Everyone drops out
In the wake of Pete Buttigieg’s announcement of suspension of campaign, all the candidates jumped aboard twitter, enthused on what a super campaign he made and brought so much to the campaign and now for all his supporters and voters, they should now vote for them. The most antsy opponent, Klobucher clearly thinking he benefitted from male privilege and a woman with as light a record could never be taken seriously — seemed aware of the awkwardness of her statement and deflected to praise of Buttigieg’s delightful husband — dropping a name I had to look up.
We have no idea how close Klobucher was to pulling the plug. As it were, her campaign ended inauspiciously — not a bang, but a whimper — activist disruption and enacting the hecklers’ veto in bad faith — and a poorly attended campaign rally.
The last notes of the Buttigieg campaign seemed almost cookie cutter scripted– apparently they were able to find the one caucus goer unaware he was gay and switching her vote according to this new knowledge. Serving, I suppose, to confirm the belief among those queer activists that, damned if he’s not gay enough — sliding firmly into the satisfied with gay rights participation in our society as opposed to, apparently Marsha Gessen’s overarching goal of gaying our society. We won’t make real progress until the football season doesn’t dominate tv ratings and… Show tune competitions do? What the gummint’s supposed to do to accomplish this feat, I would not know.
A final pilgrimage to Jimmy Carter. Which, to be sure, makes some sense — a privilege of running for president within earshot of the time of the Georgia primary is you can arrange to meet with the non politicized reverant president, who is happy to meet with any of them. And I half suspect that that was the reason this floated into the ether. But read the damned thing more carefully. First of all he was accepting of civil unions, conflating it with marriage. I never made the mistake, but did understand it as a way station whose logic could not stand up against marriags. Secondly, he is coming out for your religions’ rights to refuse — a matter in the eyes of, Beto O’Rourke most explicitly but random editorials and current progressive stalwarts — aoc — will fuminate on. I don’t know where we sit with tax implications for churches not performing same sex marriages beyond o’Rourke, but the logic is clear beyond that in current court cases, and the effect is Jimmy Carter’s once progressive stance is now reactionary.
Funny, Klobuchar — expediting any twitter jump around by announcing an endorsement of Biden– resulted in the twitter hashtag cry out for warren to drop out and endorse Sanders already. Hm. No opportunistic reason to praise the man she seemed to seethe at just a tad a few weeks’ back?