Buttigieg Has A Flip-Flop Problem That Could Hurt In 2028

Buttigieg, appearing on “Pod Save America,” avoided taking a position on whether the U.S. should continue with shipping arms to Israel.

By Norman Solomon, The Hill

No one can deny that Pete Buttigieg is a highly skilled and articulate politician. While mayor of South Bend, Indiana’s fifth-largest city with a population of 100,000, he became a major contender for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, narrowly winning the Iowa caucuses and finishing a strong second in the New Hampshire primary.

Buttigieg’s swift political rise catapulted him into President Joe Biden’s Cabinet, where he served as Transportation secretary for four years. Now, with his sights clearly set on the 2028 presidential nomination, the latest polling averages for the Democratic primary show him in third place, behind former Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.).

But midway through this month, Buttigieg revived what could be a real problem: the perception that he behaves too much like a political windsock, shifting with strong breezes rather than sticking with conviction.

Buttigieg, appearing on “Pod Save America,” avoided taking a position on whether the U.S. should continue with shipping arms to Israel. Typical of Buttigieg’s equivocal rhetoric was his statement that “I think we need to insist that if American taxpayer funding is going to weaponry that is going to Israel, that that is not going to things that shock the conscience.”

Sharing three minutes of word-salad from one of Buttigieg’s non-answers, former Obama administration official Ben Rhodes tweeted, “Pete is a smart guy and I admire a lot of what he’s done, but I have absolutely no idea what he thinks based on these answers.”