the candidate better be ready. Ignoring the nickname won't work, I think. If the nickname sticks, it's all over. I think this leaves the nationally-unknown candidates more exposed, since they are not defined already. The public may be more apt to think of them with that nickname.

It's the person, I think, rather than the resume'. But experience helps. You're apt to handle something better the second or third time around, than when faced with it the first time.

I can recall some of the disasters of never-ran-on-a-national-level-before candidates. But they were all Republicans (Palin, Rick "oops" Perry, catatonic Jeb Bush). Maybe the Democrats do better at it because they speak more from the heart, or are just used to speaking to the public one-on-one.

I think the debates will weed out the weak ones.

[marylandblue]

28. This is exactly why I think Buttigieg is the best choice

He's great at throwing shade.


'I don't recall seeing any Starbucks over there': Buttigieg pushes back after Schultz's military claim


https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.indystar.com/amp/3167070002

[Doitnow]

29. I bet anything that as long as there is the possibility of Biden running, nobody is

going to say Bernie is too old. The minute Biden says he's not running I can just hear the massive cry that Bernie is too old.

[Blue_true]

31. Buttigieg took a poor city that was going backwards and turned it

mostly around, he has not gotten an iron grip on violent crime yet, but has things in that area going in the right direction.

Three past President were Mayors at some point before they won the Presidency. Abe Lincoln was a one or two term state legislator when he won the US Presidency. So, it is about the particular person and that person's ability to rise to the challenge of the job of President than it is about markers like current office or age. I believe that a person who has proven him or herself at a current level has every right to throw his or her hat into the ring.

[Cha]

33. Exactly, Peacetrain.. and I already

know who I do Not want running the government.