Q Toon: Buttigieg Out

Pete Buttigieg's suspension of his presidential race caught me just as I was about to draw something else for Q Syndicate, and it was something of a scramble to come up with a cartoon marking his withdrawal. Given that the syndicate's market is the LGBTQ+ press, I figured it was what those editors would want.

Even though one or two of the other candidates in this cartoon were bound to drop out after Super Tuesday.

Originally, this cartoon had Amy Klobuchar in it, but then she pulled out of the race just a few hours after I sent my cartoon off to the syndicate. Fortunately, I had put her somewhere where she was easy to remove — although that bit of plaid betrays where she had been. (It's gone from the higher-resolution files I sent chasing after the first emails to Q Syndicate.)

Some of my newspapers won't be on the newsstands until Thursday or Friday, by which time the more difficult task of removing Bloomberg and/or Warren is likely to be warranted.

Well, that's the drawback to not having my cartoons printed within a day of being drawn. Events have a way of ganging agley of expectations. For all I know, Tulsi Gabbard could ride her second-place finish in American Samoa all the way to November. And then this cartoon would look pretty stupid.

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Buttigieg's campaign was remarkable in that a young, gay, married, small-city mayor was taken seriously at the presidential level; and that the small-city part, and perhaps the young part, probably ended up being larger obstacles than the gay thing.

What might the future hold for Mayor Pete? The political landscape in Indiana being what it is, he has little chance of being elected to higher office there. He might try taking on four-term Republican Congressman Jackie Walorski, but getting elected Governor or Senator there would be a steep uphill climb. 2020 seems an unlikely year for a Democratic white male presidential nominee to select another white male as his running mate, so perhaps a cabinet post would be a more realistic opportunity.

But the guy showed that he could be taken seriously; so even as he heads into the sunset for now, I hope we haven't heard the last of Pete Buttigieg.