Lis Smith: The Buttigieg Campaign will not be going negative

[crazytown]

Pete Buttigieg Has Cooled Off But His Campaign Says It’s Time For “Phase Three”

(snip) The strategy, as explained in interviews this week with Smith and two other top aides, is to catch up with other campaign organizations in the early caucus and primary states and wait for candidates with less money to drop. Buttigieg’s paid staff has grown to more than 300 — up from 30 just a few months ago — with about 70 on the ground in Iowa and 50 in New Hampshire. New field offices are scheduled to open across both states next week. And the campaign has ramped up its digital advertising, using platforms such as Spotify.

One move not under consideration: attacking Biden, who leads in most polls, or the others standing between him and Buttigieg. Past primaries have shown little benefit for those who target a frontrunner. A nasty feud between Howard Dean and Dick Gephardt created space for eventual Democratic nominee John Kerry to win Iowa in 2004. Chris Christie wounded Marco Rubio with a slashing attack during a 2016 debate in New Hampshire, but Christie dropped out of the Republican race days later after a poor finish in that state’s primary.

“I witnessed the 2004 primary and the dynamics there with Gephardt and Dean,” Smith said, “and I think that any presidential campaign that doesn’t understand a multiway primary and how [going negative] will affect their long-term standing is probably not going to be the campaign that will take on Donald Trump.”

Buttigieg’s decision not to go negative is a tactic. Sometimes an apparently second-tier figure can stand aside while their rivals destroy one another, and step past them, as Kerry did in 2004. But it also reflects a bet on what both Democratic voters and the American electorate want, in terms both of policy and style: leadership whose primary orientation isn’t toward partisan confrontation and that holds out the hope of national unity. That is: a throwback to the hopes of the early Obama years.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/henrygomez/pete-buttigieg-2020-campaign-phase

[bearsfootball516]

1. Best of luck to him. I like him a lot, I just don't like his chances.

It feels like it's turning into a two-horse race with Biden and Warren right now.

[crazytown]

2. The polls suggest he has a top three chance in Iowa

and personally, I would like to see the Independent Senator from Vermont placed 4th or 5th.

[NurseJackie]

7. Thank you! We think alike.

personally, I would like to see the Independent Senator from Vermont placed 4th or 5th.

Thank you! We think alike.

(That high, huh?)

[crazytown]

8. "That high, huh?"

I'll take the 5th

[Cosmocat]

3. I am going to continue to support him, but think his onramp will be VP

Would be a great side kick to EW if she gets the nomination.

Would be good with Biden, too, but he is going to have to go with a women and/or POC.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

4. Good article; thanks for the post, crazytown!

[Indyfan]

5. Smart people in America are betting on Mayor Pete.

Pete doesn’t have to worry about fundraising anymore. He doesn’t have to attack any Democrat because his competitors are already revealing themselves to be flawed, literally healthwise and/or mentally... When you combine the intellectual genius of Pete and the media campaign genius of Lis, you get a winning formula and I don’t see how anyone can outdo such a combination.

[crazytown]

6. Pete is up against Warren

There is more to her campaign than meets the eye -

They are so organized, they have not just people but extra people in the hardest precincts even for us to organize, said Polk County Democratic Party Chairman Sean Bagniewski. All of us want to read the book of how they’re doing what they’re doing after the caucuses. It’s a level of organization like we’ve never seen before.

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/08/09/iowa-2020-grassroots-harris-biden-1454499