Buttigieg won a blue town twice

[Drunken Irishman]

39. I am uneasy electing anyone nowadays who doesn't have foreign policy experience.

To be honest, the last five presidents who've entered office with the least amount of foreign policy experience have been arguably the worst when it comes to foreign policy outside maybe one - Bill Clinton.

It's not fair to compare Mayor Pete to, say, Trump or Bush or Reagan in that regard because their policies were reactionary and awful, but I feel it is fair to compare him to, say, Jimmy Carter, and while I respect the hell out of Jimmy Carter, he struggled mightily in the foreign policy arena and I think that was a direct result of the fact he didn't really have the experience of global affairs to handle the heat, which was realized with his overall handling of Iran and the Shah.

Clinton has been the exception of a governor who moved into the White House and handled things relatively okay. But Clinton also benefited from the lack of the Cold War, and while terrorism was increasingly becoming a problem, didn't have to face the post-9/11 landscape like Bush, Obama, Trump and whomever replaces Trump. I am not sure how he would've handled those responsibilities (but to be honest, I'm not sure if Clinton even gets elected if the Cold War doesn't end).

Ultimately, I don't doubt Pete could handle the domestic agenda of the country. I do have concerns about how he'd navigate his legislation in the halls of congress (this was something that killed Carter, as he butted heads a lot with Senate Democrats, specifically Ted Kennedy, despite having Walter Mondale, a respected senator, as his Veep - and really dinged Clinton early in his presidency as he failed to take advantage of total Democratic control of the congress when it came to passing healthcare reform or even his stimulus) and I believe that will be an important role for the next president. Obama was able to work well with House and Senate Democrats, for the most part, and it led to the most sweeping legislative accomplishments of any modern president.

But I think what helped him is he knew the game. He and Biden both knew how to play it because they had been in congress themselves. Carter and Clinton really didn't and it became apparent when they struggled with compromise and playing the game, and it cost 'em major legislative accomplishments - despite having respected former senators as their veeps.