So, Pete Buttigieg Annoys His Competition

I find that amusing. Especially when his competitors immediately go to his lack of Washington experience. There is absolutely no necessary correlation whatsoever between experience and expertise. That’s a well-researched conclusion.

My wife, an elementary school teacher, came home one day with an anecdote from a teachers’ workshop. The speaker told the story of someone wanting a position as elementary coach because she had twenty years of elementary school experience. Her principal refused, but later in an aside to his assistant commented that actually she didn’t have twenty years of experience. She just had twenty years of first year experience.

And still others will say that Mayor Pete...

only has small-town experience. The fact of the matter is that anyone who’s ever worked for McKinsey—and Buttigieg worked nearly three years—knows how to scale up to any size of an organization. There’s a reason for McKinsey’s reputation as the leading consulting firm in the world: they tend to have the very best people and the most extensive knowledge base. I know. I worked side-by-side with McKinsey people for six years and coached one of their top directors for a full year. I’ve also worked with a number of other leading consultants—people from Bain, Gartner, Boston Consulting, Accenture, Deloitte, AT Kearney, etc. All these firms have very bright people, but McKinsey stands out. Mayor Pete’s limited small town experience provides the necessary nitty-gritty to scale up very effectively.

I also notice that with the exception of that “yeller” Bernie Sanders, the leading competitors are lawyers. Having worked with leading Minnesota law firms for years, I have an inherent bias against lawyers in government positions. Their educational/cultural background is fundamentally adversarial. It’s a rare lawyer who can step outside that culture and manage effectively. And though Obama was one of those rare birds, it was obvious to me on several occasions that his legal background got in the way. The classic example of the legal cultural problem was that episode between Harris and Biden. She was superb as a prosecutor, but has consistently muddled around with the issues of government management. It seems to be just beyond her. The two things we don’t need in the next election are Trump and a prosecutorial lawyer. (See also my blog on why Biden, Harris and Warren won’t be able to manage Trump.)

David Axelrod’s comment regarding Mayor Pete and his competitors is quite apropos: “It is a natural thing when a young candidate comes along and has success for other candidates who feel like they’ve toiled in the vineyards to resent it. I think they’d like him better if he weren’t doing as well.”

And Bloomberg? My 55 year-old daughter had it right when she commented, "an old man with too much time and money on his hands."