Oh, Pete, say it isn't so

Pete Buttigieg just keeps going down in my esteem.

The South Bend, Indiana, mayor polls close to zero nationally with African Americans, faring no better with that vote in South Carolina, a liability that he knows will thwart his nomination if he can’t turn it around.

[...]

Buttigieg has strived mightily to win support among the black community, especially on his home turf. His firing of South Bend’s first black police chief when he entered office in 2012 set off protests at the time, and Buttigieg wrote in his memoir that the controversy “affected my relationship with the African-American community in particular for years to come.” This past June, in the middle of his presidential campaign, Buttigieg returned home after a police officer gunned down a black man in South Bend. An exchange between a black constituent and Buttigieg at a tense demonstration has dogged his campaign ever since.

“You’re running for president, and you want black people to vote for you?” the woman said. “That’s not going to happen.”

“Ma’am, I’m not asking for your vote,” Buttigieg responded.

Yeah, that was particularly egregious. I saw the clips, and I don't remember him even saying "Ma'am".

In July, he released his campaign’s chief piece of policy outreach to black voters, called “The Douglass Plan: A Comprehensive Investment in the Empowerment of Black America.” The plan covers everything from criminal justice reform to public health care, education, and beyond. It proposes using federal contracting rules to increase the amount of contracts going to minority- and women-owned firms to 25 percent, and offers student loan deferment and forgiveness to Pell Grant recipients who go on to start businesses that employ at least three people.

  The Intercept

Sounds pretty good. What's the problem?

To build support for the plan, Buttigieg and his staff lobbied prominent black South Carolinians to endorse it in order to strengthen the cause of racial justice. The Washington Post reported on Monday that “Buttigieg persuaded hundreds of prominent black South Carolinians to sign onto the plan even if they are not supporting Buttigieg himself.”

Along with his release of the plan, his campaign directed consultants to convene focus groups with undecided black voters in South Carolina. The resulting research memo, finalized in late July, concluded that Buttigieg’s sexuality was a “barrier” to winning support among black voters. The memo was leaked to the press this fall. Though the campaign has since denied that it was the source of the leak, the initial article about the memo, published on October 22 by McClatchy, includes on-the-record quotes from the Buttigieg campaign — the type that customarily accompany a story that a campaign cooperates with. A spokesperson said that the campaign only cooperated after McClatchy had already obtained the memo.

Three days later, the Buttigieg campaign began promoting a list of 400 South Carolinian supporters of his Douglass Plan in emails to reporters and posts on social media.

[...]

The supporters were rolled out in a press release and open letter published in the HBCU Times — which focuses on “positive news related to Historically Black Colleges and Universities.” Listed at the top of the press release were three prominent supporters, Columbia City Councilwoman Tameika Devine; Rehoboth Baptist pastor and state Rep. Ivory Thigpen; and Johnnie Cordero, chair of the state party’s Black Caucus.

[...]

The blowback came immediately. Devine, who has not endorsed a candidate yet in the presidential election, told The Intercept that she did not intend her support for the plan to be read as an endorsement for Buttigieg’s candidacy.

[...]

“Clearly from the number of calls I received about my endorsement, I think the way they put it out there wasn’t clear, that it was an endorsement of the plan, and that may have been intentionally vague. I’m political, I know how that works,” she said. “I do think they probably put it out there thinking people wouldn’t read the fine print or wouldn’t look at the details or even contact the people and say, ‘Hey, you’re endorsing Mayor Pete?’”

[...]

Thigpen, meanwhile, has endorsed Sen. Bernie Sanders for president, and was startled when he learned the campaign had not only attached his name to the plan, but also listed him as one of three prominent supporters atop the letter.

[...]

'[E]ven though I had had conversations with the campaign [...] 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. But what I had talked about was potentially giving them a quote of support in continuing the conversation, because I do think it’s a very important conversation.”

Thigpen said he thought rolling out the big list of supporters was intended to show broad support in the black community, despite the reality. The letter was published out of the blue, Thigpen said. “I actually had not circled back to give them a quote, so I was alarmed and very much surprised to see, particularly, the headline as such because I do think it muddies the water, I do think it was a misrepresentation, and it easily could have confused a lot of people as to where I stood."

[...]

Johnnie Cordero is no longer listed publicly as a supporter. When The Intercept reached him for comment, he explained that he had never endorsed the plan, nor has he endorsed Buttigieg. “I never endorsed that plan. I don’t know how my name got on there."

[...]

"It’s presumptuous to think you can come up with a plan for black America without hearing from black folk. There’s nothing in there that said black folk had anything to do with the drafting of that plan. Now I like Pete, please don’t get me wrong. I’ll help him in any way I can. I think he’s an honest man, I think he’s a decent man, I think he has integrity. I’d like to see him keep running. But you don’t do that. Those days are over and done with. We’re tired of people telling us what we need. You wanna find out what we need? Come and ask us.”

[...]

Cordero said he repeatedly asked Buttigieg’s staff for details on how the plan was developed. “What I was talking back and forth with them about was, who drafted the plan? I know Pete didn’t draft the plan. I’m sure he had his advisers do it. But I wanna know who was involved in this plan such that you can claim that you speak for black America. The long and the short of it was they never sufficiently answered my questions, so I never actually endorsed the plan. They went ahead and used my name,” Cordero said.

Not good, Pete. Not good.  Your campaign IS you.

The campaign hasn’t publicly claimed that every supporter of the plan listed is African American, though it wouldn’t be hard to draw that implication: It was published in the HBCU Times, and the bylines and top-listed supporters are all black. To be sure, a multiracial coalition would be needed to push the Douglass Plan through Congress, but the campaign didn’t say that, either.

After publication, the Buttigieg campaign said it had sent the plan to the list of supporters and asked them to opt out if they did not want their name included on the list.

WTF? You call those people and ask. That's really slippery.

That email also specified that the list was meant to represent “over 400 Black South Carolinians.”

And half of them were found to be whites.

Meanwhile [...] seven [names] are repeated; one of them appears three times. According to a review of public record databases and social media sites, multiple names on the list appear to be from people who do not live in South Carolina. One person seems to not live in the United States at all but in São Paulo, Brazil.

Two others may be badly misspelled at best, as they don’t appear anywhere online or in voter databases. [One hundred and twenty-five] can’t be found in the voter file.

[...]

The Buttigieg campaign said that they have never claimed the list was exclusively prominent black South Carolinians, and that it’s important to have a multiracial coalition to support the end goal of racial justice. “Pete believes we need to dismantle systemic racism in order to deliver justice for Black Americans and make our country whole,” a Buttigieg spokesperson said. “Which is why, as we said the time of its release, we’re proud the Douglass plan has earned the support of many South Carolinians, including many African-Americans. Pete will continue to talk about the Douglass Plan wherever he goes, regardless of the audience, as there are many communities of Americans committed to eradicating racial inequity.”

Pete's going to have to do some serious defensive work at the next debate.

And he started out looking so good.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.