Formidable

It’s a sad commentary that Pete Buttigieg is viewed as too much of a risk as VP, apparently because he’s gay and the country still isn’t ready for that (really weak excuse), and because he’s too smart, too cerebral, too wonky.

Have these naysayers been listening to him at all? Yes, he does try to fit a lot into the byte-sized time frame he’s often given, but if one listens closely, Buttigieg is not speaking over most peoples’ heads. He’s reasoning things out on the fly in a way that makes it easy to believe he’s done his homework.

He’s a Rhodes scholar who speaks 8 languages. He’s a smart man who pours himself into his work. Maybe he’s the consummate politician, but that’s a moniker which, in his case, we should be able to live with comfortably. We should consider his cognitive abilities to be an asset, a reason to dare trust him.

Imagine—a level-headed, worldly brainiac who hasn’t lived under a rock or in his parents’ basement playing video games. Instead, we have someone who welcomes the opportunity to appear on Fox News and more than hold his own against anchor after anchor who dreams about being the one to bring him down, to expose weaknesses and flaws in his arguments and persona.

If he can work with Kamala, and Kamala can work with him without being intimidated by him, then we have the ticket. If we– and they– dare.