According to a new book, former President Barack Obama considered Pete Buttigieg “too short” and “too young” to win the 2020 Democrat nomination.
In Gabriel Debenedetti’s book “The Long Alliance: The Imperfect Union of Joe Biden and Barack Obama,” the New York magazine correspondent writes that Obama believed “image and frame mattered immensely” in the 2020 presidential campaign, and “Buttigieg was too short” and “too young.”
Obama also believed that Buttigieg would have a harder time “breaking through” in such a large field of candidates.
Buttigieg is short compared to those who have served as President. The last president under 6 feet tall was Jimmy Carter and every president since William McKinley over a century ago has been taller than 5’-9”.
But of all the things to make Obama disqualify Pete Buttigieg, his being short is the least of his problems. Debenedetti also writes that Obama was concerned by Buttigieg’s “apparent inability” to win over minority voters during the Democrat primaries.
That right there is a bigger problem for any potential Democrat candidate. Buttigieg turned off black voters primarily because he is gay.
Debenedetti also writes that Joe Biden considered Buttigieg a “gay Obama,” and he too believed “everyone was kidding themselves” about Pete Buttigieg’s viability as a candidate. According to the book, Biden was reportedly miffed that many former Obama staffers were giving him a wide berth while lining up in support of candidates like Buttigieg and Beto O’Rourke early on in the race. Debenedetti writes that Biden frequently complained to associates that neither candidate had a chance of winning.
Then again, Barack Obama wasn’t particularly sold on Joe Biden either. Before old Joe announced his 2020 run, his former boss reportedly told him, “You don’t have to do this, Joe. You really don’t.”
It was also previously reported that in 2020, Obama warned his fellow Democrats not to “underestimate Joe’s ability to f*ck things up.”
