Wow. I was not expecting Pete to be the first one to step down after Tom Steyer.
I thought the next to drop would be Amy Klobuchar, but not until after Super Tuesday. I believe her ego is so big that despite knowing that her candidacy is obviously not viable at this point, she would wait to drop out until after her home state Minnesota votes, which she expects to win. Then she can rationalize to herself that despite not becoming president, she still remains undefeated in her state. And she’d have the side benefit of denying those delegates to Bernie and Pete (her most hated enemies, especially Pete) and a tiny bit of bargaining power if there’s a contested convention. My hope is that Bernie wins Minnesota, if for nothing else than to spite the Klob.
I don’t like Pete and have considered him a major nuisance to the progressive movement, but I can’t stop thinking him leaving the race is bad for Bernie. Multiple strong moderate candidates fracture the moderate vote and so far have allowed Bernie to pull to the lead. Maybe Pete’s absense vaporizes that lead, but maybe not. According to some polls, Bernie is the second choice for most Democratic voters that don’t choose him for their first. A smaller pool of candidates also allows more opportunities for other candidates that otherwise wouldn’t have reached the 15% threshold for viability in some states to now maybe make those numbers, so we may still be heading to a contested convention even without Pete. And unfortunately, Amy’s strategy may be changing now that Pete’s gone. Maybe her intention really was to leave after Super Tuesday and now she won’t (ugh).
I’m too cynical to believe Pete dropped out for the greater good of the moderates. Biden or Bloomberg or maybe his own corporate rulers must have offered him something sweet in return for stepping out of Biden’s/Bloomberg’s way. I’m expecting to see him in one of their cabinets, assuming either Biden or Bloomberg can actually defeat Trump in the general election. I’m not taking it for granted.
All that being said, good for Democratic voters in 2020 to thoughtfully consider a gay man for President. We’ve certainly come a long way since Stonewall in the ’70s, the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and “Defense of Marriage” acts of the ’90s, our previous president opposing gay marriage in the ’00s, and our last Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton opposing gay marriage in the first half of the ’10s. Pete, for all of his faults, had a legitimate shot at becoming President, and I think that says great things for us as a people that we could accept his sexuality and allow that possibility.