Commentary: How Mayor Pete Breaches Barriers

By John Krull
TheStatehouseFile.com 

NASHVILLE, Tennessee – The guy who asked me about “Mayor Pete” wore a Lynyrd Skynyrd T-shirt.

We were standing near the concession stand at a park filled with baseball fields here on the outskirts of Music City. His son was playing in a peewee game, mine in a high-school one.

John Krull, publisher, TheStatehouseFile.com

He’d asked where I was from. When I told him I was a Hoosier, his eyebrows lifted.

“That’s where that guy Butta-something is from, right?” he asked.

Yes, I said.

“I like that guy. He makes sense,” he said, then added, “Even if I can’t say his name to save my life.”

We both laughed.

Moments later, when we’d headed back to watching our sons play ball, I marveled at the unlikely rise of Indiana’s own Pete Buttigieg.

Somehow, this gay, 37-year-old mayor of a city that isn’t even in the top 300 in the country in terms of population has captured the nation’s attention and established himself, at least for the moment, as a serious presidential contender. He’s coming in third in some polls of Democratic White House hopefuls. He raised a stunning $7 million in his first two months of campaigning.

And he provoked partisans of 2016 Democratic standard-bearer Hillary Clinton to offer snarling responses from on high when he suggested, oh so mildly, that her campaign might have been the least bit flawed. Buttigieg said Clinton’s assertion that America is already great in the face of Donald Trump’s spurious crusade to “Make America Great Again” might have come off as just a bit complacent.

That’s all impressive, but not nearly as impressive as the barriers Buttigieg has breached in the process.

Witness my new-found acquaintance in the Lynyrd Skynyrd T-shirt.

A couple of minutes of conversation confirmed what I already suspected. This guy who couldn’t pronounce Buttigieg’s last name but likes him anyway is a Republican by birth who voted for Trump, with some uneasiness, in 2016. But he’s sick of what he calls “the clown show” the Trump White House has become and he’s looking for other options.

Like Mayor Pete.

But why Buttigieg and not someone else?

My new buddy says he likes Buttigieg because Mayor Pete talks about things that matter in ways people can understand.

That pretty much sums it up.

Buttigieg clearly is a talented and smart guy. He’s a Harvard grad who speaks eight languages, can perform piano solos with symphony orchestras, has served his country in the military and written a well-received book.

But his greatest gift seems to be arriving at seemingly simple and yet fundamental insights before almost every other smart and talented person does.

He’s said that Democrats spend too much time talking about Donald Trump.

It’s a simple observation, but a brilliant one.

Democrats aren’t going to sway Americans one way or the other by attacking Trump.

Polls reveal that.

A little more than two years into his presidency, Trump’s numbers have remained remarkably consistent. A little more than 40 percent of the country really, really likes Donald Trump and will support him, regardless of what he does, good or bad. And a little more than 50 percent of the nation can’t stand Donald Trump and won’t vote for him regardless of what he does, good or bad.

Americans know how they feel about President Trump.

What they don’t know is how they feel about any potential Democrats who might run against him.

That’s why Buttigieg’s insight is instructive.

Trump’s 2020 opponent won’t have to make the case against the president. That case already has been made with all the people who are open to being persuaded by it.

What the 2020 Democratic candidate will have to do is what Buttigieg is doing – convince people like my fellow baseball dad in the Lynyrd Skynyrd shirt that Democrats provide a credible and even attractive alternative.

They can win, as my new buddy says, by talking about things that matter in ways people can understand.

If they do that, Americans will pay attention to the candidate doing the talking, even if they can’t pronounce his name to save their lives.

FOOTNOTE: John Krull is director of Franklin College’s Pulliam School of Journalism, host of “No Limits” WFYI 90.1 Indianapolis and publisher of TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.

“LIVING OUTSIDE THE BOX”

by JOE WALLACE

Excerpt from Chapter 5: Recognizing and Connecting the Dots

Joe Wallace is the author of the forthcoming book called Living Outside the Box that took its inspiration from a series of situations where thinking outside the box never lead to action.

Finally, in a moment of frustration, Joe uttered the words “what good does it do to think outside the box if you don’t have the courage to live outside the box?”   The title and the idea of this book were born with that statement.

Perhaps one of the most referred-to clichés among the gathering class is the one about how important it is to be able to connect the dots. While connections are a very important activity when it comes to team- building and awareness, without the knowledge of what you need to connect, these gatherings are of little consequence when it comes to innovation or problem solving. The inconvenient reality about people who only talk about connecting the dots is that many of them wouldn’t be able to recognize a “dot” if it was served to them alongside their dinner.

In this context, dots refer to things of potential significance. Going back to the earlier example of the invention of the chariot, the things of potential significance (the dots) were the wheel and the box.  It took 300 years of making pottery on wheels, and storing pottery along with other items of value in boxes, for someone to connect the two as a potential facilitator of transportation. Attaching the wheels to the box in a way that did not restrict rotation was the breakthrough. Whomever did that became the inventor of the axle before intellectual property was protected or even considered valuable. Voila! At that moment some ancient form of a little red wagon was invented.

The original handle was in all likelihood the human arm but after a decade of splinters and callouses the handle was added to the miracle of the wheel-and-box combination.  The iterations continued, and eventually the wheels and box were strong enough to hold a human, and a horse was added. Since that day some 3,200 years ago we have had rolling boxes that transport us from one place to another. Without that early exercise of recognizing the dots and connecting them, we may still be walking from one place to another.

Author Bio:

Joe Wallace is CEO and Chief Innovation Officer of the Coachella Valley Economic Partnership that operates the Palm Springs Innovation Hub where he also serves as the founding Managing Director. Wallace entered the world of mentoring entrepreneurs and businesses serving as the founding President and CEO of the Growth Alliance for Greater Evansville and Innovation Pointe where entrepreneurship was the prime focus.

Joe’s work has been honored with the CSU San Bernardino’s Spirit of the Entrepreneur Award, the R & D Top 100 Award, the Clean Air Award, and the Indiana University Growth 100 Award along with many others.  Over his career, Joe has been recognized as a creative leader who is not afraid to live his life outside the box.

Wallace was graduated from Stanford University with an MS in Mechanical Engineering and has earned technical certifications from both Harvard and MIT. With over 10 start-up businesses and experience mentoring over 100 others, Joe enjoys a reputation of a person with a depth of technical knowledge who applies common sense solutions that work to business and life.

EDITORS NOTE:   We highly recommend if your a CEO of a developing corporation this book is a must read for you middle and upper echelon management team!

Joe’s book is extremely insightful and intellectually based.

Wesselman Woods Considering Culling To Decrease Deer Population

An overgrown deer population at the Wesselman Woods Nature Center in Evansville has staff members looking at different options to get the problem under control. One of those options includes deer culling where experts are brought in to hunt the deer. However, that option is causing some controversy.

Wesselman Woods Nature Center staff members say they want to keep their forest healthy, and that’s why they are considering a number of options. Staff says the deer population in the nature center is not only affecting the health of the forest and deer but could create dangerous situations for nearby homeowners and drivers.

The center is applying for a Department of Natural Resources grant to have a professional service to decrease its deer population. Deer without a natural predator is growing in population and that’s causing several problems.

“It is literally killing our forests because of overpopulation,” says Wesselman Wood’s Natural Resources and Operations Manager.

The nature center in the middle of a city and a residential neighborhood.

“You know that Boeke road is heavily traveled. I’ve understood that some of them have come across Morgan Avenue and I mean they just don’t have that much of a chance,” says Cliff Aiton who lives down the street from the center.

Deer can cause problems for neighbors, and drivers.

“There are corridors, and with that, we have super high populations of deer in our forests that means we have even higher a number crossing roads which are very dangerous,” says Hall.

“We’ve seen them out here behind the railroad tracks and stuff, around behind there,” says Tommy DeMoss who also lives close to the nature center.

“A couple of times they have come upon those railroad tracks,” says Aiton.

Reducing the deer population could help both the deer and the forest, so Wesselman staff say they are considering the DNR grant.

“Some of them that don’t get enough to eat, they starve. It’s inhumane for them to be overpopulated,” says DeMoss.

Hall says, “Deer culling is one of the most efficient ways of reducing deer populations and most cost-effective and one of the most humane names as well.

Wesselman Woods staff are still considering this as an option, but say they want to do what’s best for the forest.

Comments

Nastasia Durham and Isaiah Williams, Evansville, daughter, Iyanna Nyari, March 22

Tristen and Brandon Troxell, Evansville, son, Jaxon Scott, March 24

Angel Hardiman and Zachary Vanmatre, Princeton, IN, son, Keegan Michael Leon, March 24

Aisa and Corey Glienke, Evansville, son, Jaxson Figueroa, March 25

Katelyn and Gabriel Cabrillas, Evansville, daughter, Charlie Marie, March 25

Audra and Casey Reeves, Evansville, daughter, Jypsie Moon, March 26

Kelly and Elijah Hargett, Mount Vernon, IN, son, Hudson Adam, March 26

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