CONCORD, N.H. — Two decades before South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg became the upstart underdog of the 2020 presidential campaign, the 37-year-old Democrat won the John F. Kennedy “Profile in Courage” essay contest as a teenager by writing about his political hero.
Fellow White House aspirant, Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders.
“I commend Bernie Sanders for giving me an answer to those who say American young people see politics as a cesspool of corruption, beyond redemption,” Buttigieg wrote as an 18-year-old high school senior. “I have heard that no sensible young person today would want to give his or her life to public service. I can personally assure you this is untrue.”
Receiving the award in 2000 from the late president’s daughter Caroline Kennedy, Buttigieg (pronounced boot-edge-edge) went on to excel at universities on both sides of the Atlantic, serve in the military in Afghanistan and marry a man he met on a dating app before deciding to seek the nation’s highest office.
So now Buttigieg is running against his inspiration?
More like alongside him.
“Obviously Sanders is someone he has respect for,” Buttigieg’s spokeswoman Lis Smith said over the weekend at a campaign event in New Hampshire’s capital city of Concord.
Buttigieg himself was asked the question but barely could say two words before a seeming tsunami of several hundred people swept him up in hopes of obtaining a handshake or selfie.
“There’s no way I would guessed that I’d be in this situation,” he recently told the broadcast Pod Save America. “I absolutely would not have pictured then that I’d wind up potentially competing with him.”
Buttigieg has skyrocketed in popularity this past month because of a life story that features seemingly everything but the kitchen sink.
“He’s a veteran, a Harvard graduate and a Rhodes Scholar who’s openly gay and also so young that if he served two terms as president, when he came out he would still only be 46,” as “The Daily Show” host Trevor Noah summed him up. “Plus, he’s a concert pianist and speaks seven languages, including Norwegian, which he learned just so that he could read Norwegian books.”
Adds Buttigieg, who has surprised many by raising more than $7 million for his campaign: “This is the only chance you’ll ever get to vote for a Maltese-American, left-handed Episcopalian.”
But for all his accomplishments, the candidate has his work cut out for him. Although national pollsters say his favorability rating has risen more than that of his competitors, he still lags behind (in order of popularity) Joe Biden, Sanders, Kamala Harris, Beto O’Rourke, Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker.
“In past primary seasons, many presidential candidates have experienced a boomlet like Buttigieg,” the Boston Globe reported over the weekend. “After several weeks, it usually goes one of two ways: They convert the buzz into lasting tangible results (i.e. Howard Dean), or they eventually get replaced by the next candidate of the moment (i.e. Michele Bachmann).”
As for how to follow in former Vermont Gov. Dean’s footsteps?
“Buttigieg needs to walk into New Hampshire and do something that so far only Bernie Sanders has managed to pull off in the state: lock down actual supporters,” the Globe continued. “That’s more difficult than it sounds because the general mood among New Hampshire Democratic activists these days is along the lines of: ‘Gee, there are so many great choices.’”
Many Granite State voters at a weekend Gibson’s Bookstore event voiced the latter sentiment. But enough believed in the Indiana mayor that they bought every last copy of his new autobiography “Shortest Way Home,” which flew off the same shelf where Sanders’ “Where We Go from Here” sat untouched.
Even so, the Vermonter has at least one vocal supporter.
“Sanders’ courage is evident in the first word he uses to describe himself,” Buttigieg wrote in his winning essay. “In a climate where even liberalism is considered radical, and socialism is immediately and perhaps willfully confused with communism, a politician dares to call himself a socialist? He does indeed.”
“While impressive, Sanders’ candor does not itself represent political courage,” he continued. “It may seem strange that someone so steadfast in his principles has a reputation as a peacemaker between divided forces in Washington, but this is what makes Sanders truly remarkable. He represents President Kennedy’s ideal of ‘compromises of issues, not of principles.’”
In his essay, Buttigieg pointed to Sanders helping Democrats and Republicans ban the import of products made by under-age workers and force hearings on the International Monetary Fund.
“Sanders’ positions on many difficult issues are commendable, but his real impact has been as a reaction to the cynical climate which threatens the effectiveness of the democratic system,” he concluded. “His energy, candor, conviction, and ability to bring people together stand against the current of opportunism, moral compromise, and partisanship which runs rampant on the American political scene.”
Two decades later, Buttigieg still appreciates his now competitor.
“I’m glad he’s in the picture,” the mayor told Pod Save America. “I think it represents a real important way to establish kind of what the terms of the debate are. But I also think in the end I have a somewhat different message and I’m obviously a very, very different messenger.”
