You make some very salient points. Let me qualify upfront that I am generally conservative, and have worked on numerous campaigns over the past 30 years. I have worked on, and even managed campaigns for Republicans, Democrats, and one independent.

Pete Buttigeig is not likely to get my vote, but that is irrelevant. For some reason sections of the Democratic party and the press keep rotating people up to where they try to "make them a thing" with no corresponding actual public support at all behind it.
The 1st instance of this was with Hillary. It was part of her downfall as a candidate. "Annointed" candidates don’t motivate the middle, and that is where an election is won. They also made startlingly naive campaign decisions, but that is another topic.
The whole primary process was the media specifically fawning over one candidate then another, trying to get one to "click". None did, and Joe won by seeming safe, and by not being Trump. Even then they couldn’t stop trying to meddle, and took a presidential candidate so unpopular she dropped out before the 1st primary, and stuck her as VP, and heir apparent as the next candidate. To no one’s surprise who has run campaigns, she remains the same person the voters didn’t like 2 years ago.

Pete is just the latest example of this. Personally he may be a nice guy, but he has never clicked with any wide audience. Being the Child Mayor of South Bend is interesting, but not a grab your attention qualifcation. No offense to the fine people of South Bend, but most American’s don’t know anything about it beyond being where Notre Dame is located. His tenure seems to overall have been OK, but nothing dynamic. So what is left? Only checking the box as being gay. That isn’t going offset his lack of relevant experience.

This is just an educated guess on my part, but the DNC had run the national party for so long, they are desperate to continue to do so and control the narrative. The problem is they are based on the old core of the Clinton Administration, and Hillary was the last one in the queue they had built up. With her gone, it is just one trial balloon after another, but all orchestrated vs. risking popular support determining who may suddenly emerge as leader for the future of the party, but not be under the DNC’s thumb.

That ended up longer than I planned, but I enjoyed your article, and look forward to more from you.