Now that Joe Biden has formally announced his candidacy the Real Clear Politics (RCP) polling averages from April 11 to May 1 show Good Ol’ Joe in the lead with 36.8% support, followed by Bernie Sanders with 16.4%. These percentages will change as all the “progressiver” candidates and their supporters make the case that Joe is a “corporate” status quo Democrat, with hints of misogyny and racism in his record.

Nothing surprising here. What’s surprising are the RCP numbers for Mayor Pete (“Peter” to his friends and husband) Buttigieg. According to the most recent data his  7% rating has not changed. This is surprising since few people outside of Indiana had ever considered him as a presidential material before he announced his candidacy on April 14. His 7% does not make him a rival of Biden and Sanders, but it does make him an immediate rival of Warren (8%) and Harris (7.4%). Both women have been in the public eye for months, constantly yelling about the iniquity of bankers, the terrifying Trump Tower Gargoyle, the wicked rich, and Republicans in general.

Kamala Harris is a senator from California, Warren a senator from Massachusetts; Buttigieg is a mere mayor from insignificant South Bend, Indiana. Senator “Spartacus” Booker must wonder why he finds himself polling a pitiful 2.4%. Newark, of which he was mayor, is a much bigger city. You have to wonder also if Mayor Ethan Strimling feels as if he missed an opportunity. Portland, Maine (pop. 66,000), isn’t much smaller than South Bend (101,735) and it’s a lot more interesting yet nobody is talking about a possible President Strimling. Doesn’t seem fair to me. Does it seem fair to him?

And what does Beto O’Rourke make of his paltry 4.6%. At the beginning of April his table-jumping, wildly gesticulating speechifying, and frat boy enthusiasm brought him rapt attention from the nation’s Muddy Stream Media. Now he finds that the Indiana latecomer has displaced him in MSM circles. Senator Klobuchar has barely registered above 1% while Yang, Inslee, Gabbard, Castro, Hickenlooper, Ryan, Gillibrand and Delaney all receive mere fractions.

The mayor has some hikes up the greasy pole of presidential ascent which are his alone. Unless the mayor of an even smaller town jumps into the competition he is the only true stealth candidate. An April 23 NBC report,
“Rivals Are Scrambling to Dig up Dirt on Pete Buttigieg,” tells the tale. There we read that five officials working for other Democrats admitted that their candidates were “scrambling to find vulnerabilities and lines of attack that can be used against him.” They are looking filing Freedom of Information Act requests, collecting everything he has written or said in public and even examining South Bend budgets. Don’t forget the social media; “oppo” researchers have turned up some damaging material  in old internet babble.

I’ve found a Reuters report that claims Peter has “presided over an economic turnaround” that is probably going to become the “central plank of his presidential campaign.” Really? His achievements as mayor of South Bend, Indiana, during less than two terms have so been prodigious that the American voters will be dazzled? I have not, so far, found any details about his tenure as mayor.

Hold on, that’s not exactly right. I’ve found a couple of conservative columnists who  provided details suggesting  more substantive failures. We will have to wait for his defenders to supply the details of his  successes.

Alexander Burns of the New York Times wrote a reserved, objective, and very interesting analysis back in April. It’s worth quoting in full: “Mr. Buttigieg’s distinctive political passion appears to be storytelling, wrapping conventional liberalism in an earnest, youthful persona that Democrats might see as capable of winning over the middle of the country.” That sounds about right. We’ll have to see how this approach works out when the opposition research is unleashed.

John Frary of Farmington is a former candidate for U.S. Congress, a retired history professor, an emeritus board member of Maine Taxpayers United, a Maine Citizens Coalition board member, and publisher of FraryHomeCompanion.com. He can be reached at jfrary8070.

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