After The Root’s Michael Harriot ripped Democratic presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg’s troubling tenure with black officers during his time as mayor of South Bend, Ind., (seriously, if you have not read this story, stop what you are doing and read it now. I see you; put the baby down and read this story. I’m not even going to hyperlink this story in the text, I’m going to leave a full link to the story below this paragraph to read it now. Now!), isn’t it convenient that Mayor Pete received his first endorsement from a black member of Congress, just a day after Harriot’s story (which you should be reading now) when former Maryland Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown announced that he supports Mayor Pete?
“I firmly believe that Pete Buttigieg is the guy to lead our nation after we defeat Donald Trump and have to pick up the pieces and repair the damage of the last four years,” Brown said in an interview, the Washington Post reports. “He’s well-versed and studied and really diligent about the issues from a policy standpoint.”
I don’t think Brown read The Root’s story.
Buttigieg might be a wunderkind with white folks on his run to the White House, (I mean whom amongst them doesn’t love a wine cave?) but Buttigieg has been lacking in the black love department.
According to the Washington Post, “Brown will serve as a national campaign co-chairman, the first endorser the campaign has named to that position.”
Brown, 58, was elected to Congress in 2016 and is relatively a lightweight when it comes to Congressional Black Caucus pull.
Brown, who, like Buttigieg, served in the military and went to Harvard, told the Post he’s aware of the criticism that Buttigieg has received when it comes to racial issues but noted that Mayor Pete hasn’t backed away from the criticism.
Brown really needs to read this story.
“We all suffer criticism,” Brown said. “The question is, how well do you take that criticism and sort of transform it into an overall constructive approach to addressing the challenges that are being raised? And I think he is really good at that and is open to it.”
Still waiting to hear how Buttigieg has transformed anything regarding race during his tenure as mayor, but I digress.
In what I’m sure won’t be called the“Hey, look at my black friend over here!” tour, Buttigieg plans to have Brown on the campaign trail during the Iowa caucuses in February and will include television ads, which will air in each of the four primary states.
“The ads running in Iowa and New Hampshire feature Buttigieg speaking about various issues, but the one in South Carolina—where black voters make up most of the Democratic electorate—consists of black members of the South Bend community talking about how Buttigieg listened to their concerns,” the Post reports.
Brown told the Post that he watched Buttigieg during the debates and studied his campaign closely and was impressed with what he saw.
“When I went out there and I attended a lot of events, my ear was listening to him but my eyes were on the audience,” Brown said. “How are people reacting to this mid-sized city mayor who is fairly new to the American electorate but is attracting a lot of attention because of his ideas and because of his openness?”
But did Brown read this?
He added that Buttigieg is “very, very consistent and connects well to the audience.”
Brown—who represents Maryland’s 4th Congressional District—told the Post he was impressed with the way that Buttigieg handled a gathering “in Des Moines, hosted by the local NAACP chapter and a Des Moines-based group called Urban Dreams” in which Buttigieg fielded several questions on race during his time as mayor.
“He didn’t shy away from the fact that South Bend, like Baltimore, like so many cities, have challenges, and that he’s learned a lot in addressing that,” said Brown.
I really don’t think Brown read this piece.
Buttigieg’s campaign has also sought to put the former mayor “in small-group settings with African American and Latinx leaders in Iowa, Nevada and elsewhere as part of an attempt to build relationships and trust in communities of color,” the Post reports.
And it worked with at least one person as Brown is now fully Team Buttigieg.
“He’s demonstrated it out there, the ability to pull together a diverse coalition of people to take on these issues,” Brown said. “The issues that he was speaking to when I was in Iowa, the same issues that have come up during debates — these are issues that resonate in all communities across America.”
Anyone have Brown’s email? I’m trying to send him an article right quick.