Pete Buttigieg is having a moment atop of the polls in the early-voting state of Iowa. But this success won’t easily carry over to other more diverse states, because Buttigieg is still struggling with black voters. In a frantic effort to fill that gap in his support, Buttigieg appears to have falsely touted black endorsements for his “Douglass Plan” for racial justice.
Here’s what happened. The South Bend, Indiana, mayor and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate polls abysmally with black voters, and he knows it. So, Buttigieg put out a comprehensive “Douglass Plan” to try to win over black voters by touting his support for criminal justice reform and other laudable policies. However, the plan contained elements that were both possibly illegal and extreme. As I wrote at the time of its release, “The Douglass Plan is a microcosm of Buttigieg’s entire campaign: It’s got some good intentions, but it’s lacking in courage and steeped in tired, bad ideas.”
Now, though, the Buttigieg’s rollout of the Douglass Plan has once again shown the painful whiteness, and tone-deafness of his wannabe woke campaign. Buttigieg touted the fact that, supposedly, 400 South Carolinians endorsed his plan, and an open letter was released that highlighted prominent black leaders among the 400. By implication at times, and explicitly at others, the campaign presented the list as if it contained 400 black supporters.
Turns out, many of the names listed as “endorsements” were neither black nor even Buttigieg supporters.
Investigate journalist Ryan Grim of The Intercept exposed this sham, highlighting that the Buttigieg campaign had told people they had to “opt-out” of endorsing the plan. That’s right, they basically said: Email us by the end of today and let us know if you don’t want your name to be included. Suffice it to say this is not normally how endorsements are collected.
The results are frankly, hilarious — unless you’re Buttigieg, in which case they’re humiliating. As Grim exposed, at least 184 of these “black supporters” are actually white, more than a third of the entire list. Other names are repeated, and some don’t even live in South Carolina.
“I never actually endorsed the plan. They went ahead and used my name,” said one prominent South Carolinian who the Buttigieg campaign named as a top supporter. https://t.co/Gge2P5mzc9
— The Intercept (@theintercept) November 15, 2019
Oh, and to make matters worse, apparently the Buttigieg campaign used a stock photo from Kenya in its original Douglass plan, which is supposed to be about black Americans. Yikes.
The Buttigieg campaign using a stock photo of a Kenyan woman for its Douglass Plan for Black America is now news in Kenya.
The woman in the photo reached out to me very confused. One story here: https://t.co/H217w3QXdw
— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) November 17, 2019
One of the endorsements the Buttigieg campaign touted most prominently was that of South Carolina State Rep. Ivory Thigpen, a prominent local official, and black leader. Thigpen, however, told The Intercept “How it was rolled out was not an accurate representation of where I stand.” He continued, “I thought I made it clear to them that I was a strong Bernie Sanders supporter — actually co-chair of the state, and I was not seeking to endorse their candidate or the plan.”
This entire saga leaves egg on Buttigieg’s face, for sure. It’s simply unacceptable for a campaign to tout fake black endorsements, and mislead the public about having far more endorsements for its policy proposal than actually exist.
This will only accentuate Buttigieg’s struggles with black voters, who already view him as out-of-touch with their community due to his failed tenure as mayor.
