WaPo op-ed: How Pete Buttigieg can vault into the top tier

[True Dough]

Not convinced all these recommendations are going to help Pete gain significant traction with more voters, but the financial corruption issue is a big one. Either way, I'm confident Mayor Pete will continue to resonate with the messages of his choosing, because his earnestness and sincerity shines through.

Aside from building out campaign staff and using paid media to further increase his name-ID, Buttigieg has a chance to expand upon his generational change idea. In doing so, he can lay down a critique of the baby boom generation of politicians that includes most of his competitors.

First is financial corruption, a vulnerability for President Trump but also for Democratic politicians who have done very little when they were in office. “No,” he should remind us, is a complete sentence. That means for those in public office no gifts, no emoluments, no business holdings, no active investments (i.e. everything in a blind trust), no secret meetings with lobbyists, no nepotism, no conflicts of interest and no lobbyist jobs for five years after office.

Second, Buttigieg’s most memorable line was “I was born to make myself useful.” We are all, or should be. He’s the perfect figure to push for a voluntary national service plan akin to ROTC. The country pays for your college; you pay it back in domestic service. If ever we needed places to foster national purpose and break down geographic, racial and socioeconomic barriers, now’s the time.

Third, remarkably no one in the field has picked up on the elite college scandal. It’s time to cajole elite universities into diversifying their admissions so that 60 percent of the kids aren’t from the top 1 percent. It’s time institutions sitting on billions in endowments get pushed them to cut or drastically reduce tuition or lose their tax-exempt status. Meanwhile, employers who require a college diploma for jobs that clearly don’t need one, thereby disproportionately hurting nonwhites (i.e. constitute discrimination under an adverse impact theory), should face legal consequences under Title VII’s anti-discrimination provisions. In short, expand college for those who want it; remove where possible college as a barrier to employment.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/04/01/heres-how-buttigieg-gets-into-top-tier/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.6283e75e64e0

[Moostache]

1. College costs and access are an essential issue...right next to climate change for the future...

Speaking to young voters about issues that are or very soon will impact their lives is crucial to motivating turn out. Young people have GOT to care now because it is abundantly clear the older generations will do absolutely nothing about issues that will have their greatest impact after the expected mortality age of themselves.

People LOVE to say they care about children and grandchildren, but when the time comes to vote for a candidate that says their top priority would be cutting fossil fuel use and emissions and that such things would require changes to the way we currently operate, suddenly the commitment to the future dries up and becomes ash in their mouths...

Stay focused on the 3 essential issues of the day (IMO):
1) Healthcare reform and expanding access to care for ALL Americans

2) Education and workforce training reform - college available to the qualified and desirous, community college for those who may need more time deciding, training and trades for those less inclined to chase post-HS degrees. An advanced society recognizes the mutual benefit of having an educated populace and strives to make it a top priority...failing dictatorships demonize the educated and try to break down support for public education assistance.

Our economy no longer offers a viable career path to uneducated, non-skilled employees...corporations do not have a 50+year commitment to their workers or communities and to pretend otherwise is disingenuous and harmful. Transformation is always painful and always with us, but the way to prosper from it is just as omnipresent...making our own workers and citizens more prepared to fill the needs of the economy instead of only ensuring they are just smart enough to consume and just stupid enough to not realize why...

3) Climate Change Action - the Green New Deal is a start...NOT an end! WE are facing existential crises ALREADY - food chain collapse (insects and plankton extinctions) is started NOW. Temperatures in Anchorage were some 20-30 degrees ABOVE historical normal this year. Glaciers are disappearing, sea ice is thinner and less resilient than ever. Weather patterns are shifting in dangerous and unpredictable ways. Crop losses and soil viability are on a precipice. These things do not care if you "believe" in them or not, they are happening and they are NOT slowing down or stopping. This nation SHOULD have been on a war footing against fossil fuel dependency since 9/12/2001 instead of a war footing against Islam.

Climate change policy IS national security policy. Saudi assholes killing journalists using US trained operatives and getting away with it to preserve access to oil fields is insanity. A full shift in power generation, storage and consumption is an absolute necessity, but the best part is that for a nation in need of a new industry to create and maintain jobs that can provide a high standard of living and cannot be outsourced - focusing on power grid, power lines, installations of solar and wind capability and more...THAT should have been in full swing since 2008 (or really a LOT sooner)...but the opportunity is still there.

50 years ago, building cars for GM was a lucrative and viable career and the cars changed the nation and our expectations and lifestyles to boot...NOW, the new industry for the next 50+ years needs to be clean energy production, electrical grid optimization, capacity storage (local batteries and loops) and transmission (moving solar and wind energy to where they are needed from where they are abundant). These things need to be designed by scientists, prototyped and perfected by engineers, built by laborers, moved by transportation personnel and installed by technicians and professionals. At every level along that path, professionals in sales and management and project completion are needed...

Yes, the future is scary, but it doesn't get less so by pretending we can go backwards to move ahead...

[Celerity]

2. Why would a RW neocon warhawk like Rubin want to aid Buttigieg?

I'm suspicious of her motives, and her having a go at 'corrupt Democratic politicians' would be suicidal for Buttigieg to emulate.

Seems like a poison pill attempt to associate him with that tosh.

Am I being too paranoid?

[True Dough]

3. I can't tell you with any certainty

but it's good to look at all opinions with a critical eye.

[Celerity]

4. kick