I posted this recently.
Take a moment and click the "see more" to get the whole p.o.v.
After I posted, two friends offered their own p.o.v. in the always engaging comments section.
"....I'll give you he's intelligent and well spoken. But if he's the top of the ticket, who do you pair him with? That's why, at this time, I think the VEEP is a good fit for him...."
"...I love this guy and he would be a definite first choice but my concern is his lack of experience in the Washington waters. We already have that and it’s a mess, although this would still be a heckuva step up. Still, I’d prefer to see him in Congress first...."
My instinctive responses to those observations were far too detailed to graph in a Facebook box.
Allow me to offer them in this forum.
Gentlemen.....
I understand and agree, at one level, with exactly what I'm hearing both of you essentially saying.
He's young, he's intelligent, he's got some game and any reasonable observer would nod in the affirmative that "da kid's got potential."
Conventional wisdom translation: Raw talent does time, pays dues and hones craft in the minors before being given a shot at playing in "the show."
Critically key phrase there...
Conventional wisdom.
Custom made, even comforting, in conventional times.
Strategically impractical, even flawed, in unconventional times.
Welcome to America 2019.
And the unconventional times splashed, scarred, tarred and feathered with the bigliest of American history anomalies.
Donald Trump.
Trump was elected for, essentially, two reasons.
He wasn't Hillary Clinton.
And to a significant number of people in a a certain number of states that resulted in a certain number of electoral votes, Trump represented the kind of "burn down the barn to get rid of them thar rats" mentality that allowed them the mental luxury of overlooking, even ignoring, his staggering lack of integrity, morality, ability, qualification and/or humanity.
Not to mention honesty.
Let alone intelligence.
The oft spoken, what would have once been unspoken, fact of the matter was that those voters, and those who continue to support him to this moment, simply turned a blind eye and deaf ear to character flaws that would have, as recently as the day before Trump announced he was running, derailed the candidacy of any other candidate from any other party before the primary season was a done deal. Let alone the nominating process.
Let alone, God forbid, the general election.
Turns out, God took a pass on that forbidding business in 2016.
And lest the more zealous of the zealots pounce on that with their "proves that Trump is the chosen one" moronic mumble, let me offer you what I said, on air, on my then weekly talk radio show in the aftermath of the election results.
"This had to happen", I said, then, "if only to prove to a sufficient number of people, that it can never, ever, ever be allowed to happen again."
I take credit for that insight.
I take no credit whatsoever for the implementation.
Personally, I think God is doing a little parenting. Sometimes children have to learn the hard way that something they want, or have convinced themselves they want, is, simply, bad for them.
And that hard way sometimes takes the form of letting those children have what they want.
Be careful what you wish for and all that.
Or vote for, as the case may be.
Which brings us back to unconventional times.
And the misconception that, with the push of a voting booth button, one can turn back time.
Even Cher knows better than that.
Or, obviously, the lyric would have gone in another direction.
And "turning back time", as it applies to what we're talking about here, is returning to what our mental muscle memory tells us is the norm, the usual, the "way things are usually done" when it comes to deciding who we're going to support in what the networks are already dramatically dun dun dunning as "Decision 2020".
If you're one of those folks all about getting that decision made the way things are usually done, here's something you need to do first, for brevity sake, spoken in a very popular American dialect.
New Jersey blunt.
Fuggedaboutit.
What you knew as "the norm" is a big ol' negatory, good buddy. The "usual" now comes with a big fat UN on the front of it, like an impertinent pimple on prom night.
The way we do what we do when we do it in this country when it comes to electing a president may be a lot of things from here on out, but here's one thing it will never be....from here on out...ever again.
The way it used to be.
Because of the splashing, scarring, tarring and feathering done to that way by the aforementioned bigliest of American history anomalies.
Donald Trump.
And, bet the bank, you would get no argument from him.
Because if you think he's a world class pussy grabber, he simply has no peer on the planet when it comes to grabbing credit.
So, my fellow 'Muricans, when it comes to the tried and true, traditional path we have taken for two hundred and fifty-ish years when it comes to making that Decision......that road is closed.
Sorry, moose, along with donkey and elephant, out front shoulda told ya.
And...that...brings us to youth....and sexual identity.
And the reservations reasonable people have about Pete Buttigieg.
Youth.
Ordinarily, "youth" is a code word for "experience". It's in keeping with the traditional conventional wisdom that only with age comes experience and only with experience comes wisdom.
First of all, there's that obvious, but now obsolete, phrase "traditional, conventional wisdom". But, more importantly, that particular conventional "wisdom" has always been largely a myth. At least in terms of youth automatically disqualifying someone from respect for their skills and abilities.
History is full of names to prove the point.
Alexander the Great....conquered countries at 18.
Joan of Arc did some pretty heavy lifting at 17.
Mozart wrote his first symphony at 8.
Broadway star Alexander Hamilton acquired what was essentially the job of chief of staff to George Washington at 22.
And not a one of them had a smart phone or Twitter account to give them a leg up.
More contemporarily, Theodore Roosevelt.
Governor of New York State at 41.
President of the United States at 43.
And, of course, John F. Kennedy.
Who, back in the days when Russia was a rightfully mistrusted adversary and not an honorary member of the Presidential cabinet, faced down the then Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, preventing what historians agree could have very easily become global thermonuclear war.
Kennedy was 45, then. Elected at 43.
The other part of the "youth" argument, when it comes to Buttigieg.....
...as expressed by one of my friends in their comment.....
"my concern is his lack of experience in the Washington waters. We already have that and it’s a mess, although this would still be a heckuva step up. Still, I’d prefer to see him in Congress first....".
Point well made and point well taken.
Here's the thing, though. The "mess" we're in is, admittedly, partly the result of Trump's lack of governing experience. But a case can be made, and allow me to make it, that the larger part of that "mess" is the result of Trump's pathology.
He listens to no one. He accepts advice and counsel from no one. He believes himself to be superior, infallible and incapable of being wrong about anything.
Ever.
His amusing army of loyalists continue to scream bloody murder about what they consider the "folly" of impeachment, they are, to a man and woman, just not getting it.
That "impeachment", in this case, is just a code word.
For hospice.
For if narcissism were cancer, this patient would be easily diagnosed as Stage Four.
Buttigieg, from all indications, is a thinker. But he is, clearly, also, a listener. And my Spidey Sense is telling me that this young man has a key personality trait found in all historically successful leaders.
Moving confidently forward in the areas in which he feels knowledgeable and informed. While surrounding himself with knowledgeable, educated, informed, expert opinion and expanding his own, for lack of a better term, "wisdom level" by paying attention to what they have to offer.
Old saying.
One brain, one mouth. Two ears.
Pete's got the math down cold.
And the sexual identity?
The temptation here is to address that with a combination of eye rolling, "talk to the hand" and "really? after three and half years of history's most notorious vagina gripper?...."
But let's skip the potshots and cheap shots and come at this one from the point of view I offered a few moments ago.
In 1960, the fear was that electing a Catholic president would surely be the end of days.
America elected a Catholic president and it wasn't the end of days.
In 2008, the fear was that electing a black president would surely be the end of days.
America elected a black president and it wasn't the end of days.
The good old days, maybe, but only in parts of the country where obsolete anachronisms like Lindsay Graham and Mitch McConnell are still actually seen as patriots.
America 2020.
Pete Buttigeig is a decorated military officer veteran, respected and accomplished mayor of a very much American Midwest city, the youngest ever elected, and re-elected, in that city since 1898, a Phi Beta Kappa, Rhodes Scholar, Harvard graduate, experienced in city governing and politics, speaks eight languages, in addition to English, a committed Christian, a political philosophy that can rightly, and fairly, be categorized as essentially common sense centrist.....and...
...is a happily married man. To another man.
One of the remarkable qualities of what is steadily becoming a phenomenal campaign is what we'll call the "unexpected" factor.
More and more mention is being made in print, online, in broadcasts, etc about the mayor's effect on those he addresses who have come to hear and see him for the first time, predictably, even understandably, with at least a few preconceived notions about him.
Not the least of which, of course, that he is happily married. To another man.
And more and more mention is made of how so, so many of those who walked in with those preconceived notions walk out, if not newly committed supporters, then certainly impressed with what they have seen and what they have heard.
Much like what he has to say in that conversation with Fallon.
Somehow, that kind of talent...and skill.....and positive energy has a way of making something like his sexual identity less and less of, if not a non, issue.
Something remarkable and historic happened in November 2016.
And that's not the good news.
Something remarkable and historic is happening almost four years later.
And given that "mess" that we're in, it's good news that couldn't come any sooner.
Too young?
That's a stereotype America can't afford to indulge anymore.
Inexperienced?
Show me five people who have been elected members of the Federal Government, most especially those who have been in office for ten years or more, who are the better fit for the needs and responsibilities of the office of President of the United States as it exists right now...and I'll listen to your concerns about inexperience.
I'm confident that listening won't be necessary.
In an ideal world, the path to the presidency would include, even require, that anyone asking for the honor of serving in that office spend those days, months, years in the minor leagues.
America 2020 doesn't exist in an ideal world.
The process of making "America Great Again" smashed that ideal world with a hammer three years ago.
In one of writer Aaron Sorkin's episode scripts for "The West Wing", there's a scene where Sam Seaborn and Josh Lyman are walking a city street, talking about the pressing tasks requiring immediate attention.
Seaborn is pumped. Lyman the more measured of the two.
"It's impossible to do it all at once," Lyman offers, "we have to do one thing at a time.."
Seaborn replies with both a smile and a determined look.
"We don't have time to do things one at a time."
Neither do we, Sam.
Neither do we.
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