'You wanted to watch cartoons': Dems pile on Mayor Pete for inexperience
'You wanted to watch cartoons': Dems pile on Mayor Pete for inexperience
February 8, 2020 | Samantha Chang | Print Article
Former mayor Pete Buttigieg took a beating from all sides at the Democratic primary debate. Senator Amy Klobuchar and former VP Joe Biden called out Buttigieg's lack of national experience. "He's a mayor of a small city," Biden quipped. (screenshot)
Pete Buttigieg — the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana — took incoming from all sides at the Democratic primary debate. Notably, Senator Amy Klobuchar and former Vice President Joe Biden both spotlighted Buttigieg's dismal lack of national political experience.
Klobuchar was especially enraged that Buttigieg trivialized her participation in the Senate impeachment trial, which he dismissed as boring. She and fellow senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders were forced to stop campaigning to attend the trial.
Klobuchar said: "What you said, Pete — as you were campaigning through Iowa while the three of us were jurors in that impeachment hearing — you said it was exhausting to watch and that you wanted to turn the channel and watch cartoons."
(Source: ABC News)
Klobuchar was annoyed that Buttigieg is promoting the laughable narrative that he's the cool, new upstart who's going to revolutionize Washington when in reality, he's the obscure former mayor of a small town.
"It is easy to go after Washington because that's a popular thing to do. It is much harder to lead," Klobuchar said. "It's popular to say because it makes you look like a 'cool newcomer.' I don't think that's what people want right now. We have a newcomer in the White House and look where it got us. I think having some experience is a good thing."
For the record, Donald Trump was a billionaire businessman who ran a multinational corporation for decades before running for president. He had a national and international profile BEFORE going into politics, unlike Klobuchar and Buttigieg, who most people never heard of before they ran for president.
By the same token, former freshman senator Barack Obama — whose claim to fame before becoming president was being a "community organizer" — proved that inexperience with running anything is disastrous.
Joe Biden echoed Amy Klobuchar's sentiments when he quipped: "He's a mayor of a small city who has done some good things but has not demonstrated his ability."
https://twitter.com/bbonner26/status/1226163892876791808
Billionaire philanthropist Tom Steyer tripled-down on Biden and Klobuchar's criticisms of newbie Buttigieg.
"That's why I'm worried about Mayor Pete," Steyer said. "You need to be able to go toe-to-toe with [Trump] and take him down on the debate stage or we're going to lose."
Steyer also slammed Buttigieg over his nonexistent support from black and Latino voters and the racial divisions that roiled his tenure as mayor.
"Unless you can appeal to the diverse parts of the Democratic Party — including the black community, including Latinos — if you can't do that, then we can't beat Donald Trump in November," Steyer said.
Last week, Fox News host Ed Henry asked Buttigieg why he continues to trash President Trump as racist, considering the tremendous strides Trump has made to help black Americans.
Ed Henry asks Buttigieg why he smears Trump as racist despite strides he made for blacks https://t.co/aIzbTqD9kH pic.twitter.com/VGxxAmyBEB
— Conservative News (@BIZPACReview) February 4, 2020
Henry pointed out that Buttigieg has been accused of racism toward African-Americans himself. Despite his nonstop pandering, Mayor Pete is polling at 0% with black primary voters.
Henry said: "Are you the right messenger to question the President on race when as mayor of South Bend, black leaders were quite critical of what you did, particularly in terms of police-involved shootings and other matters? Why are you questioning the President [and disregarding your own failures]?"
Buttigieg served two terms as mayor of South Bend, Indiana (population: 103,000). During his tenure, Buttigieg did nothing to improve the city's struggling economy or the racial divisions roiling the town.
The poverty rate in South Bend is 25.4%. That means that 1 in 4 residents is living in poverty. If Mayor Pete couldn't lift his tiny hamlet out of poverty, what makes anyone think he can run a nation of 331 million people?
Buttigieg booed and shouted down by black voters: 'Pete can't be our president!'