Pete Buttigieg
Democratic presidential candidate former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg speaks at a town hall meeting at the Iowa Wesleyan University Howe Student Activity Center, in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2020. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
Ever since Joe Biden’s poll numbers started dropping and Sen. Bernie Sanders’ political star began to rise, a narrative slowly emerged from panicked middle of the road Democrats and media types alike that there were “moderate” Democratic alternatives to Sanders’ radical socialistic candidacy: Former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN).
For instance, just a day before the New Hampshire primary, CNN ran a piece characterizing Klobuchar as “one of the three moderate candidates” including Buttigieg and Joe Biden. NPR described both Buttigieg and Klobuchar as “moderate candidates” after they finished 2nd and 3rd place respectively in New Hampshire.
As video evidence, Newsbusters put together a terrific video montage showing examples of the media and their liberal panelists doing their thing in describing both candidates as “moderates”:
MRC TV video player
That either of them are “moderates” is not even close to true, but nevertheless it’s become a regularly used word to describe them on all cable news networks – including on Fox News, as this “Fox News Sunday” tweet demonstrates:
Is the moderate path to the Democratic nomination too crowded? On FOX News Sunday, Mayor Pete Buttigieg reacts to this and explains how he plans to stand out. #FNS #FoxNews pic.twitter.com/4wlH3k1a3O
— FoxNewsSunday (@FoxNewsSunday) February 16, 2020
Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) blasted the myth that there is a “moderate Pete” in a spot-on tweet:
We really calling someone running on a campaign of more govt-run health care, lax immigration enforcement, & decriminalizing possession of all narcotics a “moderate”?
Enough with “Pete the moderate.” Running two steps to the right of a socialist does not put you in the middle. https://t.co/PFNP84TrWn
— Dan Crenshaw (@DanCrenshawTX) February 16, 2020
Bingo. And the same holds true for Klobuchar.
As I’ve said before, both Klobuchar and Buttigieg may sound more sane than Sanders in that they give lip service to wanting to work with Republicans, but in reality they are not moderates in any sense of the word. Not even a little bit.
