
Mark Zuckerberg Has Quietly Advised Pete Buttigieg on Campaign Hires - jbegley
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-21/zuckerberg-offered-advice-in-hiring-to-buttigieg-in-rare-move
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baybal2
Wasn't it was said that Zuckerberg himself wanted to run as a presidential
candidate in last election?

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hijinks
well i had high hopes for him in 4-8 years.. now i'm rethinking his choices

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einpoklum
Well, that's not the only poor advisor Buttigieg has had in his failing
presidential campaign.

It seems like if the mainstream media were not propping him up, he would have
gone off the radar a while ago.

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MengerSponge
Zuckerberg aligning with Pete is not surprising.

[https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/03/all-about-
pete](https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/03/all-about-pete)

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systematical
Is that why he's doing so well in the polls. Zucker you PR master.

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peterwwillis
How much of the above story is 'outrage' that the New Media Barons are doing
what the Old Media Barons have always done? How much focus (and condemnation)
are we sending to candidates for getting Zuckerberg's help, while tacitly
accepting when they get the Koch's help?

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buboard
Hillary attacks Gabbard, Bloomberg (himself a candidate-candidate) attacks
Buttigieg, Yang apparently didnt have much chance anyway ... who s left to
smear so that the biden-warren fake race is complete?

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rc_mob
Huh? I can’t make heads or tails of this comment. Can you be more specific or
elaborate on what you are trying to say?

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martythemaniak
Talking to Zuck is now a no-no. Cancel Culture sure is mutating fast.

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mdorazio
Unfortunately, Facebook and Zuckerberg are, to me, bad enough actors at this
point that this is enough to turn me off the Buttigieg campaign entirely. The
last thing I want is even more Facebook influence on elections.

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buboard
That reaction is the entire point of the article.

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mdorazio
I’m fully aware of that and my opinion is unchanged. Anyone showing me the
same data point for any other candidate would achieve the same result because
to me, get in bed with Facebook = lose my support.

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buboard
Which is kind of surprising, considering that, even though facebook gets all
the bad press, Trump's megaphone is actually Twitter.

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brew19
Mark and Priscilla are registered Democrats and likely support Pete. Don't see
anything wrong in helping them in their personal capacity.

Pete has significant support from the wealthy - his fundraising totals are
disproportionately high compared to his polling currently.

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leto_ii
Well, I suspect that the help is not disinterested. Nor do I think it's done
in a 'personal' capacity. How could a plutocrat like Zuckerberg possibly
disentangle his private interests from those of his company?

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morningseagulls
>Well, I suspect that the help is not disinterested. Nor do I think it's done
in a 'personal' capacity.

I won't quibble with the "not disinterested" bit, but what he's doing is
introducing people that he knows to the Buttigieg campaign, so in that sense,
it's quite personal:

> _Zuckerberg and Chan recommended numerous potential campaign hires, and two
> of them are now on staff: Eric Mayefsky, senior digital analytics adviser,
> and Nina Wornhoff, organizing data manager._

> _Mayefsky previously worked as the director of data science at Quora, a
> 10-year-old question-and-answer startup founded by former Facebook
> employees. Mayefsky worked at Facebook for almost four years starting in
> 2010, according to his LinkedIn profile. Wornhoff previously worked as a
> machine learning engineer at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and in
> Democratic politics in Indiana, Buttigieg’s home state._

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leto_ii
Well, of course it's personal - in the sense that it's done at a personal
level, directly between individuals. My point though is that when you have
Zuck's level of power and influence nothing you do can be legitimately
considered separate from your business interests. Everything billionaires do
w.r.t. politics should be considered in the context of their (institutional)
business interests. It can't be taken in isolation. Billionaires don't just
have casual private chats with old buddies. Or if they do then those buddies
should not be presidential contenders...

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acollins1331
Buttigieg was a fantastic candidate until he made it big earlier this year.
He's been courting rich donors and shifted a lot of his positions from before.
He played up the idealist early on, but after figuring out he was going to run
3rd to Liz and Bernie the whole way out, he decided to shift into the young
Joe Biden lane. I've been completely turned off by his campaign during this
stretch, as it's obvious he just wants to become president and will do/say
whatever he needs to to make that happen.

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dawg-
He worked in D.C. think tanks and as a consultant for McKinsey before becoming
a mayor. He was always going to be an "establishment" candidate. He was always
"young Joe Biden". People just expected him to be more progressive I guess
because he's gay? In retrospect it didn't make much sense.

In any case, if there is going to be an establishment Democrat running against
Trump I would still rather have Buttigieg than Biden. If I had to guess, I
would think the DNC will not be super excited about the prospects of Bernie or
Warren vs Trump, and Buttigieg may get a big boost as a result.

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hn_throwaway_99
I'd also like to point out it's not just "the DNC". Seems like whenever a
candidate presents more centrist positions these days, it is only "the evil
establishment" that supports them, and not "the true people".

While I like a lot of the policy positions of Warren and Sanders, there are a
lot of positions of theirs I just plain disagree with and I believe will be
damaging to this country.

There just happen to be a lot of people who are strongly anti-Trump and want
more progressive taxation, but who think things like the 2% wealth tax and
blanket cancellation of student loan debt is a bad idea. I'm kind of sick of
this false idea that the only reason people don't support "bold policies" is
we think they're too bold. Sometimes we just think they're wrong.

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dawg-
True, I wasn't trying to say the DNC is evil or that real people don't support
"establishment" candidates - of course they do. Just saying that whoever the
DNC throws their weight behind will get a really big boost. And since it
probably won't be Warren or Sanders, I think it could be Buttigieg.

Buttigieg is less progressive than he was originally presented as but I don't
think that's necessarily a terrible thing. It's just a thing. And now that
it's been acknowledged that he's actually pretty moderate, we can start
talking about whether he's a better moderate candidate than Biden.

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hn_throwaway_99
When it comes to Buttigieg, though, I don't see how anyone can win the
Democratic nomination without African-American support, and Buttigieg
basically has none (IMO a result of the racial issues in his hometown, and the
fact that African-Americans at large have shown much more reticence to
supporting gay candidates and issues):
[https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2019/10/can-mayor-petes-cash-
pil...](https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2019/10/can-mayor-petes-cash-pile-make-
lack-african-american-support/)

