ANDREW STILE

Washington Free Beacon:
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BREAKING TRAD

Talarico is hardly the only ambitious Democrat struggling to be normal and approaching the challenge with the rigor and charm of a grad student explaining the thesis revisions he’s thinking about making. There’s the aforementioned Pete Buttigieg, another awkward nerd whom Democrats regard as a model for appealing to Republicans. He grew a beard to dampen the “running for student body president” vibe, but you just know he ran a focus group beforehand.

The Atlantic published a remarkable piece this week on Buttigieg’s attempt to “establish his normal-guy credentials” before inevitably running for president in 2028. At his new home in Michigan, Buttigieg is “doubling down on family”—his words—and immersing himself in the ordinary. Like all former candidates eager to lay low, he invited a reporter to follow his every move. He drops the kids off at camp, eats Cornish pastries, and patronizes mom-and-pop establishments. He has also “resurrected his Norwegian, a language he learned for fun,” and was tickled to discover that Brillebjørn the bear, the protagonist in the Norwegian children’s books he’s been reading his twins, has two moms.

A particularly amusing passage recounts the moment when the Atlantic reporter, in the course of documenting Buttigieg’s sojourn in the land of normal men, accidentally stumbled upon a normal man whose total disdain for politics (and bothersome journalists) is the epitome of American greatness:

Traverse City is remote from Washington politics. At a local bar, I asked an employee to name the city’s most famous resident, and he struggled to name anyone. “Madonna’s brother used to be a homeless guy here,” he said. I told him that a former secretary of transportation had moved to town six months ago, and instead of continuing the conversation he found urgent barkeeping tasks to attend to.

The ensuing paragraph describes the “never-ending succession of wholesomeness” at chez Buttigieg, and ends with a cringing display of dorkwad pedantry. “Papa got a axe for Christmas,” four-year-old Gus tells the journalist. “Technically,” Pete chimed in, “it is a splitting maul.”

Bless his heart.

In the run up to the 2020 Democratic primary, Barack Obama tried to talk his elderly vice president out of running. “You don’t have to do this, Joe, you really don’t,” he said in a calm, soothing voice. Someone needs to pull Pete aside and tell him the same thing—just to be on the record—before Buttigieg makes the wise and honorable decision to do what Biden did and tell the haters to go f— themselves.

Bottom line: Run, Pete, run!