Bruised and beaten in middle America after the presidential election, Democrats are vetting Pete Buttigieg as the next DNC chairman. And so far, they’re pretty impressed with the mayor from South Bend, Ind.
With rust on his resume and a pickup truck in his driveway, many Democratic analysts think Buttigieg has the geography, youth and biography necessary to lead the party’s revival. They might want to reconsider.
On paper, the fresh face from the old manufacturing city seems perfect. It’s easy to see the infatuation and understand the optimism. Party strategists hope that the 34-year-old can help win back the once-loyal blue-collar voter who abandoned Hillary Clinton last November.
“He comes from the middle of the country, where the party needs to be strengthened,” David Axelrod President Obama’s former chief strategist told the New York Times. “This is one of the most talented young leaders in the Democratic Party.”
And in theory, Indiana should be in play. In 2008, Obama charmed Hoosiers racked by the Great Recession. Four years later another state-wide triumph came when Democrat Rep. Joe Donnelly ran against “partisan gridlock” to win his seat in the Senate.
The focus on those data points fuels a vision of Buttigieg as a sort of Democrat version of Reince Priebus. Like Priebus, Buttigieg aspires to turn Indiana into a fortress for the Party of Jefferson. And standing at the crossroads of America, the thinking seems to go, he could rebuild what’s left of Clinton’s torched firewall. For Democrats, it’d be huge.
But while courting the Midwest has come into vogue among recently self-conscious coastal elites, identity politics are a poor substitute for an economic message. Heartland voters aren’t going to go Democratic simply because the party’s top brass hails from the Hoosier state. That’d require a new vision, one that Buttigieg isn’t offering.
The new face espouses the same old platform. Sizing up his competition for the position, Buttigieg stressed a continuation of liberal principles. “Everyone in this race is progressive,” he told Investor’s Business Daily, “everyone wants to be chair, and wants to be chair in order to defend progressive values.”
Over the last decade, Progressive values have a poor track rate in Indiana. The past three governors have been Republicans (including one who’s now headed to Pennsylvania Avenue) and the GOP enjoys overwhelming majorities in both chambers of the General Assembly.
As a result, Indiana has lurched to the right. Lawmakers slashed taxes, deregulated industry and passed right to work laws. If anything, the government serves as an antithesis to a progressive state. At the ballot box again this year, the electorate punctuated that. Voters went overwhelmingly for Trump while also rejecting a Democratic throwback, Sen. Evan Bayh.
There’s little in Buttigieg’s electoral stats to suggest he could improve on that record. Two years ago the Washington Post called him “the most interesting mayor you’ve never heard of.” Maybe there’s a reason why he’s so unknown. After all, when he ran for state-wide election, he lost badly.
Campaigning for state treasurer in 2010, Buttigieg lost in a landslide by more than 420,000 votes. Put another way, that’s nearly the size of Indiana’s three biggest cities combined.
Indiana could be a more Democratic state. It had a Democratic governor last decade, and two Democratic senators in recent years. Obama even won the state in the 2008 presidential election. So the steady GOP gains more recently suggest that the state’s current leading Democrats, including Buttigieg, haven’t won voters over to their agenda.
Sure, no one can doubt his work in South Bend. He’s helped clean up blight and led a number of public work efforts. At the same time, no one ought to predict that the city will serve as a springboard to a state-wide victory. Democrats have held that mayoralty since 1972, when Nixon was still in the White House.
Democrats are correct to blame a bubble for many of their electoral problems. They have lost touch with heartland voters, alienating the blue collar and union voters they once relied on. But in the end, Buttigieg’s Midwest perspective would only apply a new veneer to a losing progressive platform.
Only a real change in policies and priorities, not the hope brought by a new personality, can save Democrats in middle America.
Philip Wegmann is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
