You can stick a fork in Peter Pander. The same guy who so recently boasted about all the delegates he had won is tapping out.
It’s hard to say what eventually put the final nail in his coffin.
Did he just run out of cash flow?
Was it the beating he took in the ethnic vote in South Carolina?
Maybe he over-played the religion card — dissing traditional religious folks while simultaneously claiming to be MORE religious than those who held to traditional Christian ethics and morals?
What are the 3 big takeaways from him dropping out?
1) LGBT status no longer a political liability for candidates
For good or ill, the LGBT crowd can finally stop complaining they are some kind of put-upon underclass facing wave after wave of oppression.
Not only did Preachy Pete wear his homosexuality on his sleeve, but he doubled down, and blasted traditional Christians as being ‘less’ Christian than himself for holding to traditional definitions of Christian ethics, including sexual ethics.
Even those who do not share his views on same-sex marriage objected more strenuously to his policies and his preachy-ness than to the fact that he exchanged vows with another dude.
One gay reporter that leans Republican declared the era of gay victimhood ‘over‘
But most remarkable is the fact that Buttigieg’s sexuality was largely, if not totally, a nonissue during his bid. Heck, President Trump said it’s “great” that a gay man could run for president, remarking that he “ha[s] no problem with it whatsoever.” Trump later said he would personally vote for a gay candidate. (Could you imagine Mitt Romney saying that? I sure can’t.)
To have that kind of acceptance coming from the leader of the GOP really shows just how far we’ve progressed toward being a society where public figures are not judged on who they love or how they structure their family life.
Sure, there were a handful of conservatives here and there who made homophobic remarks about Buttigieg or were otherwise bothered by his sexuality. But by and large, most Republicans didn’t care and made substantive criticisms and arguments against the mayor instead.
If anything, the most virulent intolerance toward Buttigieg during this campaign cycle probably came from the woke Left.
Left-wing journalists wrote nasty screeds and social media diatribes about how Buttigieg “wasn’t gay enough,” because he wasn’t super effeminate or a black transgender woman or something. Some radical activists even dubbed Buttigieg a gay traitor for not being a socialist. But even these voices were fringe, not mainstream.
That segues neatly into point two…
2) Pete’s religion may have been a liability…
Unlike other candidates, Pete wasn’t merely a churchgoer that affirmed a set of religious beliefs and showed up o some country church o Sunday, he took it further. He actively couched many of his political views — including abortion — in religious language.
He’s a BETTER Christian than the other guys, Dontcha know? He positively waxed theological in explaining (badly) that abortion isn’t wrong because, in Genesis, life begins at he first breath. (We note that he is speaking about Adam who, strictly speaking, was CREATED, not Born in the passage he’s citing.)
This doesn’t play well in the party that got caught booing God in their 2012 convention.
3) Identitarian politics are still reigning as king for the Democrat party…
Buttigieg held his own well enough in Iowa. But when it came to a State rich in Black votes, he had his ass handed to him.
The BLM peeps and other activists dragged him over how he handled some police action in his city… and he never really recovered from that.
There’s probably some legal or financial reason (or is it just ‘saving face’) that candidates officially ‘suspend’ their campaign — even when they are well and truly beaten.
Remember that campaign dance they dreamed up for Pete?
Well… this guy sure did:
The official Pete Buttigieg campaign suspension video pic.twitter.com/1FTjQSQSFy
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) March 1, 2020
