Much of Pete Buttigieg’s interview with Jon Stewart on “The Daily Show” on Monday night was taken up with Stewart’s speculation that Buttigieg is being vetted as a potential vice presidential candidate. Buttigieg did not deny this idea, but countered by saying that being vetted for political office is generally the same as being vetted to become a parent through adoption, as he and his husband had done.
It was another example of the very special skill that Buttigieg has; more than any of his peers, he is in fact a made-for-TV politician. This is not to say that he is necessarily bald or smooth, although he certainly has a preternatural smoothness. He simply has the debater’s ability to speak in an uninterrupted and unbreakable rhythm, allowing the terms of the conversation to shift to whatever is on his mind. For example, when asked by Stewart why he keeps going on Fox News, Buttigieg talked about the value of meeting not necessarily like-minded voters where they are, slipping in “this is how I won Iowa” so deftly that it felt practically subliminal.
Buttigieg’s appearances on Fox News, as well as Minnesota Governor Tim Walz’s reiteration of the idea that members of the Republican ticket are “weird,” or Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear’s rejection of that vice presidential candidate and “Hillbilly Elegy” author JD Vance says is “not from here” have become part of the fabric of this strange, charged, potential-rich moment. Thanks to the abbreviated nature of Kamala Harris’ run for president, for a vanishingly short window of time, these individuals have the opportunity to campaign for her while campaigning for themselves – proving their worth as surrogates, while of course (of course!) , where the focus remains on the client. (Buttigieg also showed he was able to handle the program, criticizing “how strange [Vance has] turned out to be,” in line with the “weird” talking point that the party has started to roll out on a large scale.)
Is Buttigieg on Fox News an admirable attempt to break through to potentially winnable moderates or conservatives? Why not! (His point to Stewart, that while he doubts the network is operating in good faith, viewers are watching in good faith, is well taken.) Could it also be read as an attempt to prove his own mettle? It’s hard to watch his recent ones “Fox News Sunday” appearance, in which he managed to completely steer the conversation, by criticizing Donald Trump so much that Shannon Bream simply couldn’t respond point by point and didn’t see any kind of cheerful ambition. And on Bill Maher’s “Real Time,” presumably a lighter setting, Buttigieg adjusted his approach slightly, dismantling Vance’s self-presentation and the tech industry’s support for Trump with a grin on his face.
That’s hardly a groundbreaking insight: all politicians are ambitious, perhaps little more so than the mayor of a small town in Indiana who, based on exactly that much election experience, decided to run for president. His career was then fueled primarily by his willingness to appear on camera for any media outlet that would have him (and, given the novelty of his story, from his sexuality to his Rhodes scholar/veteran background to the office he held held, many were). Now he is being booked not because he is Joe Biden’s Secretary of Transportation, a position in which his victories are inherently small and tangential to the grand scope of presidential politics, but because he is known to be good in front of the camera.
What’s interesting about Buttigieg right now — aside from his natural talent when he’s on television — is how far this talent will take him. Whatever Buttigieg’s substance, in 2020 and today he always comes second to his style, his ability to lay out the case for the Democratic Party in clear and brutal English. Whether he becomes Harris’s running mate or not, he seems likely to remain in a unique position: the man who – very naturally and well, with the kind of seriousness that makes you want to say you can’t fake – a Democrat on TV plays. .