Update: In light of the 60 Minutes interview with Bloomberg and the announcement by Buttigieg that he is dropping out, I’m switching my vote to Bloomberg.

“At a certain point, we have to stop backing away from Trump and turn around and start walking toward the America that we want to create. That’s the problem when the only political goal is defeating Donald Trump. All you’re doing is fighting a vendetta, you will literally accept any kind of foul evil as long as it’s not the specific evil that you’re fighting…

“People say, ‘Well HE can defeat him. THIS is the guy that can defeat him, or no, Biden can defeat him, or a moderate can defeat him, or a leftist can defeat him…’ Nobody knows who can take it so you might as well vote for the America you want to see, not the America you’re afraid to let go of.” — Moshe Kasher, comedian and writer

I live in a state that doesn’t vote until two weeks after Super Tuesday. A lot of tea leaves will have been read by the time I vote. The conventional wisdom will be set in stone and my state’s decision will be an afterthought.

And I am still going to vote for who I’m going to vote for. Pete Buttigieg has impressed me from the beginning. None of the other candidates feel right to me. I’m voting for Pete no matter what I’m being told by St. Patrick’s Day about who can win. I’m voting for Pete because he’s who I want to see in the White House in January.

The truth is that nobody knows who can or will defeat Trump. The truth is that most voters are not pundits. The truth is that by trying to be pundits, by voting based purely on who you think everyone else will vote for, you end up with a candidate that most don’t hate but no one loves. How did that work for us in 2016, 2004, and 1988?*

There are a million calculations. Bernie can’t pull older voters, only young ones who don’t turn out. Biden has lost his edge and Trump will defeat him with nonsense about Ukraine the way he defeated Hillary with her emails. Warren will be painted as too extreme for the economy and we’ll live with Pocahontas slurs from summer until November.

We’ll hear that Pete is too young. He’s only the been mayor of a college town (as if anyone worried about lack of experience in Trump’s case). The country isn’t ready for a gay president.

Whatever. When I hear Pete speak, I hear a president talking. He is calm, he is thoughtful, he is wicked smart. He has yet to inflate his resume, nor has he needed to. I’m voting for Pete if he’s still in the race. I’m voting for who I want to see win, not who I’m being told will.

* Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Michael Dukakis

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