When you’re the presidential front runner, you’re gonna take hits.

South Bend, Indiana Democratic Mayor Pete Buttigieg is the front runner in Iowa. And in a race where you could have four different winners before Super Tuesday on March 3rd – with no consensus candidate in sight! – Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina take on even more significance.

Buttigieg is getting dinged for his work at consulting firm McKinsey. McKinsey is one of those firms that signifies and symbolizes the ‘elite’ and the ‘DC Swamp.’ And even if one were to argue both of those examples, it certainly represents the idea of the insider. This goes against the image Buttigieg has been desperate to push out: Industrial Midwest Mayor who speaks for the forgotten and ignored with Millennial cool while sporting a boyish grin and a first-day-on-the-job-Supercuts hairdo.

But it all falls apart when you realize that he’s an insider at his core.