Q Toon: When They Go Low

Some weeks, there seems to be a dearth of topics for LGBTQ+ cartoons.

This was not one of those weeks.

Some anonymous caller to Michigan Child Protective Services made a false complaint against Pete Buttigieg. An openly gay candidate for Nancy Pelosi's congressional seat was forcibly shooed away from a transgender pride event in San Francisco by pro-Palestinian activists making wildly unfair accusations against him because he's Jewish. Also in San Francisco, four pitchers on the local baseball team thought the Giants' LGBTQ Pride Game would be a good idea to tell LGBTQ fans just what they thought of them. And it would have been a good time to draw anything about the U.S. semiquincentennial.

I went with the first story, in part because Michigan's Between the Lines is one of my client papers, but also because the story is truly outrageous.

Buttigieg described in his Substack the attack on his family, likening it to "SWATting":

Now imagine the same concept, but with Child Protective Services instead of a SWAT team. Hadn’t thought of that? Me neither, until a few days ago when a police officer and a CPS worker showed up at our home and politely asked to speak with me.

I showed them in, invited them on the deck so that we could hear each other over the barking dog, and asked what was going on. They explained that there had been an allegation against me, that it concerned our four-year-old twins, and that a forensic interview had been arranged for the children the following day. I could not be present at the children’s interview, nor could any family member sit in. Afterwards, they would come back and interview me. And only then would they tell me anything about the nature of the allegation.

I was bewildered and troubled, but tried to stay calm. I’m used to any number of falsehoods, attacks, and serious problems being thrown my way. What I didn’t understand was what could have led to this kind of visit. Then, the CPS worker told me something that made my stomach turn: I was not to be alone around the children, at least until the interview took place the next day. They asked if I had relatives nearby or could perhaps stay at a hotel for the night. [...]

An anonymous caller had contacted CPS. The caller said that he had spoken to a woman who claimed to have met me at a conference several years ago in Alabama, where she said I told her that I had committed unspeakable violent crimes, and the caller believed my children were still at risk.

That was all. The officer had a couple of obvious questions. He asked if I had been to the town where the woman claimed she had met me. I have not. Then the officer made clear that he believed this was politically motivated, and said it would not be referred to a prosecutor. Nothing in the forensic interview with the children, which was conducted by trained personnel, had led to concerns.

Buttigieg holds open the possibility that he and his husband will pursue civil damages against the anonymous allegator. Michigan could also file criminal charges against the man for false reporting. That presumes that the person's cloak of anonymity can be drawn back in the first place. Unmasking the Mystery Woman from Alabama may well be impossible, if she exists at all.

There isn't much else that can be done about this sort of attack by false police report. Child Protective Services must take such allegations seriously, even against public figures. Sometimes the allegations turn out to be true — often when the public figure is some stridently antigay Republican preacher type.

If this kind of attack becomes more common — and make no mistake: LGBTQ parents are not the only people susceptible to this — somebody is going to have to give it a name.

But for now, Bearing False Witness will have to do.

Q Toon: Early Indications

Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was a guest on Stephen Colbert's show recently — it seems that there is a different Democratic politician on every night trying to get their fare-thee-wells in before CBS pulls Colbert's plug — and was asked about the possibility of his running for president in 2028.

It's too early for Democrats to declare candidacies for president, and Colbert acknowledged as much in his question, so Buttigieg naturally did not throw his metaphorical hat in the proverbial ring on late-night television. I nevertheless see a lot of his posts on my social media feed, even more than those of Gavin Newsom.

That's the fault of Al Gorithm, I suppose. Al and I have never met, but he seems to think he knows a lot about me.

Anyway, Mr. Buttigieg tells us that his main priority these days is getting Democrats elected to office around the country. That's the sort of thing a former Secretary of Transportation and small-city mayor has to do in order to have elected Democrats return one's calls after one launches a presidential campaign.

There isn’t much Buttigieg can do in the present Gerrymandering War, but he has been lending his star power to various congressional candidates. His strategy for helping get Democrats elected also appears to involve a good amount of showing up on TV. 

He certainly has the skills to hold his own against the Republican mouthpieces on Fox Noise. Perhaps he should give Chuck Schumer some lessons.

Well, I hope you've enjoyed this little respite from the constant Trump Trump Trump of Invasive, Pervasive, Inescapable, Omnitrumpified Trumpitude.

If not, please tune in again tomorrow.

Q Toon: 107 Days

Former Vice President Kamala Harris published a memoir of her thwarted dash for the Oval Office last week, and it caused quite the hubbub in Washington (until our Felon In Chief and his Martini Martinet bombed in front of a command audience of every general, admiral, and space marshall  in the U.S. military).

No doubt, books like 107 Days will be of great value to future historians trying to figure out how American democracy came to a tragic end. But for now, it joins a select few literary tomes by presidential runners-up — Hilary Clinton's What Happened and Richard Nixon's Six Crises come to mind — laboring to deflect the blame for coming up short in the Electoral College.

In so doing, Harris steps on a few toes.

Would we be better off had President Biden recognized his declining faculties? Well, duh. Nearly everybody in the Democratic Party wishes that Dean Phillips and Jason Palmer weren't the only ones willing to step up and advocate for a little age discrimination.

Would it have helped if Tim Walz had gone more forcefully for JD Vance's jugular in their televised debate? Well, maybe. But if you pick the Governor of Minnesota as your running mate, don't be surprised if you get a heap o' Minnesota Nice.

Harris explains that she passed over Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro because he was too interested in the top job someday. Which is a hoot, because Harris herself was a rival to Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination in 2020. Besides, I don't know where she could possibly have found a Democrat qualified to be Vice President with no interest in redecorating the Oval Office.

Her reasoning against naming Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg as her running mate was that while she likes him personally and politically, she didn't think U.S. voters were ready to elect the ticket of a Black-Asian woman with a Jewish husband and a gay man with a husband of his own.

Buttigieg has responded that he was surprised by Harris's reasoning, and believes in "giving Americans more credit" in accepting the possibility of having a First and Second Gentleman at the same time. Harris might have had a point, however; the Trump campaign was able to successfully attack Harris as being "for they/them" even without Buttigieg on the ticket.

107 Days also includes swipes at Democrats Gavin Newsom, Gretchen Whitmer, J.B. Pritzger, and Mark Kelly. Since just about every Democrat I've named in these paragraphs is considering a run for the presidency in 2028 (maybe not Joe Biden — I sure hope not), I'm pretty sure that Kamala Harris is not on their short lists for their own running mate.

Not that she'd be interested in the vice presidency.

Thomas Marshall, John Nance Garner, and Selina Meyer could tell you why.

This Week's Sneak Peek

This week's sneak peek is a sketch I was working on last night before deciding to start over and to take the cartoon in a different direction.

By the way, it's amazing to me that in grayscale, every scanner that I've ever worked with thinks that white bristol board is this dark. Had I scanned this sketch in color, I'm sure that the paper would have read as cyan to blue.

Q Toon: Nudge, Nudge

I am one of those people who can't remember where my husband always puts things, or how much flour to use when making crepes, or whether I shut the garage door before driving away, because all those synapses in my brain have been permanently wired to remembering each and every Monty Python sketch ever filmed.

So naturally, when Tucker Carlson fantasized about getting Pete Buttigieg on his podcast so that he could grill him on whether he's really gay, my mind immediately leapt to the "Nudge, Nudge" sketch of Eric Idle and the late Terry Jones.

In a recent interview on his namesake podcast, The Tucker Carlson Show, the former Fox News prime-time host raised some concerns about former U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg. Carlson was speaking with Michael Knowles, another conservative political commentator, about a litany of issues including Trump's dustup with Harvard.

“The fake gay guy?” Carlson asks when Buttigieg’s name is mentioned. “My gay producer is always like, ‘He’s not gay.’ He was with a girl like 20 minutes ago and like he wants to be the Democratic nominee. It’s like: ‘Time for a gay guy!’” ...

“I’ve always wanted to interview him,” Carlson continued, later. “He’s never agreed to an interview but I’m going to ask him like some very specific questions about gay sex and see if he can even answer. I doubt he even knows. You’re not gay, dude, stop.”

In the interest of space, I had to condense the dialogue considerably for this cartoon, especially the part of Jones/Buttigieg. Regrettable, but necessary. I also wish that I didn't have to include the ultimate punch line; but I recognize that some readers out there might not have the exhaustive knowledge of 55-year-old British television comedy sketches that I do.

I suspect that Secretary Buttigieg doesn't need me to tell him that he should not take Carlson's bait. Buttigieg has demonstrated a talent for going on Fox Noise, MAGA podcasts, etc., and holding his own against their right-wing point talkers. He was arguably the Biden administration's best spokesperson: cogent, logical, and unrattled by their hyperbole, whataboutism, and mischaracterization.

Carlson's aim, therefore, is to destroy whatever gravitas Buttigieg has accrued through his service in the military and elected office by getting him to talk about who does what in his bedroom, how often, and what is his favorite lube, so that the right-wing echo chamber can repeat it ad infinitum any time he tries to talk about urban renewal, international alliances, tax policy, or airplane safety.

Which could come in handy when ReTrumplicans need to distract the rest of us from the moral and sexual depravity of the thrice-married, 34-times-convicted, pussy-grabbing Epstein pal currently making the White House over into a gilded bordello fit for Louis XIV's favorite concubines.

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Q Toon: On the Road Again

I have to admit that it's tough coming up with cartoon ideas these days.

It's not for a dearth of topics. Congress is back in session. A dishonest grifter who led an insurrection against democracy is about to take over the U.S. government. Our broligarchy is falling all over itself to kowtow to the new Trumpreich. Justin Trudeau's government is collapsing. Warfare against civilians continues in Gaza and Ukraine. Islamist radicals have toppled Russia's client in Syria. Blizzards are blanketing parts of the U.S., and fires are raging around L.A. A couple of "Once a Marine, always a Marine"s decided that their New Year’s resolution was to go out as terrorists.

It's no wonder that, according to a recent poll, people are sick of paying attention to the news. I'm not immune to this particular malady, either.

I turned on the news Tuesday afternoon around lunchtime, and there was Donald Berzelius Trump, having himself a live press conference, blathering on about bathroom showerheads and dishwashers and toilets. So I immediately turned it off and missed the part about declaring war on Greenland, Denmark, Panama, Canada, and the Gulf of Mexico.

By the way, not to be overly crass, but when Trump complains about having to flush his toilet 15 times, it's because there's no way in hell he'd ever touch a scrub brush.

And when he summoned the media on Tuesday to share his oral diarrhea with us all, it was because he's jealous of a dead president getting all the attention.

Anyway, since I haven't come up with an LGBTQ+ angle on any of that yet, this week's cartoon is about Pete Buttigieg packing up his stuff and vacating the office of Secretary of Transportation. 

I for one will be sorry to see him go, and interested to see what his next steps are. He has been the Biden administration's most effective spokesperson, the guy who has held his own and then some going up against the Fox Noise angers anchors. He might end up in one of the other news channels' stable of talking heads, but it would be a shame if that limits him to talking to a friendly audience.

He has been mentioned as a candidate for office in Michigan, where he and Chasten now reside with their family. How Michiganders would feel about a Hoosier asking for their vote is open for discussion.

Buttigieg might consider running for president again in 2028. He should probably ask Liddy Dole whether being a former Transportation Secretary is a sufficient credential for the Oval Office. 

First, he'd have to get the Democratic Party nomination, of course. 

And as the past three presidential contests have shown, Democrats have higher standards for nominating a presidential candidate than RepubliQans do.

Everything Auld Is New Again

I robbed Mike Peterson of 1923 Christmas cartoons last week, so I'll let him have the year-end ones — except for this one that has nothing to do with New Year's Eve, but presages a certain meme:

"'Twixt Love and Duty" by Sam Armstrong in Tacoma News Tribune, Dec. 31, 1923

Instead, it's time for your humble scribbler's annual review of my favorites of my own work from the rapidly fading year. And as long as we're mimicking memes...

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Former Senator from Wisconsin Herb Kohl passed away this week, so I have to acknowledge his career here before the year is up.

in UWM Post, Milwaukee, Wis., Sept. 20, 1988

I featured my home state Senator in only a few cartoons over the years, starting in 1988 during his first run for the seat of retiring Bill Proxmire. There were occasional rumors about the lifelong bachelor's sexuality, and I drew referencing that — once — for the LGBTQ press. 

But for the most part, he only appeared as one senator among others in my cartoons — sometimes with a basketball to make sure that Wisconsin readers would recognize the owner of the Milwaukee Bucks. I might just as well have alluded to his grocery or department stores instead.

Curiously, I never had occasion to draw him for the Business Journal of Greater Milwaukee in the nine years that I drew editorial cartoons there. Even when the week's editorial was about the Milwaukee Bucks, the focus was on the stadium board or local government or the players' union. I drew more cartoons for the Beej about our other Senator, Russ Feingold.

That's because Senator Kohl wasn't one to crave the limelight as much as some other politicians. Yet he worked hard on behalf of the state, and put more skin in the game than most team owners do when it came to keeping the Bucks in his hometown. 

Kohl may be the last politician here to gain popularity across the political spectrum. After a modest but respectable victory over then State Senate Majority Leader Susan Engeleiter in 1988, he carried all but nine Wisconsin counties in 1994, and all but eight in 2000. In his last reelection campaign, in 2006, he won each and every county in the state.

For a billionaire, he had the common touch, and kept in touch with his constituents from day one and then some. This was the first year since 1988 that Mr. Kohl did not send my dad a Christmas card.*

Vayanuach b’shalom, Mr. Kohl.

___________

* I stand corrected: Dad did receive a holiday card from Senator Kohl this year.

Q Toon: After Speaker Dinner

 

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was a guest on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert last week, theoretically to promote an infrastructure project to the New York subway, but also because there are no TV and movie stars making the circuit during the actors' strike.

Toward the end of the interview, Colbert asked Buttigieg about the new Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, referencing the virulently antigay Speaker's past accusation that same-sex marriage is "a dark harbinger of chaos." Buttigieg offered the Johnson not condemnation, but an invitation to dinner.

“I don’t know, maybe we’ll just have him over. If he could see what it’s like when I come home from work, and Chas is bringing the kids home from daycare or vice versa, and one of us is getting the mac and cheese ready and the other’s microwaving those freezer meatballs — which are a great cheat code if you’ve got a toddler and you need to feed them quickly, and one won’t take their shoes off and one needs a diaper change. Everything about that is chaos, but nothing about this is dark. The love of God is in that household.”

I haven't seen any reports that Maga Mike has accepted the Glezman-Buttigieges' invitation for mac and cheese, but they ought to have plenty to talk about over dinner. They are each adoptive parents, after all, differences between adopting a pair of infants and adopting a 14-year-old notwithstanding. 

Let's hope they abide by the common wisdom and steer the conversation away from politics and religion.

Q Toon: From Here to Paternity

Fox Noise talking head Tucker Carlson recently got his panties all in a wad because Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was taking some time off from work to join husband Chasten raising their newborn twins.

“Paternity leave, they call it," Carlson sniffed, "trying to figure out how to breastfeed. No word on how that went.”

Buttigieg took Carlson's crap in stride.

“Well, look, in his case, I guess he just doesn’t understand the concept of bottle feeding, let alone the concept of paternity leave,” he said.

“But what is really strange is that, you know, this is from a side of the aisle that used to claim the mantle of being pro-family,” Buttigieg added. “What we have right now is an administration that’s actually pro-family. And I’m blessed to be able to experience that as an employee, being able to have the flexibility to take care of our newborn children, which is, by the way, work. It’s a joyful work. It’s wonderful work, but it’s ― it’s definitely work.”

Buttigieg further explained that there is this thing called the internet, which allows him to keep abreast of any developments at the Transportation Department, including supply chain bottlenecks and the Build Back Better But With Coal So Joe Manchin Might Vote For It Bill. He only took six weeks off, so he has since returned to work (and to the Sunday Morning Talk Shows).

Carlson's swipe at the Buttiegieg family, echoed by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), Noisemax, and others of their right-wing ilk, is just another example of the stuck-in-the-1950's thinking we've come to expect from the Republican Party these days.

Carlson's sad implication "breastfeeding" is the only significant task for people who have children ― an especially depressing take from a father of four ― does a disservice to all parents, of all genders and sexualities.

When men do take parental leave, research shows they see it as an overwhelmingly positive experience, reducing the professional risk for both them and their partner, increasing their bond with their child, and strengthening their relationship. As part of a gay couple, Buttigieg's example in taking leave is particularly significant.

And, as many others have pointed out, Fox Noise itself offers paid paternity leave to its employees, and they greatly appreciate it in spite of the diaper changes and nose fridas.

 I cannot thank Fox enough for providing all fathers who work here with such a generous paternity leave. This experience has changed me in a profound way and in ways I won’t fully comprehend until my daughter is older. But for now – that smile coming from the crib each morning, immediately followed by morning snuggles – is what I will cherish the most. There is nothing better. 

Q Toon: Conveyor Pete

Congratulations to Pete and Chasten Buttigieg, who announced over the weekend that they have become the proud parents of newborns Penelope Rose and Joseph August Buttigieg.

Photos show each father holding an infant in his arm, so we're pretty sure they didn't pick two names for one child to choose from later. 

Q Toon: LGBTQIAA2SGOP+

 

I've quoted GQP Chair Ronna McDonald's Pride Month tweet directly in the first panel of this week's cartoon. She concluded her tweet by explaining that "we will continue to grow our big tent by supporting measures that promote fairness and balance protections for LGBTQ Americans and those with deeply held religious beliefs."

There has been plenty of pushback to McDonald's tweet, starting with Chasten Buttigieg challenging her to read her own party's platform on LGBTQ rights. The GQP didn't produce a national platform in 2020, but its 2016 platform and its various state party platforms came out resoundingly against LGBTQ rights.

The Transportation Secretary's husband, a Chicago area teacher, also noted that "Those with 'deeply held religious beliefs' are often the parents who force their LGBTQ children out of the home and onto the street. I've met with those kids. 40% of homeless youth in this country are LGBTQ."

Other tweeters have scoffed that doubling LGBTQ support comes from having such low number to start with; but let's be honest. We can be found in every walk of life. Even this guy:

There are more Ric Grenells, Caitlyn Jenners, Tammy Bruces and Milo Yiannopouloi out there than more mainstream LGBTQ+ folk might care to admit. Not enough to have any great influence in their party's platforms, surely, but they exist.

Right-wingers have their own problems with McDaniel's tweet. 

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins tweeted: "Sounds good in a tweet, but the reality is religious freedom is being endangered by those demanding forced acceptance of the LGBTQ agenda from the elementary classroom to the corporate board room and everything in between. There can be no compromise on our First Freedom."

"Stop," said Arizona state Sen. Wendy Rogers, a Republican. "We don't want men to play on girls' sports teams and castration of children. Ronna needs to adjust this horrible wrong-headed messaging or resign."

Who is the real Requblican Party any more? McDaniel and Grinell, or Perkins and Rogers? Those new Requblican converts deserve to know what they're getting into. Check out another tweet in response to the GQP Chair:

One small perk of being a white gay guy who can blend-in with Republicans:

When Republicans think they’re in friendly company, I get to hear *precisely* what they think of people who aren’t straight/white/Christian/etc.

It isn’t pretty – and you aren’t fooling anyone.

— Calamity-Era Tom (@HylianTom) June 3, 2021

Say, Tom, that wouldn't have been you blending in at the Capitol, was it?

The Q Toon Meets the Road

Several weeks ago, someone left a request in the comments here to "Do one on Biden." Since I hadn't drawn any cartoons about President Biden since his inauguration, here's one.

It also addresses my need to draw once in a while about LGBTQ+ political figures such as our Secretary of Transportation. If Pete Buttigieg — or Mark Pocan, Mondaire Jones, Sharice Davids, or Tammy Baldwin— aren't making headlines, I guess I have to make something up. I just don't know if I can keep coming up with Dad Jokes to keep this premise going.

I may have to ask my Dad.

2020 in Masochistic Review

As is my wont on Circumcision of Our Lord Day, I pause to reflect on the headlines and cartoons of the year gone by.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind?

Sounds like an attractive plan of action this time around.

Q Toon: Cabinet Building

You were expecting maybe another Christmas cartoon?

President-Elect Joe Biden is busy assembling his cabinet, and there are some interesting choices. They are a remarkably diverse bunch, racially, ethnically, and LGBTQ+ly, for one thing. One of them is on record saying nasty things about Republicans, which has shocked, shocked! a party where such behavior is completely unknown.

There might be more significant resistance to Biden's choice for Defense, Lloyd Austin II, a retired U.S. Army four-star general, commander of U.S. Central Command until April, 2016. The National Security Act of 1947, which began the process of replacing the Department of War with the Department of Defense, requires that the head of the department not have served in the U.S. military for seven years before assuming the job. Congress waived that provision for Gen. George Marshall in 1950 and Gen. James Mattis in 2017, but members on both sides of the aisle have expressed reservations about yet another waiver.

So some of Biden's other cabinet choices seem more at random. For Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Biden wants former Chief of Staff in the Obama administration Denis McDonough, who has some experience in foreign policy, but not in the military or in health care. Former Gary, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, one of Biden's rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination last winter and one of his best spokesmen on TV in the fall, has been tagged for the Department of Transportation.

Secretary of Transportation is something of a dead-end job as far as political aspirations go. Oh, sure, Liddy Dole tried running for president in 2000 with Transportation Secretary on her résumé, and Andrew Card shows up on cable news now and again. But can you name any others? If you can think of the name of Donald Trump's Secretary of Transportation before reading past this comma, you are probably her husband, Mitch McConnell.

So will my LGBTQ+ continue to be interested in Mayor Pete? Will we ever hear from him again?

Ah, well. The President-Elect is an Amtrak aficionado, so maybe there's still a chance for the Department of Transportation to make news after all.

Toon: Pence Flies Off Topic

Considering how many cartoons I drew with Mike Pence in them during the 2016 campaign and in the early years of the Corrupt Trump Administration, it has been a surprisingly long time since I've drawn him lately.

Never fear. After this week's Vice Presidential So-Called Debate, it was only natural that he should make another appearance — if for no other reason than to celebrate the fly that perched on his head for two minutes and nine seconds, during which it held a nation's undivided attention.

The main difference between these so-called debates and an actual debate is that in an actual debate, you have to respect whatever time limit you have been given, which Mike Pence and Donald Typhoid Mary Trump completely ignored. Short of getting the Oscars' orchestra to start playing candidates off when they prattle on too long, however, there seems to be nothing the moderators of these things are able to do.

You don't get to interrupt the person on the other side of the debate, either, but I guess Pence gets points for interrupting Kamala Harris only a small fraction of the number of times Trump interrupted Joe Biden.

But most importantly, You Have To Stick To The Question You Have Been Asked. Wander off into a completely different topic, and you flunk the debate right away. If you're in a spelling bee, you don't get to choose some word you'd rather spell instead.

Harris evaded a couple of Susan Page's questions about whether Democrats were going to "pack" the Supreme Court and so forth, but Mike Pence didn't just wander off topic, he vaulted over the fence, sprinted far afield, and blatantly refused to answer any question when he felt like talking about something else.

38:57 PAGE 

Senator Harris just said that climate change is an existential threat. Vice President Pence, do you believe that climate change poses an existential threat?

39:07 PENCE

As I said, Susan, the climate is changing. We’ll follow the science, but, once again, Senator Harris is denying the fact that they're gonna raise taxes on every American...

Or, at 14:21, Page asked Pence, in light of Trump's current health crisis, "...have you had a conversation or reached an agreement with President Trump about safeguards or procedures when it comes to the issue of presidential disability? And if not, do you think you should?" Pence ignored the question and went on and on about promising a coronavirus vaccine and warning that the 2009 swine flu epidemic would have been a lot worse if it had been a lot worse.

I do wonder about the debate prep these people go through. For the Harris-Pence event, the candidates prepared with former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi playing the part of Senator Harris and former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg standing in for the Vice President.

Do these stand-ins play their parts honestly, or do they act out the partisan caricatures they perceive of the other side?

Do they charge ahead over their allotted time and talk over the candidate they're training?

Yeah, that they probably do.

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.

This Week's Sneak Peek

I was all set last night to draw a cartoon for Q Syndicate about Mike Pence, Coronavirus Czar, but I guess it'll have to wait.

Q Toon: How's This Going to Look

Rush Limbaugh spent a good portion of his program recently gloating over supposed anxiety among Democratic leadership over Pete Buttigieg's decent performance in the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary. The Presidential Medal of Trumpitude recipient imagined party leaders whimpering the sentence at the top of my cartoon this week.

That's a direct quote. For what it's worth, Pete Buttigieg turned 38 on January 19, three weeks before Rush's remarks, so don't sic the Snopes on me.

Buttigieg isn't ashamed of his PDAs; and to their credit, while the other candidates have plenty of grounds for grudges against the upstart former mayor, they have come to his defense on this little contretemps. Even some Republicans voiced criticism of Limbaugh's comments.

Meanwhile, Melania Trump's sentiments about PDAs with her husband are well documented. So, fine, let's bring it on, Rush.

Q Toon: Pete, or Repeat

Video went viral last week of a woman learning at her Iowa Democratic caucus that a candidate she supported, Pete Buttigieg, is gay. Somehow, she had never heard this before, and since there's no same-sex marriage in the Bible, she asked to change her vote.

This week's cartoon is not about her.

That woman was also wearing stickers for Amy Klobuchar, a perfectly reasonable alternative for any voter who may have been interested in Pete Buttigieg. They're both centrist Democrats from the Midwest, with similar stands on most major issues. Chances are good that either is the second choice of many of the other's supporters.

If few of the Democratic candidates are catching fire yet, it's because most Democrats would be just as happy voting for any of the candidates besides the one they favor the most.

Most Democrats, that is, other than certain Bernie Sanders supporters from whom I hear a lot. So do pollsters.

In 2016, pollsters found that ten percent of Bernie Sanders voters in the primaries cast ballots for Donald Trump in November, which flabbergasts me. Wanting to shake up the system is one thing, but the differences between Socialist Sanders and Plutocrat Trump are so vast one has to wonder what exactly it was that the 10% saw in both of them.

10% of Bernie Bros may not sound like a lot, but they were enough to tip Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania to Trump.

I'm guessing that if he doesn't get the nomination, most Buttigieg supporters today will support, more or less enthusiastically, whomever the Democratic nominee turns out to be rather than Donald Berzelius Trump. But you can never be sure about these voters who have only started paying attention to the race in the past week or two.

I don't know how else to explain a voter who had no idea that Buttigieg is gay and finds that fact to be a deal breaker.

Every one of the other Democratic candidates supports marriage equality, anathema to the crowd pushing to legislate Leviticus. If this woman gets all her news from her evangelical preacher, there's a good chance Revrunt Soandso's has forgiven Trump his multitude of sins past, present and future, but still thinks that Barack Obama was the Antichrist and that the current Democratic field is just as bad.

Oh, by the way, did she know that Amy Klobuchar is a Vikings fan?

Q Toon: Yes, We Have No Palmettos

If the polls are to be believed, Pete Buttigieg has soared into the lead among Democratic candidates for president in first in the nation contests in Iowa and New Hampshire.

But even if December polling translates into actual voting in February, the next stop on the campaign trail is in South Carolina, where Mayor Pete is polling just slightly ahead of A Poke In The Eye With A Sharp Stick.

Whereas Iowa and New Hampshire electorates are among the whitest in the nation, South Carolina Democrats rank among the blackest. Not that race has helped black candidates there; even if you added Cory Booker's numbers and those of Kamala Harris before she suspended her candidacy this week, you'd still fall well short of former Vice President Joe Biden's support among South Carolina Democrats. Apparently, being anti-malarkey is a big selling point down there.

I don't hold a lot of stock in polls this far before any actual voting, however, especially where Democrats are concerned. Democratic candidates are like a bunch of cats in a room, and the polls are like a laser pointer shining on one of them. The rest all attack that spot of light until it lands on one of the other kitties.

Remember: at this point in 2003, Howard Dean led the polls; Hillary Clinton had a substantial lead over Barack Obama in December of 2007.

But once the cattle calls debates are over and the caucuses and primaries are underway, my cartoons will have to focus on issues, not who's up and who's down. My deadline for cartoons that will appear after the polls close is well before the polls open. So if I'm gonna comment on the horse race, I have to do it now.