The Mayor Pete boomlet is real. The question is whether he’s on the edge of a breakthrough in the Democratic race—or likely to just be the butt of future jokes.
Not long ago, Pete Buttigieg was, if anything, that guy whose name no one seemed sure how to pronounce. But after a few weeks of extensive positive press, and the announcement of an impressive $7 million first-quarter fundraising haul, he’s now the guy who can unite powerful media Davids on the left and the right in admiration. Google Trends published this remarkable graph on Monday, showing Buttigieg’s rise to prominence:
Here you can see how @PeteButtigieg has risen in search interest this year.https://t.co/yaz7Sm5f8g pic.twitter.com/78pxqB7TkJ
— GoogleTrends (@GoogleTrends) April 1, 2019
But no one knows yet what that internet fame means in practical terms. Whether it pushes the South Bend, Indiana, mayor into the top tier of the Democratic race is unclear; perhaps more important at the moment is whether his momentum is sustainable, or simply a blip.
Candidate boomlets are not a new phenomenon. In 2011, my former colleague Molly Ball joked that there was a boomlet boom in the GOP field. They seem to be a phenomenon of the modern media era, with a political press corps that’s heavily focused on the presidential race, highly diffuse, social-media driven, and runs 24 hours a day—all of which encourages passing infatuations with shiny new candidates, who can be discarded once they become tarnished or merely dull.