The Making of the President 2020: Pete Buttigieg
Pete Buttigieg is the first openly gay Democratic Party candidate for President. He officially launched his campaign for the Presidency of the United States this past Sunday (April 14, 2019) in South Bend, Indiana, the city that he has been Mayor of since 2012. In January 2019, Buttigieg announced that he was forming an exploratory committee for the Democratic nomination for president. His platform includes support for universal healthcare, abolition of the death penalty, support for organized labor, universal background checks for firearms purchases, federal legislation that would ban job discrimination against LGBT people, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program for children of immigrants, and action to combat climate change.
Buttigieg was born in South Bend, Indiana on January 19, 1982. His father was an immigrant from Malta who taught literature at The University of Notre Dame at South Bend. His mother was from a military family in Southern Illinois. She earned a Master of Fine Arts from Notre Dame and worked as a teacher at the National Cathedral School before becoming a professor at Notre Dame, where she taught for 29 years. Pete Buttigieg (his full name is "Peter Paul Montgomery Buttigieg") is an only child.
In 2000 Buttigieg was valedictorian of his high school senior class at St. Joseph High School in South Bend. That same year he received first prize in the JFK Profiles in Courage Essay Contest awarded by the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston. He received the award in Boston where he met Caroline Kennedy and other members of the Kennedy family. He has been a supporter of Bernie Sanders in the past.
Buttigieg attended Harvard College, majoring in history and literature. At Harvard he was president of the Harvard Institute of Politics Student Advisory Committee and worked on the Institute's annual study of youth attitudes on politics. He wrote his undergraduate thesis on the influence of puritanism on U.S. foreign policy, referencing Graham Greene's novel The Quiet American. After he graduated from Harvard in 2005, Buttigieg was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship and in 2007. He received first-class honors in philosophy, politics and economics in 2007 from Pembroke College, Oxford. Before graduating from college, Buttigieg worked as an investigative intern at WMAQ-TV, Chicago's NBC news affiliate. He also worked as an intern for Jill Long Thompson's unsuccessful 2002 congressional campaign, as well as serving as an adviser for her unsuccessful 2008 gubernatorial campaign.
From 2004 to 2005, Buttigieg worked in Washington, D.C., as conference director for former U.S. Secretary of Defense William Cohen's international strategic consulting firm, The Cohen Group. He also worked on Senator John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign, where he was a policy and research specialist. After earning his Oxford degree, he worked as a consultant at McKinsey & Company from 2007 through 2010. Buttigieg was commissioned as a naval intelligence officer in the Navy Reserve in 2009, and deployed to Afghanistan in 2014. After a seven-month deployment, Buttigieg returned to South Bend. He remained a lieutenant in the Naval Reserve until 2017.
Buttigieg first ran for political office as the Democratic Party nominee for State Treasurer of Indiana in 2010. He was defeated by Republican incumbent Richard Mourdock, but he received 37.5% of the vote. He was elected mayor of South Bend in November 2011, with 74% of the vote. He was sworn in as Mayor in January 2012 at age 29, becoming the second-youngest mayor in South Bend history. Schuyler Colfax III became mayor at age 28 in 1898. At the time Buttigieg was the youngest mayor of a U.S. city with at least 100,000 residents.
Buttigieg's tenure as Mayor has been an eventful one. In 2012 Buttigieg demoted South Bend police chief Darryl Boykins after a federal investigation found that the police department had improperly recorded telephone calls. The Mayor also fired the police department's communications director, who had been aware of the recordings but continued to record the calls to this line at Boykins' direction. Lawsuits brought by Boykins, the communications director, and the four officers were settled out of court. An Indiana court is currently hearing a case for release of the tapes. Buttigieg appointed Ron Teachman, formerly the police chief of New Bedford, Massachusetts, as the new police chief of South Bend. In 2014 The Washington Post dubbed Buttigieg "the most interesting mayor you've never heard of". One of Buttigieg's pet projects is the "Vacant and Abandoned Properties Initiative" (known locally as "1,000 Properties in 1,000 Days"), a project to repair or demolish blighted properties across the city. The titular goal was reached by the program's scheduled end date in November 2015.
While still Mayor, Buttigieg had served for seven months in Afghanistan as a lieutenant in the Navy Reserves. He returned to the United States on September 23, 2014. In Afghanistan he was assigned to the Afghan Threat Finance Cell, a counterterrorism unit that targeted Taliban insurgency financing. In Buttigieg's absence, Deputy Mayor Mark Neal, South Bend's city controller, served in the role of executive, from February 2014 until Buttigieg returned to his job as Mayor in October 2014. In November 2015 he was elected to his second term as mayor of South Bend with over 80% of the vote. During the 2015 controversy over Indiana Senate Bill 101, Buttigieg was a leading opponent of the legislation, and shortly afterward came out as gay.
As mayor, Buttigieg was a leading figure behind the creation of a nightly laser lighting display along downtown South Bend's St. Joseph River trail as public art. The project cost $700,000, which was raised from private funds. The "River Lights" installation was unveiled in May 2015, as part of the city's 150th anniversary celebrations. On his watch South Bend also launched a $50 million investment in the city's parks. In December 2018 Buttigieg announced that he would not seek a third term as mayor of South Bend.
In January 2017 Buttigieg announced his candidacy for Chair of the Democratic National Committee. Buttigieg "campaigned on the idea that the aging Democratic Party needed to empower its millennial members", but he withdrew from the race on the day of the election.
On January 23, 2019, Buttigieg announced that he was creating an exploratory committee as a possible candidate for President of the United States in the 2020 election, seeking the Democratic nomination. If elected, he would be the youngest as well as the first openly LGBT American president. He officially launched his campaign on April 14, 2019 in South Bend, Indiana. Among his positions on the issues, he favors universal healthcare with retention of private insurance, support for organized labor, universal background checks for firearms purchases and pro-environment policies to combat climate change. He calls climate change "a security issue". He also supports federal legislation banning discrimination against LGBT people and the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program for immigrants.
Buttigieg is a member of the Episcopal Church and a congregant at the Cathedral of St. James in South Bend. His is conversant in many languages including Norwegian, Spanish, Italian, Maltese, Arabic, Farsi, and French. He plays guitar and piano, and once performed with the South Bend Symphony Orchestra as a guest piano soloist. In December 2017, Buttigieg announced his engagement to Chasten Glezman, a junior high school teacher whom Buttigieg had been in a relationship with since August 2015. They met on the dating app Hinge. They were married on June 16, 2018, in a private ceremony at the Cathedral of St. James.
Thus far in polling among contenders for the Democratic Party nomination, Buttigieg has polled anywhere between 1% and 9% with an average of 4.2% , averaging in 6th place, according to polls compiled by the website Real Clear Politics.
Buttigieg was born in South Bend, Indiana on January 19, 1982. His father was an immigrant from Malta who taught literature at The University of Notre Dame at South Bend. His mother was from a military family in Southern Illinois. She earned a Master of Fine Arts from Notre Dame and worked as a teacher at the National Cathedral School before becoming a professor at Notre Dame, where she taught for 29 years. Pete Buttigieg (his full name is "Peter Paul Montgomery Buttigieg") is an only child.
In 2000 Buttigieg was valedictorian of his high school senior class at St. Joseph High School in South Bend. That same year he received first prize in the JFK Profiles in Courage Essay Contest awarded by the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston. He received the award in Boston where he met Caroline Kennedy and other members of the Kennedy family. He has been a supporter of Bernie Sanders in the past.
Buttigieg attended Harvard College, majoring in history and literature. At Harvard he was president of the Harvard Institute of Politics Student Advisory Committee and worked on the Institute's annual study of youth attitudes on politics. He wrote his undergraduate thesis on the influence of puritanism on U.S. foreign policy, referencing Graham Greene's novel The Quiet American. After he graduated from Harvard in 2005, Buttigieg was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship and in 2007. He received first-class honors in philosophy, politics and economics in 2007 from Pembroke College, Oxford. Before graduating from college, Buttigieg worked as an investigative intern at WMAQ-TV, Chicago's NBC news affiliate. He also worked as an intern for Jill Long Thompson's unsuccessful 2002 congressional campaign, as well as serving as an adviser for her unsuccessful 2008 gubernatorial campaign.
From 2004 to 2005, Buttigieg worked in Washington, D.C., as conference director for former U.S. Secretary of Defense William Cohen's international strategic consulting firm, The Cohen Group. He also worked on Senator John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign, where he was a policy and research specialist. After earning his Oxford degree, he worked as a consultant at McKinsey & Company from 2007 through 2010. Buttigieg was commissioned as a naval intelligence officer in the Navy Reserve in 2009, and deployed to Afghanistan in 2014. After a seven-month deployment, Buttigieg returned to South Bend. He remained a lieutenant in the Naval Reserve until 2017.
Buttigieg first ran for political office as the Democratic Party nominee for State Treasurer of Indiana in 2010. He was defeated by Republican incumbent Richard Mourdock, but he received 37.5% of the vote. He was elected mayor of South Bend in November 2011, with 74% of the vote. He was sworn in as Mayor in January 2012 at age 29, becoming the second-youngest mayor in South Bend history. Schuyler Colfax III became mayor at age 28 in 1898. At the time Buttigieg was the youngest mayor of a U.S. city with at least 100,000 residents.
Buttigieg's tenure as Mayor has been an eventful one. In 2012 Buttigieg demoted South Bend police chief Darryl Boykins after a federal investigation found that the police department had improperly recorded telephone calls. The Mayor also fired the police department's communications director, who had been aware of the recordings but continued to record the calls to this line at Boykins' direction. Lawsuits brought by Boykins, the communications director, and the four officers were settled out of court. An Indiana court is currently hearing a case for release of the tapes. Buttigieg appointed Ron Teachman, formerly the police chief of New Bedford, Massachusetts, as the new police chief of South Bend. In 2014 The Washington Post dubbed Buttigieg "the most interesting mayor you've never heard of". One of Buttigieg's pet projects is the "Vacant and Abandoned Properties Initiative" (known locally as "1,000 Properties in 1,000 Days"), a project to repair or demolish blighted properties across the city. The titular goal was reached by the program's scheduled end date in November 2015.
While still Mayor, Buttigieg had served for seven months in Afghanistan as a lieutenant in the Navy Reserves. He returned to the United States on September 23, 2014. In Afghanistan he was assigned to the Afghan Threat Finance Cell, a counterterrorism unit that targeted Taliban insurgency financing. In Buttigieg's absence, Deputy Mayor Mark Neal, South Bend's city controller, served in the role of executive, from February 2014 until Buttigieg returned to his job as Mayor in October 2014. In November 2015 he was elected to his second term as mayor of South Bend with over 80% of the vote. During the 2015 controversy over Indiana Senate Bill 101, Buttigieg was a leading opponent of the legislation, and shortly afterward came out as gay.
As mayor, Buttigieg was a leading figure behind the creation of a nightly laser lighting display along downtown South Bend's St. Joseph River trail as public art. The project cost $700,000, which was raised from private funds. The "River Lights" installation was unveiled in May 2015, as part of the city's 150th anniversary celebrations. On his watch South Bend also launched a $50 million investment in the city's parks. In December 2018 Buttigieg announced that he would not seek a third term as mayor of South Bend.
In January 2017 Buttigieg announced his candidacy for Chair of the Democratic National Committee. Buttigieg "campaigned on the idea that the aging Democratic Party needed to empower its millennial members", but he withdrew from the race on the day of the election.
On January 23, 2019, Buttigieg announced that he was creating an exploratory committee as a possible candidate for President of the United States in the 2020 election, seeking the Democratic nomination. If elected, he would be the youngest as well as the first openly LGBT American president. He officially launched his campaign on April 14, 2019 in South Bend, Indiana. Among his positions on the issues, he favors universal healthcare with retention of private insurance, support for organized labor, universal background checks for firearms purchases and pro-environment policies to combat climate change. He calls climate change "a security issue". He also supports federal legislation banning discrimination against LGBT people and the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program for immigrants.
Buttigieg is a member of the Episcopal Church and a congregant at the Cathedral of St. James in South Bend. His is conversant in many languages including Norwegian, Spanish, Italian, Maltese, Arabic, Farsi, and French. He plays guitar and piano, and once performed with the South Bend Symphony Orchestra as a guest piano soloist. In December 2017, Buttigieg announced his engagement to Chasten Glezman, a junior high school teacher whom Buttigieg had been in a relationship with since August 2015. They met on the dating app Hinge. They were married on June 16, 2018, in a private ceremony at the Cathedral of St. James.
Thus far in polling among contenders for the Democratic Party nomination, Buttigieg has polled anywhere between 1% and 9% with an average of 4.2% , averaging in 6th place, according to polls compiled by the website Real Clear Politics.