Mayor Pete

March 20, 2019

I just finished watching an extensive interview with South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg on MSNBC. He is one of the many Democrats that have declared his candidacy for the presidency. I don’t think he will be the next President of the United States, but he will be a future President of the United States. In the spirit of future disclosure, he is a fellow alumnus, and he was in my daughter’s graduation class. He is smart, and extremely well-spoken. He has thought about the issues, and has a well-crafted response to almost every policy question. He served as an intelligence officer in Afghanistan. He is a Methodist. He is young. He is gay. He is reasonable.

He is not into identity politics. He proposes solutions that cut across racial divisions. He believes that a president should reflect our best values, and should use issues to unite people, and not divide them. While he believes in many progressive issues, he will say in the same breadth that we have to have specific ideas about how to pay for them. He doesn’t take the bait when a Trump trope is dangled in front of him. He stays on message, and does not give an emotional, snarky response.

We may not be ready today for a mayor from a small town, but get ready. He is coming.