Another Democrat who is the early 2020 Democratic Presidential nomination sweepstakes ….
This one with a twist ….
Pete Buttigieg is a Mayor and he’s gay Havard educated Afgahnistan US military veteran….
Pete Buttigieg’s PAC is investing money here — but also in Georgia, Arizona, Michigan and Colorado. And Iowa, per an announcement coming Tuesday. Next month, he’ll campaign in Ohio.
It’s not happenstance. Nor is keeping on Lis Smith, the hard-charging political operative who makes sure he’s constantly in the news. Or keeping up with Obama strategist David Axelrod, who recommended he hire Smith in the first place for the Democratic National Committee chair race that put him on Democrats’ radar last year. Or quietly building relationships over dinners and drinks with big-name Democrats, or courting national reporters, or wooing donors for his PAC, or digging in on political advertising research.
Buttigieg is getting closer to a presidential race. And serious people are telling the South Bend, Indiana mayor, who’d be the first major presidential candidate who’s either openly gay or an Afghanistan veteran or a millennial, to take it seriously.
“I think it’s maybe a sign of the times. I think it’s telling you that things are kind of wide open in a way that hasn’t been true in a long time. I think it shows that there is an interest in the middle of the country,” Buttigieg told me in an interview for POLITICO’s Off Message podcast. “I think it shows that there’s at least curiosity, if not appetite, for what a newer generation of leaders is going to look like. And I think it reflects the fact that we’re really living in a season for cities and for mayors.”…
image…wndu.com
I can’t think of a single person who’s ascended directly from mayor to President. (although both Roosevelts were Governors of New York state, neither was mayor of New York or any other town).
Joseph Kane’s Presidential Fact Book (Random House, 1998) lists only three Presidents as former mayors of their home towns: Andrew Johnson, Grover Cleveland and Calvin Coolidge, all of whom served as Governor or Senator before becoming Vice President or President (although both Roosevelts were Governors of New York state, neither was mayor of New York or any other town).
But that didn’t stop Rudolph Giuliani or Dennis Kucinich.
Buttigieg isn’t gonna get the nomination ….
He’s thirty-freakin-six years old. What chutzpah.
I am sure he sees a tv gig as the end result out of all this.
No harm in trying…..
The piece syas he’s at a deadend in South bend…
By the way though, I watched a portion of a “debate” they held for DNC Chair, and he was *by far* the most effective communicator on that stage.
Bernie Sanders probably still has undergarments older than Pete Buttigieg.
Yea….
Great….
he’s STILL in South bend trying to get out on the national stage