The Third Estate Sunday Review focuses on politics and culture. We're an online magazine. We don't play nice and we don't kiss butt. In the words of Tuesday Weld: "I do not ever want to be a huge star. Do you think I want a success? I refused "Bonnie and Clyde" because I was nursing at the time but also because deep down I knew that it was going to be a huge success. The same was true of "Bob and Carol and Fred and Sue" or whatever it was called. It reeked of success."
we know a few things about mayor pete before he was the mayor of south bend indiana. according to a twitter thread from 2014 from someone who claimed to have grown up with him, pete has been actively pursuing the presidency since grade school.
ivy league education. rhodes scholar. he decides to add veteran to that. and he does some private sector work. just enough to have a resume for his first election in 2010. indiana state treasurer. he tries to triangulate like clinton in 92.
he’s not triangulating between an electorally humiliated democratic party and a pre-newt gingrich republican party like clinton was. he’s trying to triangulate between indiana democrats and the goddamned tea party republicans.
he seeks tea party endorsements. he loses. badly. that’s okay. he’s not even eligible to run for president until the 2020 election. he has time. he becomes the mayor of a small college town in 2012. a start.
the 2016 election changed everything in pete’s plan. first of all, it showed that anyone could be president, regardless of experience. the world’s biggest oaf could stumble into the oval office without even winning a municipal election.
but more importantly, the 2016 primary showed that the old avenues of power were not trusted. after being presented with an alternative in bernie sanders small donor campaign, dem primary voters were going to be a lot more suspicious of bundlers. and closed door events.
every path that pete planned on having in the 90s was changing. he could no longer wait. this was the last chance for his plan to work. so he announces a candidacy.
to be called out by bernie, a man pete wrote an glowing essay about in high school, praising his refusal to compromise on principles, is bad enough, but to be called out by warren on wine cave fundraisers is far more infuriating.
you see, warren also had a wine cave fundraiser. in 2012. in the same venue. with the same hosts. pete is being called out by someone who only a couple election cycles ago was running the same playbook as him. and that pisses him off.
pete’s path to the presidency was simple - municipal election - state election - national election
running the playbook of big money donors, and a campaign focused on personality while keeping deliberately light on substance or policy,
but it’s not 1992 anymore. it’s not even 2008. and pete’s high school notebooks planning his rise to power are massively out of date. he knows it. he just hopes there’s still one more election cycle where it might work. and we have to make sure it does not.
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