Pete Buttigieg — America’s Mayor?
This is the first piece in my series on the 2020 election. I only have two more planned as of right now so enjoy them!
Pete Buttigieg is the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, where he was born in 1982. If elected president he would be the first president from the millennial generation. Elected mayor of South Bend in 2012, he is the 32nd mayor of the city.
Buttigieg, who is in the exploratory committee phase of his presidential campaign, also is known for being an openly gay candidate. Buttigeig, who is currently polling at 1% (please feel free to send me your polls with him at 2% and 3%), threatens to outshine Fred Karger, who ran in 2012, as a Republican, and who is, and was, an openly gay man.
Buttigieg’s resume is presidential - a graduate from Harvard University, a Rhodes Scholar, and veteran.
These are the parts of his resume, at least, that are most often heard about during his speeches and interviews, in addition to his being a mayor. Before he was mayor, however, he worked as a consultant for McKinsey and Company. This, of course, isn’t grand investigative journalism, it’s at the top of his Wikipedia page, but, it may be interesting to note, if Buttigieg is attempting to separate himself from his business record, why that may be.
Additionally, while there seems to be some selling point that Pete Buttigieg is a Democratic mayor from the conservative state of Indiana, South Bend has elected Democrats consistently since 1972 and has only elected three Republicans since 1935. South Bend is the county seat of St. Joseph County, Indiana, one of four counties in Indiana that went for Hillary Clinton in 2016. St. Joseph County went Democrat in presidential elections in 2012, 2008, 2000, 1996 and 1992. Before that, it was pretty reliably Republican at the presidential level. At the gubernatorial level, St. Joseph County has went Democrat consistently since at least 1992. The county is not reliably Democratic in senate elections, and is home to such former US Representatives as Mike Pence and Joe Donnelly.
There may be some credibility to Buttigieg’s Democrat-from-a-Republican-state case, but it isn’t without its holes.
Instead of wondering aloud whether or not a mayor can get elected president, I’m more interested in if mayors have attempted it before, and if they did, how they did. In 1996, former Mayor of Buffalo, New York Jimmy Griffin primaried Bill Clinton. Griffin finished 8th place in the New Hampshire primary. In 1992, former Mayor of Irvine California, Larry Agran ran for the Democratic nomination. Agran received 3 delegates at the convention and 58,000 votes, or 0.29% of the popular vote. There is some evidence of media bias against Agran, a frustrating perennial problem that candidates face in every level of election. In 1972, New York City mayor and former Representative John Lindsay ran for president (Lindsay also ran as a Republican in 1968), as did Los Angeles Mayor and former Representative Sam Yorty. As they both also served as congressional representatives, they don’t really count.
On the Republican side is probably the most famous case of a mayor running for president - Rudy Giuliani. Were it not for the mayor’s absurd Florida strategy, he may have performed better in the 2008 Republican Presidential Primary.
I don’t look back further than 1960 for examples of mayor candidates, let me know if you think that’s arbitrary and why!
If elected, Buttigieg would be the youngest president ever elected, at age 38 and the youngest serving at age 39.
Buttigieg has worked for former Representative Jill Long Thompson. He’s also worked for The Cohen Group, founded by former Maine Senator and US Secretary of Defense, William Cohen. Additionally, Buttigieg campaigned for John Kerry in 2004.
In 2010 Buttigieg was nominated by the Democratic Party to run for State Treasurer of Indiana, but lost to incumbent Richard Mourdock with only 37.5% of the vote.
Buttigieg ran for but withdrew from the race for the Chair of the Democratic National Committee in 2017.
Buttigieg seems to be focusing on Iowa, a strategy that could suggest he feels he may be more popular amongst the more conservative voters of the state, versus the more progressive primary voters of New Hampshire, who voted for Bernie Sanders in 2016.
Iowa has gone to Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Kerry, Al Gore, Tom Harkin, Dick Gephardt, Walter Mondale, Jimmy Carter, and has twice gone to uncommitted, in 1972 and 1976. The other strategy there could be the realization that the state does seem to have an impressive track record of picking eventual Democratic party nominees.
Meanwhile, New Hampshire has gone to Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton in 2008, John Kerry, Al Gore, Paul Tsongas, Michael Dukakis, Gary Hart, Jimmy Carter, Edmund Muskie, LBJ, JFK and Estes Kefauver. Not counting John Kerry and Al Gore, the New Hampshire primary doesn’t have as much luck picking eventual nominees.
It’s hard to say how things will go for Mayor Pete, but he deserves a fair chance, and hopefully the media, and his party, will give him one.
Buttigieg has a new book out Shortest Way Home: One Mayor’s Challenge and a Model for America’s Future.
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