David Axelrod seems to think Pete Buttigieg is Obama reincarnate
Forget Beto O'Rourke. Former President Barack Obama's closest allies seem to be scoping out a new starry-eyed longshot.
Pete Buttigieg jumped into the 2020 race as the unmistakable underdog — he's the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, also known as that city near Notre Dame. Yet somehow, he pulled together more fundraising dollars in the first quarter than Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), matched Sen. Cory Booker's (D-N.J.) rally numbers in the pouring rain, and even gotten the Obama campaign's chief strategist David Axelrod on his side, Olivia Nuzzi writes in a new profile for New York Magazine.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Axelrod seems to agree. To win in 2020, he thinks a Democrat has to "build a bridge" to President Trump voters who just need a little leftward push. "Buttigieg is uniquely able — and willing — to do this," Nuzzi explains via Axelrod's reasoning, "because such voters helped get him reelected" even when Vice President Mike Pence was the governor of Indiana. Eric Lesser, who worked for Obama and Axelrod, piled onto that thought, saying that like Obama, Buttigieg is "deeply thoughtful and intellectual" yet still "relatable."
Read more at New York Magazine.
-
The Olympic timekeepers keeping the Games on trackUnder the Radar Swiss watchmaking giant Omega has been at the finish line of every Olympic Games for nearly 100 years
-
Will increasing tensions with Iran boil over into war?Today’s Big Question President Donald Trump has recently been threatening the country
-
Corruption: The spy sheikh and the presidentFeature Trump is at the center of another scandal
-
Judge orders Washington slavery exhibit restoredSpeed Read The Trump administration took down displays about slavery at the President’s House Site in Philadelphia
-
Hyatt chair joins growing list of Epstein files losersSpeed Read Thomas Pritzker stepped down as executive chair of the Hyatt Hotels Corporation over his ties with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell
-
Judge blocks Hegseth from punishing Kelly over videoSpeed Read Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth pushed for the senator to be demoted over a video in which he reminds military officials they should refuse illegal orders
-
Trump’s EPA kills legal basis for federal climate policySpeed Read The government’s authority to regulate several planet-warming pollutants has been repealed
-
House votes to end Trump’s Canada tariffsSpeed Read Six Republicans joined with Democrats to repeal the president’s tariffs
-
Bondi, Democrats clash over Epstein in hearingSpeed Read Attorney General Pam Bondi ignored survivors of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and demanded that Democrats apologize to Trump
-
El Paso airspace closure tied to FAA-Pentagon standoffSpeed Read The closure in the Texas border city stemmed from disagreements between the Federal Aviation Administration and Pentagon officials over drone-related tests
-
Judge blocks Trump suit for Michigan voter rollsSpeed Read A Trump-appointed federal judge rejected the administration’s demand for voters’ personal data
