Pete Buttigieg Quotes
So, I've learned - as a young Democrat, I've learned to think cautiously before offering advice to Nancy Pelosi.
Buttigieg, Pete. CNN Presidential Town Hall. Interview by Jake Tapper, CNN, 10 Mar. 2019.
This apparently is an operational principle in most representative democracies. Attacking the opposition is always easier and more effective than defending your own party’s position. Doing anything else, especially providing a non partisan, rasoned analysis, is the thing most to be avoided.
Carter philosophically did not see his role as the head of his party anywhere near as important as his Presidential role. At the same time, Carter had forged Congressional majority support from a coalition of conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans. However, that alienated him even more from the liberal Democrats who even fielded Ted Kennedy as a primary candidate against him. Carter won the nomination but lost many of his own party for the general election and he lost to Ronald Reagan.
American Congressional politics had reached the point where whenever a member of Congress voted on a controversial issue, there would be enough lobbyists, corporation, money and single issue voters to run a candidate against the member of Congress in the primaries. So even if a politician voted with the majority of his/her constituency in a controversial issue, an irate minority with money could possible defeat the member in the primary election. Even if the member won the primary, he/she would still have to raise more money to contest it and then the member might be so wounded by a bitter negative primary that he/she would be vulnerable in the general election.
Peter Paul Montgomery Buttigieg is an American politician who has served as the United States secretary of transportation since February 3, 2021. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the 32nd mayor of South Bend, Indiana from 2012 through 2020.
