Ever since the “She’s for They/Them” ad, the side early 2028 primary is coming down to which Dem can successfully pivot on men pretending to be women (without necessarily pivoting).

Gov. Gavin Newsom pretended to pivot, but then didn’t. Rahm Emmanuel went all the way to a man can’t become a woman. Kudos to him, but not what the Dems are looking for. Pete Buttigieg may however have stuck the landing by talking a lot about “compassion” without actually saying anything. Truly the mark of a politician.

“Your approach starts with compassion — compassion for transgender people, compassion for families, especially young people who are going through this, and also empathy for people who are not sure what all of this means for them,” Buttigieg said.

“And I think when you do that, that does call into question some of the past orthodoxies in my party, for example, around sports, where I think most reasonable people would recognize that there are serious fairness issues if you just treat this as not mattering when a trans athlete wants to compete in women’s sports.

“Meaning the parent who has complained about this has a case,” Inskeep interjected.

“Sure,” Buttigieg said. “And that’s why I think these decisions should be in the hands of sports leagues and school boards and not politicians. Least of all, politicians in Washington trying to use this as a political pawn.”

What is Buttigieg actually saying? Let me roll out a quote from a very different source.

“When Hoik, after two days of steady work, succeeded in eliminating meaningless statements, vague gibberish, useless qualifications – in short, all the goo and dribble – he found he had nothing left. Everything canceled out. Lord Dorwin, gentlemen, in five days of discussion didn’t say one damned thing, and said it so you never noticed.”

What did Buttigieg actually say? The answer is actually instructive. Like Newsom,. Buttigieg suggested or implied there may be ‘fairness issues’ in men competing against women. His conclusion is that the status quo should remain in place, with men competing against women, with his closing argument that the decisions should be left in the hands of the people who made it this way not in the hands of “politicians in Washington trying to use this as a political pawn.”

In other words, it’s the same ‘bathroom’ argument Dems have been pulling, but this time with a feint toward ‘compassion’.

Buttigieg understood the assignment, which is show sympathy to normal voters, but double down on having Steve\Sally smash your daughter in the face.